09
Mar

Russia has been in the news rather a lot lately, and not just for hosting the Winter Olympics in Sochi, nor even for its role in the present Ukrainian Crisis. Flanked by senior clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, President Putin on has accused the West and its leaders President Barack Obama and our own Prime Minister David Cameron of promoting immorality. By immorality, he means promoting homosexual practice to minors and late term abortion on demand, which of course as Catholics faithful both to natural law and divine revelation, we must also agree are immoral.

In fact, President Putin within the past several months signed into law bans on both. Reports also say that

“some members of the Duma (the Russian state assembly), are talking about going even further and banning the procedure itself. The Russian Orthodox Church, whose numbers are swelling with converts and ‘reverts,’ is weighing in as well. One Orthodox prelate called abortion a ‘mutiny against God.’”i

The irony of President Putin’s accusation could not be more poignant. I can certainly recall President Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union a Godless Empire. President Reagan was the first president for whom I was able and happy to vote at age eighteen in Texas. Being a moral conservative for as long as I can remember, based on what once was common sense as well as biblical teaching, I’ve voted Republican ever since. Another irony there as well: now, as a British citizen, I am anything but a Republican by sentiment here in the UK! But I must also say I agree with our own Bishop Philip Egan, writing in his scathing open letter to David Cameron last year, that the word Conservative is best rendered with inverted commas when referring to the political party of that name. How ironic that President Putin and Bishop Egan are in agreement on what once was basic, moral common sense.

I am not suggesting that ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin is a Russian Orthodox saint in the making, though I hope he will one day be in Paradise. Like the rest of you, I can only judge the righteousness of principles and practices, not of persons. Only God, magistrates, and justices can judge persons, and only God can acquit or condemn persons eternally. But it does seem the people of Russia are doing a lot of repenting of their atheistic past. Unlike Roman Catholicism in Britain and elsewhere in the north Atlantic, Russian Orthodoxy is swelling in numbers these days, both in terms of new members and reverts. And that is occurring whilst the established Protestant Church of England is trying to reverse its own numerical decline by making the presumably old-fashioned and offensive renunciation of Satan optional in its baptismal liturgy.

One wonders if the champions of relevance and meeting people where they are would also prefer to omit from the Bible those passages which mention the devil, such as today’s Gospel, which always comes for the first Sunday of Lent, when Jesus resisted temptation and rebuked Satan. Indeed one wonders in a world with Satan if there is such a thing as sin of which we must repent, and therefore whether we have any need of a Saviour? Perhaps all we need from gentle Jesus meek and mild is that he be a teacher of ‘values’, and a liberator from oppression. Well, unless by that we mean an intolerant teacher who claims some values don’t change, or a judgmental liberator who frees us from oppressive desires and deeds of the flesh. Lots of so-called religious people seem to want that sort of domesticated deity these days, a God who says we are free to do with own bodies whatever we like, provided we do so in good conscience, by which they seem to mean a conscience without any inconvenient first principles, like the sanctity of the natural family, and of human life from conception to natural death.

But beloved, I sincerely hope and pray that’s not any of you. Nor is it President Putin, apparently. Again, I am not a judge of his motives, just his statements about morals, and on that he is spot on and demonstrates, at least on the surface, an attitude of repentance. He at least appears rather like yet another pompous, worldly Byzantine emperor of old, who championed the Church and promoted its Orthodox faith, despite his own shortcomings and therefore, his own hypocrisy. But of course, the only way to get rid of all hypocrisy is to get rid of all the rules. I’m sure we’ll be seeing quite a lot more of Putin in the coming months as the Ukrainian Crisis unfolds.

Though sometimes, provided we don’t violate our inviolable principles and practices, we may indeed be permitted to meet people where they are, we don’t necessarily want them to remain where they are. God is in the raising up, not the dumbing down, business. And if there is one thing I have learned about the young people of St Thomas More: they’re not so stupid that they want to stay where they are; they want to grow in faith and virtue, and you parents and catechists can thank yourselves for that. Our catechumens made their first Penance and Reconciliation [today/yesterday]. And of course, they’ll get the chance themselves personally to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, who is a very real being who must be resisted and rebuked, though I can reassure you it’s quite acceptable to doubt whether he is red, or has a pair of horns on his head!

http://www.universalis.com/20140309/mass.htm

Readings at Mass


First reading
Genesis 2:7-9,3:1-7 ©
The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
  The Lord God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned. The Lord God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.
  Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’ The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.” ‘ Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’ The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.

Psalm
Psalm 50:3-6,12-14,17 ©
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
  In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
  and cleanse me from my sin.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
My offences truly I know them;
  my sin is always before me
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
  what is evil in your sight I have done.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
A pure heart create for me, O God,
  put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
  nor deprive me of your holy spirit.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
Give me again the joy of your help;
  with a spirit of fervour sustain me,
O Lord, open my lips
  and my mouth shall declare your praise.
Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we have sinned.
EITHER:

Second reading Romans 5:12-19 ©
Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned. Sin existed in the world long before the Law was given. There was no law and so no one could be accused of the sin of ‘law-breaking’, yet death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law.
  Adam prefigured the One to come, but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift. The results of the gift also outweigh the results of one man’s sin: for after one single fall came judgement with a verdict of condemnation, now after many falls comes grace with its verdict of acquittal. If it is certain that death reigned over everyone as the consequence of one man’s fall, it is even more certain that one man, Jesus Christ, will cause everyone to reign in life who receives the free gift that he does not deserve, of being made righteous. Again, as one man’s fall brought condemnation on everyone, so the good act of one man brings everyone life and makes them justified. As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
OR:

Alternative Second reading
Romans 5:12,17-19 ©
Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned. If it is certain that death reigned over everyone as the consequence of one man’s fall, it is even more certain that one man, Jesus Christ, will cause everyone to reign in life who receives the free gift that he does not deserve, of being made righteous. Again, as one man’s fall brought condemnation on everyone, so the good act of one man brings everyone life and makes them justified. As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

Gospel Acclamation Mt4:4
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!
Man does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!

Gospel Matthew 4:1-11 ©
Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, after which he was very hungry, and the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves.’ But he replied, ‘Scripture says:
Man does not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
The devil then took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If you are the Son of God’ he said ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says:
He will put you in his angels’ charge,
and they will support you on their hands
in case you hurt your foot against a stone.’
Jesus said to him, ‘Scripture also says:
You must not put the Lord your God to the test.’
Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. ‘I will give you all these’ he said, ‘if you fall at my feet and worship me.’ Then Jesus replied, ‘Be off, Satan! For scripture says:
You must worship the Lord your God,
and serve him alone.’
Then the devil left him, and angels appeared and looked after him.

 


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