Catholic Homilies by Fr Linus Clovis

In Part 2 Anthony continues on the general theme on the parallels of the holocaust and Abortion. We now see in society that there is an intolerance for the support of the pro-life view. Politicians and ordinary people shy away from expressing any positive view in defending the child in the womb should the mother not want it. Further the pro-life advocate is regarded as an extremist with views that cannot be supported by populist politicians

Anthony, comments on the parallels between the Holocaust of the 1930's and the current killing of children in the womb throughout the world by Abortion. He shows that the abortion industry is by its very nature equivalent to the holocaust, the context may be different but the aggregate act is the same but far more numerous. The systematic mass slaughter of innocent human beings today through abortion in most Western society is regarded as a right.

Marxists gradually realized they could dismantle Western, Christian, Civilization from within by destroying the father of the intact married family --- the “Patriarch”--- through “sex gone wild”. The key to rebuilding is for each father to take charge of his sons’ formation in the fullness of sexuality.

Having presented to us the three eminent good works, fasting, alms giving and prayer, our Lord goes on to tell us the manner by which we should pray. Namely the things that we should pray for and the way in which we should make our pray. The first thing He says is do not babble like the pagans. How do pagans pray? Well pagans who basically are polytheist, they believe in many gods, and they presume that these gods need to be placated, they need to be enticed, they need to be encouraged, to be favourable. The gods of the pagans are not gods of love, they do not care for their people, they certainly will assist them but often they expect to be served by them. It doesn’t really matter which pagan society we look at. Whereas the God of Abraham, in the eyes of the Jews, someone remote, a master who cared for them, who was interested in what they did, but who also demanded from them, obedience. Whereas Christ has revealed to us that the God whom we serve is a Father, and will and wants our greatest good. Namely because He is our Father He wants us to be in His home and He’s presented to us the various means by which we can travel to His home… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Four times our Lord calls Himself the bread from heaven. The forth time He said I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever and the bread I shall give is My flesh for the life of the world. As long as He called Himself the bread, whilst it was difficult to accept nonetheless the Jews didn’t grumble. They still hoped that somehow there was a metaphor, there was some symbolism, some figurative speech and that He would give them the manna. They came to Him for the manna. They wanted to be fed again as He did on the other side of the lake. Our Lord indeed wants to feed them as He wants to feed us. But He wants to give us not bread that perishes but the bread that gives eternal life which is Himself… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

So far our Lord is speaking of His divinity; He’s now in the second part of His discourse going to speak about His humanity. In the beginning of St. John’s gospel we heard ‘…in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God…’, we read that ‘…the word was life and the word was the light of men, and that he enlightens all those who come to him…’. We read that ‘…the word was made flesh and he dwelt amongst us…’. Then we read whilst Moses gave us the law, it is Christ who gives us truth and grace. Our Lord is speaking to the crowds and He insists they believe in Him, which is really a claim to divinity, because the only person we can truly believe in without fear is God… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

We recall that the miracle of the loaves occurred just before the feast of the Passover. That’s why there were so many people around because they were making their way up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. So the only way to get there was by foot and so they were walking and they encountered our Lord who taught them at some length. He fed them with the five loaves and the two fish, He cross the sea on foot, He came to Capernaum, the crowd followed Him. They hungered for the bread that He had given. They had eaten as much as they wanted. But our Lord was offering them something more than bread for the belly. So begins the great discourse about the Eucharist.… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

There is a reference to St. Mark whose feast we celebrate today and St. Paul who associates him with his first missionary journey. We know very little about the lives of the apostles beyond what is related in the gospels and certainly the same for the Evangelists. What information we have, we depend upon the tradition to give us most of it. We know that Mark was closely associated with St. Peter and in some places St Irenaeus calls him St. Peter’s secretary. St. Peter preached and it’s interesting for the fact that St. Peter was the prince of the apostles; we only have 2 letters from him. He preached extensively in Antioch and then later in Rome, then according to St Irenaeus the people of Rome begged Peter to put down something, to write a gospel about the life of Our Lord, which Peter didn’t do. Mark did and so Mark expresses the life of Christ as seen by St. Peter.

Our Lord, according to St. Johns Gospel had gone up to Jerusalem and there He cleansed the temple. This was the first cleansing of the temple, He cleansed it twice. That is He cast out the traders from the temple precinct on two occasions, once at the very beginning of His ministry and this is the one St. John records and at the end which the other three Evangelists record. When He did it the first time, the authorities said, what sign will You give for what You have done. We have given the permission for the sale of animals in the temple precinct. What sign will you give to show this is wrong… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

We are obliged to believe that the Holy Scriptures written by the Holy Spirit are true. And even though they have been written by the Holy Spirit or perhaps especially because they have been written by the Holy Spirit they need someone to interpret them. Just as with great literature Shakespeare, Dante or even Caesar, they have written works but they need to be interpreted, they need to be explained. We can easily pick up Shakespeare read it and get nothing from it, because we have not been trained either to interpret or because the difficulty of the language or because we just don’t have that ability or gift. So we have scholars who spend years just examining human works, how much more so must it be for the Scriptures. But the Lord has made things very easy for us in as much as he has given us the interpreter of the Scriptures namely the Church which speaks with the Holy Spirit… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Today there are many sceptics who doubt the resurrection of Blessed Lord. In fact there was a few years ago, when the bishop of Durham the Anglican denied the resurrection and even among Catholics Bishops there some have expressed doubt about the reality of the resurrection. Well they are not original because the Apostles doubted the resurrection of our Lord. The Holy women, who were blessed to see Him first even before the Apostles, doubted the resurrection of our Lord. When Peter at Pentecost Sunday stood up and preached to the Jews, he had great difficulty in convincing them of the reality of the resurrection. In fact we heard as he was preaching, he spoke to them for a long time using many arguments and he urged them to save themselves from this perverse generation… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

A crisis is a moment of decision, a time of testing. That the Church is currently in a state of crisis is clear for all to see. The daily unfolding scandals of clerical sexual immorality from priests to cardinals, the financial chicanery enveloping the Vatican Bank, the institutional cover-ups, the shrinking congregations, the open opposition between bishops, the undermining of settled doctrine all point to a time of testing and of answering the question “Why be Catholic”.

Our Lord worked His first miracle in Cana, Galilee that was the changing of water into wine. He works His last miracle in Galilee, the miraculous catch of fish. Of course there is a connection because in Cana, He was told they had no wine and here in the sea of Tiberius they have no fish. And so we learn that Christ is the only one who can provide for our needs, whatever we lack. Simon Peter, with the other apostles weren’t sure when they would next see our Lord… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Christ has truly risen as he said He would. St. Paul in the letter to the Colossians, tells us we should keep our eyes fixed on heaven where Christ is. Christ is our head, and one thing we know about the Head is that it has a body and in particular we speak about the mystical body of Christ, of which we are members. We are the branches that have been grafted onto the vine. What the head suffers the body likewise suffers. What the body suffers the head also suffers. We have our Lord’s own word for this in the case of the latter He says what the body suffers the head suffers and the classic example of this is Saul on the way to Damascus… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

In the sequence there’s that little verse ‘death and life fight they contended a combat strangely ended. Life itself is slain yet lives to reign.’ Always when we celebrate the sacred mysteries we need to recall all these realities. That’s what they are, they maybe mysterious but none the less they are realities, constantly to mind. In this way our own spirits will remain buoyant and full of hope. The disciples of our Lord didn’t expect His resurrection though He had spoken of it on many occasions. Even though it had been prophesised by the prophets of old and we heard St. Peter speaking of this on Pentecost Sunday, he says David had prophesised… ... For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

The first sorrowful mystery describes the agony of our Lord in the garden and it’s interesting that the three of the evangelists speak about the agony of our Lord. First of all he takes a journey down to the garden which St. John describes. Arriving at the garden He leaves eight of the apostles at the entrance to the garden He takes the other three to the inner most part of the garden. The three that He took were privy to several of His miracles in particular the resurrection of the girl from the dead; secondly they were privy to the transfiguration which was to strengthen them for the scandal of the cross... For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Rediscovering our Eucharistic faith is key to evangelisation. The Sacred Host is God present among us, without Whom we can do nothing, let alone evangelise. The deeper our Eucharistic faith, the more fruitful our witness to the world. The Church grows from the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Presence and Communion. Committed Eucharistic adorers will foster lasting evangelisation.

Our Lord has taken the disciples to Caesarea Philippi and He asked them the question, who do people say the son of man is? The Apostles gave varying answers; some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the Prophets. But you, He said, who do you say I am? You who have been with me these past few years, you who have seen the miracles, you who have been present at the multiplication of the loaves, the healing of the sick, the restoration of the sight to the blind, the healing of paralytics, the raising of the dead. Who do you say I am?... For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

“The gates of hell shall not prevail” against the church, not even the hell of sexual abuse. How did we get there? How do we get out? By inspiration, conversion and purification. The beautiful plan of God for man and woman, sex, marriage and family is the answer to the longing in every human heart.

As we celebrate Mass we begin by thinking what we are about to do namely to celebrate the sacred mysteries. In the opening prayer this morning we prayed that, may your people exalt forever o God in renewed youthfulness of spirit. So that rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption we look forward in confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of the resurrection. So we have the restored glory of our adoption. We haven’t had anything new, but rather what was new, what we had originally… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Our Blessed Lord had fed the multitude. They saw the miracle of the five loaves with 5000 men not counting women and children. There were scraps left over. Immediately they said this is the Prophet and they wanted to come and make Him king. To which the Lord's response was to tell the disciples to go across the lake and He Himself disappeared into the hills, by Himself. As we heard after Jesus had fed the five thousand the disciples had saw Him walking on the water… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Our Lord speaking to Nicodemus said that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the Son of man must be lifted up. Then immediately Nicodemus questioned the purpose of the Crucifixion. Our Lord says God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in Him may have eternal life... For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

The people that asked our Lord, what must we do if we are to do the works of God. Jesus answered this is working for God, you must believe in the one He has sent. He didn’t say you must believe the One He has sent but you must believe in the One He has sent and there is a great difference between the two… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Our Lord speaking to the crowds said I am the Bread of Life. If we go back to the Greek, we notice that the word Our Lord used life is not as we in English understand. In Greek there are two words for life that have come into the English Language. One is biology… For more homilies from Fr. Linus Clovis please visit www.adjesum.org/homilies

Brexit by Fr Linus Clovis

Equality And Values by Fr Linus Clovis

Seeing but not Believing by Fr Linus Clovis

The Human and Divine Nature by Fr Linus Clovis

A prophet is not welcomed in his own country by Fr Linus Clovis

Please listen to this wonderful Homily by Fr Linus Clovis please share it too.

Signs miracles, Saint Paul tells us are for unbelievers. And they are given to unbelievers for a warning because indeed an unbeliever might see a sign and still not repent. There are many examples of that, in history as well as of course, in the scriptures. The wise men came from the east to Jerusalem because they had seen a sign and they believed and they undertook the journey. They arrived in Jerusalem – and they spoke of this sign. “Where is the Infant king we have seen His star and we have come to do Him homage”. And yet Herod didn’t believe… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

We live in an age of deception. Which tells us nothing other, of course, than that which St. Maximilian told us one hundred years ago. He said that modern times increasingly would be dominated by Satan. His influence would be so great, that not even the wisest or the strongest man would be able to resist him. Those who will be able to escape the deception are those who are particular consecrated to the Immaculate Virgin. It is to She and She alone, that God has given the power to overcome the evil one with his deception. The art, the skill, the tool that Satan uses today, is that of words. No longer are we exact and precise in our language and in our use of words. So there is increasing confusing and misunderstanding and worst no knowledge of the truth. Satan is exceedingly cunning. He will not tell us an outright lie, he knows we are intelligent enough to detect it. But what he will do, is to mix a single grain, a poisonous lie, tiny undetectable and let that lie, like yeast do its work. So when he approached our first parents, or rather our first mother. As we know, Adam was not deceived, Eve was. He said… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

In the opening chapter of Genesis at the creation we hear how the Lord God created all things; time, space, light and darkness, the globes of Heaven, the Earth, how He created the creatures. We are told at each point, each day of the creation; God looked at it and saw that it was good. In a certain sense it is a proclamation of who God is, because all of His works are good. Now if all of God’s works are good, it means He Himself is good. The essence of goodness, the source of goodness is love… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

I will put enmities between thee & the woman & thy seed and her seed by Fr Linus Clovis

St. Thomas Aquinas who is known for his wisdom but above all for his clarity of thought, says “what is first thought of is the last thing that is executed”. If you want to do something, you have to make preparations for it. For example, Our Lord speaking in the Gospels tells us, “Which one of you wanting to build a tower would not first sit down, calculate how much it would cost and then begin to build”, so the first thought is to build a tower, the last thing you do is actually build it. Equally we think of the building of the temple in Jerusalem, where David wanted to build the temple. However because his hands had shed so much blood, God did not allow him to build the temple but rather his son Solomon. So what did David do, he made the preparations; he got the gold, the silver the bronze, the metals, the lead, the wood, the stone and the craftsmen. He had them all ready. Then the building of the temple was that of Solomon. The end was a temple, glorious to be seen from the description given to it by Scripture and secular authors. So the first idea we have, we need to make preparations to complete it. Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we should think that God also works in that way, not that He needs to, but that we might understand what He is doing. So when we read the book of Genesis, the first chapter, we see that God takes six days to build this world. Already the Angels had been created. The book of Genesis begins, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” We’re not told how the Heavens were created, but we are certainly told how the Earth was created… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

Our Blessed Lord speaks to us, Saint Matthew relates that He spoke to the crowds and to His disciples and although He did this some two thousand years ago in the flesh, none the less He speaks to us today, the crowds and His disciples in the spirit and certainly in the authentic teaching of His Church. He says the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses chair, so practice and observe what they tell you and not what they do. For they preach but do not practise. St. Thomas would always make a distinction and what is striking is, that the scribes and Pharisees, many of them were priests, and Our Lord didn’t say the priests sit on Moses chair, but rather he made the distinction of those who separate themselves from others. At the same time, Our Lord didn’t want to speak badly of Moses and the Mosaic authority, how could He since this was delivered to us by God. In addition to this St. Paul and St. Peter both tell us, that all authority comes from God. That is essentially why we respect, we honour and we obey because this is the way in which God speaks to us. But we need always to make distinctions which Our Lord certainly does, practise and observe what they tell you. It is understood that as long as what they tell us is not contrary to Gospel, not contrary to the teachings of Christ and certainly not contrary to the teaching of the Church. But He says we have to be careful in what we see them do. How does this apply to us today? In many ways we know what the Church has always taught, throughout the centuries the Church has always taught us the things that belong to God and has defined it in the sacred Councils, in the authentic teachings of the Magisterium, by the lives and the teachings of the saints that are recognised by the Church… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio

When our Blessed Lady came to Fatima a hundred years ago, in June of that year, as she was about to depart, she showed the children her Immaculate Heart, which they described, she was holding in her hand and it was surrounded by thorns. We think of what that means, surrounded by thorns. Where do these thorns come from? We should not be surprised to find that the thorns in fact represent sin, because it is sin that wounds the heart of Our Lord and consequently necessarily it must wound the heart of his Mother. But these thorns have their origin at the very dawn of creation. The moment our forefather, Adam sinned, at that moment, the thorns began to grow. We know this from the words of the Lord God Himself, who after He had punished the serpent, on your belly you will go, after He punished the woman, your desire will be for your husband, he will lord it over you, in child birth you will bear children in pain, he turned to the man, by the sweat of your brow will you will eat bread. The earth which up to now has borne you fruit will now start to bear thorns… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

We are now in the month of November, and the Churches liturgical year is winding down to its end and soon it will be a new liturgical year. So the Church, as we come to the end of the year reminds us of the four last things, namely Death, Judgment which follows it, then Hell and Heaven. It’s important that we reflect on these things at least once a year, though ideally we should do it every day since we do not know when our last day will be. So in November, the Church reminds us of the Holy Souls, those who linger in Purgatory, where they expiate temporal punishment due to their sins. Of course it’s important that we understand the meaning of this doctrine which the Church offers for us especially as this year we recall the Protestant revolution, that the doctrine of purgatory and with it Indulgences were so brutally savaged, attacked. Also in this year 2017, a hundred years ago, Our Blessed Lady came to Fatima and reminded us of the reality of that Dogma, that teaching, namely Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. If we start with the apparition of Our Lady, the three children of Fatima in the Cova in May the 13th… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

Our blessed Lord speak to us, His little flock. He tells us, we ought not to be afraid. For the simple reason that our Father has given us a Kingdom. In another place He tells us that, towards the end of His life when He speaks the parable of the Great Judgement, how the sheep and goats will be separated, He says take as your possession the Kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the World. In another place He tells us that God’s Will is our salvation. St. Paul tells us, God does not wish anyone to be lost. He did not create Hell for us but for the devil. There are some very foolish people that believe God has made some for salvation and others for damnation. No, all of us are meant to inherit the Kingdom, but it is left all to our free choice. And knowing this we should not be afraid we should have confidence and faith in God Who wishes our salvation… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

This evening I wanted to explore the Eucharist as a sacrament and a sacrifice. We speak of the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is a connection between the Eucharist and the Mass. If we begin with the examination of the two; the Eucharist is a sacrament and it is a sacrifice. These two words sacrament and sacrifice need to be explained. The sacrament and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are performed in the same consecration. When the bread and wine are consecrated at the moment we have a sacrament and sacrifice, yet they are two different concepts. The Eucharist is a sacrament, why? Because in it we receive Christ, that is, we are nourished when we eat. So it is nourishment for our souls. It is a sacrifice, because in the Eucharist we offer a gift to God… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

The Eucharist is a vast topic, it is essentially about God Incarnate, Christ who dwells amongst us, God who wishes to live with us. When we read St. John’s Gospel, we hear, ‘I will come to them’, ‘he who believes me, I will come to him, My Father will come to him, We will dwell with him’. This desire for God to dwell with us, is something we cannot even begin to grasp. We want to be with God, yet when we look at God’s creation, it seems to be so much more attractive. But if so much of what we see is beautiful, how much more beautiful must be He who created it. Whilst we admire, whilst we love the creation, the visible world that we see, we must remember that there’s a creator, an author and someone who has originated it and He must be much more satisfying and beautiful to us… For Fr. Linus’ complete retreat on the Holy Eucharist please listen to the Audio.

What do we have that has not been given us? There is only one thing that is essentially our own, and that of course is our sins. Everything else is a gift to us, we begin with the gift of life. This is the most basic, this is the fundamental gift. If we do not have life, if we never existed we cannot possess any other gift. So, once God had brought us, as is said, loved us into existence; because He loves everything He creates. Once He’s loved us into existence, He then adds gifts to us. The gifts are those of the body and then He adds those of the soul. Then those of the spirit. We are meant to use these gifts as stewards, we are not lords or masters of the gifts God has given us, but we are to use them as stewards. That means we are to use them for the greater glory of God, for the assistance and the help of our neighbour, and of course for the salvation of souls. If we are to do this, we must have a clear vision of what we are and who we are. What are we? We are creatures, created by God and therefore dependent upon Him. Who are we? We are children of God, sons and daughters, brought into the very household of God, called to share the eternal banquet that the Father has prepared for us, since the foundation of the world. We can only keep this vision of what we are and who we are, we can only keep this vision in mind if we really understand ourselves. Understanding ourselves in as much as, our time here on Earth is limited and that we have to answer for each and every day that we are here. If our vision of who we are and what we are shifts to what we possess and in the Gospel our Lord speaks specifically about wealth and we start to evaluate ourselves according to what we possess, we are going to be in serious trouble. ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?’ Now we shouldn’t think that money, that tainted thing is not in itself evil, because God has created wealth. He has loaned it to us as stewards… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

Today we celebrate the annunciation of Our Lord. The great mystery of the union between God and man. When majesty puts on lowliness, where power puts on meekness, where eternity puts on time and immortality puts mortality. These are the words of the great pope, St. Leo the first. We are in the midst of this great mystery, the mystery of our redemption. How can we contemplate it? If we are to summarise it, we can say one thing, that humility confronted pride. Divine humility confronts human pride. We know from the scriptures, we know from the teaching of the fathers, that the greatest sin of all is pride. It is to overcome our pride that God displayed this incredible humility which we are even unable to fully grasp. What is pride? Pride is many things, yet one thing is certain it’s the root of the first sin. The first explosion of pride is found in the angel who dared to say he would be like God. This in fact gives is immediately an idea of what pride is, to be like God. But then we think about it didn’t God make us in His own image and likeness? Aren’t we commanded even by the Lord, that we should be like our Father in heaven? Yes, all of that is true, so how does pride fit into this? We have been made in the image and likeness of God and we are commanded to be like God. That was the temptation that was presented to our first parents. ‘You can be like gods knowing good and evil’ and here we have exactly what pride is. We have been made in the image and likeness of God and therefore we are to be like God in some things and in other things we cannot be like God. In any attempt to be like God in those other things is a rebellion against God. So the things we are to be like God consist of mercy, being mercy as your heavenly Father is merciful. We are to be compassionate even as our heavenly Father is compassionate… For Fr. Linus’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

Quite some years ago, President, Vice President at that time George Bush, represented the US government at the funeral of the recently deceased former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved, clearly by the behaviour at the funeral of Brezhnev widow. During the whole ceremony, she didn’t say anything at all, she stood there completely motionless, until just before they were about to close the tomb, coffin. And then this old lady did, what probably was the greatest act of civil disobedience in the history of the world. She came over to his tomb, leant over and very clearly traced the sign of the cross on his chest. Here in the citadel of atheistic communistic power, she makes a gesture to say her husband was wrong. That this so-called utopia on Earth was wrong. She showed her belief in the real utopia, the place where our Lord Jesus Christ is the President, Paradise. Why? Well in His ministry Jesus raised from the dead the daughter Jairus, “talitha kum”, she comes back to life. He raised the son of the widow of Nain. And as we have heard today He raised Lazarus after being in the tomb four days. Witnessed by, I don’t know how many witnesses. This is the crowning miracle of Jesus’ ministry. The widow of Leonid Brezhnev, believed this and believed the words Jesus said to Martha, “I Am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in Me, even if he dies he will live”. He finished by saying, “Do you believe this Martha?” Jesus Christ asks us the same question as He asked Martha. Do you believe I’m the resurrection and the life. Do you believe I can mend your wounds and brokenness? Do you believe? Jesus promises resurrection in the new world but also fullness of life in this world. He makes not just a promise about the future, but also an invitation here in the present to resurrect, change and convert our own lives and then the lives of those around us. The lives of those around us, we can touch and change. How? St. Paul made it very clear in the letter today. If the spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. The One who raised Him from the dead will give life to you also. Life through His spirit dwelling in you… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

A silly illustration, but one which is necessary for a difficult topic. Once upon a time the was a place called Flatland. And in Flatland, Mr Square was walking along one day. This is a two dimensional world, boring place. Mr Square met someone though that changed his life forever, Mr Sphere. Mr Sphere said he came from a different place called Spaceland, which was three dimensional. Mr Square had no experience of a three dimensional world what so ever. He couldn’t fathom what he was talking about in any way. But he believed him. Mr Sphere was a nice chap and he believed him. He was convincing. But later on, talking to other inhabitants of Flatland, Mr Square was taken to be a crazy person, because they had no experience whatsoever of a three dimensional world that he was talking about. This is a silly illustration, but it’s not that different to where we find ourselves if we think about and imagine the Holy Trinity. Because the Holy Trinity is a multi dimensional being. We have no experience of this. Human beings are one person but God is three persons. We have no experience of this. The only way we can try and conceive it is through illustrations. St. Patrick used the Shamrock, sometimes we use the triangle or other geometric shapes. But these are very basic finite illustrations attempting to explain the infinite God. There’s only so far you can go. For this reason, if we can take one step further and understand one more thing about the Holy Trinity today, this homily would have been a success. To keep it simple I would like to say what the Holy Trinity is not and something to do with what it is. First, the Holy Trinity is not what heresies claim it to be. Just remember what a heresy is. It’s when an opinion is presented which is contrary to the Holy Scripture and the Dogmas of the Church. For example, if the Scripture says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and then the Word came and dwelt amongst us… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

So we’re talking about the communion of Saints today. But a silly joke first. There was a painter and decorator, called Jock. He was very dishonest, he was habituality dishonest in his work, because he thinned out his paint with turpentine. Well one day the Church was up for renovation, the parish priest offered people the chance to put in their bids. But Jock got the job, because he put in the lowest bid, because he used the cheapest paint. However, on the first day of work, he just about finished the first coat of paint on the front of the Church, when the heavens opening up the rain started to come down and not only did Jocksy, all that paint get washed off, it was so thin that it hadn’t even dried. But he also fell of the scaffolding. Landed on the lawn, but he wasn’t hurt thankfully. But he did understand that this was a message from God. So he said Lord I’m sorry, forgive me what shall I do. Hands clasped together. The heavens bellowed out through the thunder, repaint, repaint and thin no more. God has a sense of humour, God is able to forgive any sin, give a second chance. Everybody deserves a second chance, but we Catholics shouldn’t have to ask a second chance in these habitual life sins. We can fall into sin, but to be in a habitual sin like Jock there, that doesn’t correspond to a person who is in the communion of saints… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

There was a great British writer called G K Chesterton and he said, the difficulty I have in explaining why I am Catholic, is because there are ten thousand reasons, but all those reasons amount to one, Catholicism is true. Mr Chesterton believed in the Holy Catholic Church, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church and indeed we have reached this article of our faith today, which is I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. We are going to look at these three parts of this article of faith today. We’re going to start back to front. Church, what does church mean? It’s a translation of the Latin word ecclesia, which is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which means to call out from, to assemble to convocated, it means convocation, convocation of who? The Holy people of God, why are they Holy, because the assembly to which they belong is Holy. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Why is she Holy? Well, Our Lord is the fount and source of all holiness, right? But our Lord is present in the Church, like no other organisation. That’s why St. Paul calls the Church the body of Christ. His Church, His Body. This Church, this Ecclesia, this body of Christ is an instrument by which Christ sanctifies the world, by those who want to be sanctified… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

I said we were going to talk about the article of Faith, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins’, principally that refers to sins being forgiven, original sin, through baptism. But people sin after baptism, people need forgiveness. Jesus also came to give another type of forgiveness, the type that Zacchaeus received. Forgiveness of sins, it’s a get out of jail card for every time we commit grave sin. That’s what we’ll talk about today. Suppose one of your friends offended you, was nasty, hurt your feelings. But later on they came back and said they were sorry. You probably forgive them, because you’d probably have many different reasons to forgive them. For instances, perhaps you are a person whose of an easy going nature and you don’t want the hassle of a feud, so you forgive. Or maybe you’re a person who forgives the other one, because she moves in better circles. She’s little miss popular, and you want to stay moving in those circles so you forgive her for that reason. Or maybe you just don’t like drama, no great harm hasn’t be done… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

Before we introduce a theme and we talked about virtue we mentioned that virtue is a good habit, which prepares a person, to act, to carry out other actions in accordance with right reason. To act rationally. With all moral virtues, justice, fortitude, prudence, any of these, right reason indicates to the person with regards to their actions, the right measure, the need of moderation. The virtue we focus on today is temperance, this specially measures, moderates and even teaches us to hold back the most animalistic inclinations that we have. I like to talk about today what this virtue is, why it is important and what are those vices which are contrary to it, which will diminish ouch chances of growing the virtue of temperance. So, what is it? In the wider sense, it means moderation in actions and passions – like all the virtues. But in the strict sense – temperance means – moderation in the sensual and the carnal pleasures… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

So today we want to focus on the virtue of Justice. But to make it a little bit easier for the younger ones here, a little story that highlights the main elements. There was a young price called Prince Lapio. He was making a lot of mistakes in the kingdom because he didn’t have good judgement. He used to decide cases in favour of the person who was better looking, the best dressed, who was charming. A lot of people complained to the king, so he decided to send his son off Prince Lapio, with one of his councillors to settle various disputes in the kingdom so that the Prince might learn the nature of justice. First they got to this place where there were two tribes. The Minimums and the Maximums, these guys shared with each other food stuffs. The Minimums were hunters, so they provided the meat. The Maximums were the farmers so they provided the fruits and vegetables. But they didn’t know how to make a fair sharing. So the wise men asked the Prince to think about it and then to give his judgement. The Prince said, ‘well I think it’s just that there is equality, so everybody, we divide the food up so everybody gets the same share’. But the Maximums, they were terrified by this, they were very upset, because they were going to starve. Why? The tribe of the Maximums were a small tribe, but they were big men and they used to eat an awful lot. Where as the tribe of the Minimums, they were tiny little fellers, they didn’t eat a lot but there were thousands of them. So the Prince had to think about this again. He had to take counsel from the wise man. Then he came up with this decision ‘Get the food and divide to each person according to their condition’, in other according to as much as each person needs to survive… For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.

We’ve been studying together about virtue. Fair question though, is if we are talking about fortitude, who do we consider strong? Who do we consider courageous? The soldier who defends his country in battle, certainly. Any person who risks their life to save someone else’s life, certainly. There are also examples which are less well known, courage. Take the young lady for example, she’s pregnant. She gets pressured by family friends, boyfriend, partner, whatever, to get rid of the baby, for trivial selfish reasons. But she says no, she insists on no. Take the man in the workplace, he’s offered a promotion, more money, an easy career path if he will go against his principles. But he says no, he insists no, against what everyone else is saying to him. It takes courage, newspapers don’t write about that a lot. But this is written in our conscious and most of all, these acts of courage a written God’s book of our life. Today, I wish to pay tribute to all the unknown courageous people, who have the strength to say no to the bad and yes to the good, even when they have to pay a price. Today I wish to pay tribute to those who love truth, seek justice and righteousness, even when they had to pay the price. I want to pay tribute to all of them today by making an effort to teach about this virtue which animated all of them, Fortitude. We will hear what this virtue is. How to obtain it, how to maintain it. The impediments to it, in other words how we might loose it. But first, I think there is a nice story, a true story which illustrates why it’s such an important virtue. For Fr. Nicholas’ complete homily please listen to the Audio.