Heat Wave

Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori,
bishop and doctor of Church

Readings for Tuesday
Biographical Information about St. Alphonsus Liguori

Reflection:

Today we celebrate yet another great personage of the Church in St. Alphonsus Liguori. I highly recommend that, time permitting, you check out the biographical link above and look at some of his writings. He is a Doctor of the Church for a good reason. St. Alphonsus found out how difficult it was to accomplish God’s work in the face of a selfish and self-centered secular society. Even in the Church proper, he ran into resistance to his attempts to maintain a Christ centered ministry. His story should be required reading for anyone who wants to become a full time minister in the Church.

His memorial is supported today with a lament from the Prophet Jeremiah, coupled with a Psalm that could have been written with his situation in mind, and followed by a Gospel that should be very familiar to us. It was just last Friday that we heard another explanation of a similar parable (the Parable of the Sower). In this case, however, instead of describing the different kinds of results from sowing the seed, he describes the significance of weeds that impede the growth of the seeds.

It is clear from what Jesus says about the weeds that some things never change. He says:

The weeds are the children of the Evil One,
and the enemy who sows them
is the Devil.

In our modern, more rational and less mystical faith, reference to the Evil One or Devil is suppressed, primarily because we prefer to focus on the good and loving hand of the Father. But the as surely as we must absolutely believe the Jesus Christ is the only Son of the Living God, we must also believe the Evil One exists and is active in the world. To do otherwise is to ignore the train coming down the track on which we sit. The danger from the Devil is real and interactively present in the world we live in.

Although we don’t go around pointing at the gross immorality allowed in secular society and saying; “It is the work of the Evil One!” We must feel it in our own outrage.

* We see it in drug dealers who enslave the weak and the poor;
* we see it in the gang leaders promoting violence;
* we see it in those who promote killing the unborn as a form of birth control;
* we see it in the glamour of ruthless business that cheapens the human person for the sake of profit.

The glamour of the Evil One is omni present and insidious and we must be constantly vigilant lest we fall pray to the traps he lays. And how can we tell? The Evil One is insidious and knows the heart of man. He prays upon our weakness and offers what seems good and twists it and us to his ends.

Ah, then comes prayer and the Holy Spirit. All that is necessary is to look at the motive and the end result. I have said before, there is a simple litmus test to see if actions and thoughts are driven by God’s will. That litmus test is “love”. If what we do, we do out of love for others and self, we can have confidence that God is supporting us. If the action fails that test, we must look very closely, the Devil has ways of making evil sound good and darkness appear light.

Whenever we embark upon some course of action, we should always pray for God’s guidance and examine our own motives, making sure that we understand that the good we accomplish is only with God’s help. And if our effort is not for his greater glory, another is likely waiting in the wings, and if you think it’s hot today – wait it can be a lot worse. “They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Pax