Christ the King (34th Sunday in Ordinary Time) B 2009

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  It was in this Declaration of Independence that we severed our allegiance to the British King and declared ourselves independent.  But inherent in the Declaration of Independence is a contradiction.  Notice that the Declaration says that we “are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights” but then goes on to claim the state’s power comes from “the consent of the governed.”  How if these unalienable rights are given to us by the Creator can the consent of the governed take them away?  This is what is happening in today’s society.  The unalienable “right to life” is being denied to the most innocent and most helpless members of our society—the unborn, the embryonic, the aged, the terminally ill.  The “consent of the governed” also tries to alter some things which the Creator has established from the beginning—for example, the sanctity of a marriage between one man and one woman which is permanent and open to the transmission of life.  If there are certain inalienable rights which we are endowed with by the Creator, how can the government take them away?  We have come to look at government as an institution and we have come to look at Christ’s Church as an institution.  There is a long tradition, which unfortunately we have let fall into disuse, of referring to the Church as our Holy Mother Church.  St. Cyprian wrote “"He cannot have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother".  Today we are more likely to hear of “the institutional Church” especially when someone wants to do something contrary to the Church’s teachings.  It is much easier to disobey an institution that it is to disobey your Mother.  Yet, an attack on the authority of the government or the authority of the Church cannot help but weaken the authority of the father or mother in the family.  If leadership is based upon consent, then no wonder our children do not listen to us.  If the Church tells us that we must attend Mass every Sunday, that we must be married according to the laws of the Church, or whatever, yet we deny that authority and say “I would rather sleep in today” or “I would rather go to a soccer game” or “I don’t believe God cares about this,” we are denying the authority of God and His Church over our lives.  If parents disregard the authority of God and His Church over THEIR lives, why is it so amazing that our children learn that they do not have to listen to the authority of their parents?  If parents, or those in authority, do not recognize an authority higher than themselves, why should our children or those in our charge follow our authority.  The Catholic bishops just held a conference in Baltimore a few days ago where they reinforced the Church’s teaching that artificial contraception, same sex unions, divorce, and sex outside of marriage blessed by the Church are objectively SINFUL.  When we say, “I know better than God how many children we should have” are we not subtley claiming our independence from Christ the King.   Being a parent, or a priest, or king is not about power but about service to those we govern.  It’s about giving up our lives for those entrusted to our care.  There is a song I like written by Bill Cantos called “What would you do for a King?” --What would you do for a king?  If He won all the battles He went out to fight, And returned as a hero on a starlit night to a cheering crowd...Would it make you proud? And what would you do for a king, If He kept every promise that He'd ever made? Would you get out the tickertape and lead a parade, a society ball... Or would you care at all? Kings always seemed to me as such grand, imposing men--So full of stature, full of power--Such great authority in every word they say.  I never thought I was quite the type, But I'd still love to meet one someday. So what would you do for a king?  If He came to your door, would you ask Him in?  Would you tell Him how much you admired Him? Do you think you'd dare? Or would you be to scared? Most kings don't seem to know much about the common man. So far removed and set apart. I cheer with thousands, we blend into a roar, Another face in an endless crowd.  Is that all I really am, just one more... So what would you do for a king? If He saw you fishing out by the sea, And He walked up to you and said "Follow me - It's time you know." Do you think you'd go? And what would you do for a king?  If He took off his crown and agreed to die. And as you tried to understand it, He looked you in the eye and said, "This is for you." Well, what would you do? 

33rd Sunday Ordinary Time B 2009

Everlasting horror and disgrace.  A time unsurpassed in distress.  Destruction. Doom. Wailing and grinding of teeth. The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky.  Heaven and earth will pass away.  But of that day or hour, no one knows.  Is this your view of the Final Judgment and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in all His glory?  In the Eastern Church, in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, we pray “For a Christian, painless, unashamed, peaceful end of our life, and for a good account before the fearsome judgment seat of Christ, let us beseech the Lord.”  Do you fear the Lord’s Second Coming?  Or do you just think that it is not going to happen or at least not any time soon?  St. Augustine centuries ago wrote. “He who is without anxiety waits without fear until his Lord comes.  For what sort of love of Christ is it to fear His coming?  Brothers, do we not have to blush for shame?  We love Him, yet we fear His coming. Are we really certain that we love Him? Or do we love our sins more?  Therefore, let us hate our sins and love Him who will exact punishment for them.   He will come whether we wish it or not.  Do not think that because He is not coming just now, He will not come at all. He will come, you know not when: and provided He finds you prepared, your ignorance of the time of His coming will not be held against you.”  This is what we pray for, every time, we celebrate Mass, after the Our Father, we pray, “Deliver us, O Lord, from every evil, protect us from all ANXIETY as we WAIT in joyful hope for the COMING of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  We should not have, as St. Augustine reminds us, any fear or anxiety about the coming of the Lord, whether it be our final judgment at the end of the world, or our particular judgment at the moment of our death, as long as we have abandoned our sins and live in the life of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church.  If we love the Lord, rather than our sins, and are in a state of grace, we should look forward to our death and the Lord’s coming.  St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, wrote, “Our home is in heaven.  On earth, we are like travelers staying in a hotel.  When one is away, one is always thinking about going home.” Because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, we are all somehow refugees and immigrants from Paradise.  Our own actual sins are futile and destructive attempts to shape a new home by ourselves that can never satisfy that longing for home, the longing to be loved.  We try to fit ourselves into this foreign world in which we live in, but we never fit.  Since our true home is in heaven, we are then exiles and refugees searching for our homeland.  What is it that refugees and immigrants do to remind themselves of their homeland?  They gather together, they speak their own language, they tell stories from home, and eat and drink the food of their homeland.  In Eucharistic Prayer III, we pray that we are “ready to greet Him when He comes again, we offer You in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.”  As members of Christ’s Mystical Body who yearn for the day when we enter our heavenly homeland, we gather together to use the same language of prayer that we have heard many times before, to tell the same stories of how God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, we tell the miraculous stories of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven.  We come together to eat the bread of heaven, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Our Brother, who has gone before us to prepare a place in our Father’s Mansion.  We, the Church, who are born from the pierced side of Christ on the Cross, with Mary as our mother, we are that generation, the Mystical Body of Christ, which will not pass away until all these things have come to pass.  One of the reasons why I became a priest is because I felt “at home” in Church.  When I lived in Montana, I came home to Maryland for the summer.  When I returned to Montana, my friends and colleagues said “Welcome Back.”  Fr. Jack, my pastor, said “Welcome Home.”  As G. K. Chesterton has written, "We look before and after, and pine for what is not; which cries against all prigs and progressives, out of the very depths and abysses of the broken heart of man, that happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory; and that we are all kings in exile.” 

Tuesday of 32nd week in Ordinary Time

God loves us so much and He has given us so much that we often it take for granted.  But God is perfect in Himself and does not need us.   Yet out of His love, for love always goes out of oneself, out of His love for us, He created us in His Divine Image.  The great chain of being starts at the bottom with rocks, then progresses to plants, then to animals, then to humans, and then to angels.  The devil was created good.  In fact, Lucifer, (the light bearer) was the highest among the angels.  He was a seraphim, the highest rank among the angels.  The word, “seraphim,” means the “burning ones” because they are so close to God.  We read in the first reading today, “God formed man to be imperishable; 
 the image of His own Nature He made them. 
 But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world 
and they who are in his possession experience it.”  Why was the devil envious?  The Church Fathers tell us that God revealed His plan for humanity to satan and the devil because of his pride and his envy rebelled against God.  In the Incarnation, humanity took a quantum leap above the angels in the great chain of being.  In that great chain of being of rocks, plants, animals, humans, and angels, Jesus did no become an angel but a human.  Thus, humanity took this quantum leap in the great chain of being beyond the angels, beyond the seraphim, to share in the very life of God.  Through the Incarnation, Jesus did not become an angel.   Jesus became a human being and so raised our human nature even higher than the angels.  This is why the priest says a little prayer before he pours the water into the wine.  The priest prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the DIVINITY of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.  The angels do not share in the Divinity of Christ or in the very life of the Trinity.  This is why the devil is envious.  He is no longer the pinnacle of creation.  The devil, therefore, tries to drag humanity down to his level by tempting us to sin.  He told Adam and Eve that if they sinned they would be like God, which is a lie.  The devil is miserable in his life without God and misery loves company.  We have a great destiny, to share in the very life of God.  Jesus became a human not an angel, if we follow His will and live in Him; great is our place in heaven.  Therefore, when someone dies do not say that they have become an angel.  That would be a step down for them. 

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B 2009

Jesus is our High Priest but as the Letter to the Hebrews said today, Jesus does not have to enter the sanctuary each year, as the Old Testament priests did, because Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross is THE perfect sacrifice.  When Jesus was crucified on Calvary, the Scriptures tell us that the veil of the Temple in Jerusalem was torn in two from top to bottom.  The temple veil hid the Holy of Holies from the people.  The Holy of Holies was the most sacred part of the Jewish Temple.  Only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and only the High Priest, could go behind the veil that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies which contained the Ark of the Covenant, and offer sacrifice to God by sprinkling blood upon the Ark of the Covenant.  It was so holy that only the High priest and only once a year could he enter the presence of God.  They used to tie a rope around the high priest in case he would die in the Holy of Holies, so they would be able to pull him out.  That is how holy God is.  They were afraid that if the high priest was in a state of sin, God might smite him dead and they would not be able to get him out.  This idea of the extreme holiness of God into whose presence only the priests could enter was carried on in the Catholic Church by the old altar rails which you may still see in some old churches.  It is still present in Mass in the private prayers of the priest which you may not hear.  Before the reading of the Holy Word of God, the priest prays silently “Almighty God cleanse my heart and my lips that I my worthily proclaim Your holy gospel.”  When the deacon proclaims the gospel, he comes over to get a similar blessing from the priest.  The purpose of this blessing is to ask God not to smite us or send down fire upon us for being unworthy to proclaim His Holy Word.  The priest says a similar pray after offering the gifts of bread and wine to God.  Before the priest enters into the holiest part of the Mass, he washes his hands and says, “Lord wash away my iniquities and cleanse me from all my sins.”  The priest says that prayer because he does not want to end up like Nadab and Abihu. We read in the Book of Leviticus (ch 10) that the priests “Nadab and Abihu took their censers and, strewing incense on the fire they had put in them, they offered up before the LORD profane fire, such as He had not authorized. Fire therefore came forth from the LORD'S presence and consumed them, so that they died in His presence.”  If I, as a priest, am entering the holiest part of the Mass and doing something that I am not supposed to be doing, I don’t want God to strike me dead.  So I ask God to cleanse me of all my sins.  We need to remember how holy God is so that we can enter His presence worthily.  But we don’t simple enter into His presence, His Real Presence, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, enters into us at Holy Communion.  Before the priest receives Holy Communion, he prays silently, “Lord Jesus Christ, with faith in Your love and mercy, I eat Your Body and drink Your Blood.  Let it not bring me condemnation but health in mind and body.”  Receiving Holy Communion unworthily could condemn me to hell.  You make a similar prayer after the Lamb of God.  When I show you the Precious Body of Christ and the cup of His Blood, I say “Behold the Lamb of God.”  Because Jesus is not only our High Priest, He is also the Victim. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the Sacrificial Offering to the Father, similar to those offerings that the Jewish priests made day after day in the Temple.  But as we heard in our reading today, Jesus does not have to offer himself day after day, because Jesus’ sacrifice was a perfect sacrifice that was final and definitive and need not be repeated because Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  Happy are those who are called to His supper.”  Your response is similar to that of the priest’s private prayer. “O Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the Word and I shall be healed.”  You are praying and asking God that He might not smite you and send fire down to consume you.  Did you ever think about leaving a little bit of space between you and the person ahead of you in the Communion line just in case something should happen to the person in front of you?  Even if the judgment of God does not manifest itself here and now at the altar for me or the communion line for you, The Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that it is coming.  “It is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment.”  Although Jesus’ crucifixion tore the veil of the temple and allowed us into the holy presence of God, that does not mean that God is not be treated with reverence and awe.  It means that we have a greater responsibility, not to misuse this great gift.  Scripture tells us “The more one is given, the more will be expected.”  We are given God himself to receive in Holy Communion, I pray that we all will be worthy to receive Him.

All Soul's Day (Mass for Deceased Cursillistas) 2009

We come here today to do three things.  We come to pray, to remember, and to be re-membered.  In our first reading from the Second Book of Maccabees, we hear how after Judas Maccabees defeated Gorgias, he went to collect his slain countrymen who had fallen in battle.  These Jews who had died were wearing amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia.  So Judas Maccabees took up a collection to provide for an expiatory sacrifice for this sin “in as much as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.”  This is one of the clearest Biblical evidence for the existence of Purgatory and the need to pray for the dead.  Purgatory is that state where souls destined for heaven go to be purified before they can enter into the presence of God.  It’s like when you mother calls you in from playing outside in the mud to go visit your grandmother.  Before you can go visit grandmom, who always has such wonderful things ready for you, you have to take a bath to get all cleaned up.  This is why we pray for the dead because nothing that is not 100 percent pure can enter the presence of God.  The best prayer that we can offer is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  For in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s saving action on Calvary is made present for us.  Therefore, for those who have been saved from eternal punishment by the blood of Christ on Calvary, there is not better way to expiate the temporal punishment due to sin then to apply that same sacrifice for the soul’s purification.  While we cannot understand the working of grace in the life beyond, it may be that the superabundant graces that flow from a single Mass may be enough to free a soul from Purgatory.  I remember when my mother passed away, we received so many Mass cards and spiritual bouquets, I thought that if she did not need all those Masses and payers, Mom would have a grand old time helping Jesus distribute all those extra prayers and Masses to those souls in Purgatory who have been forgotten.  So it is important that we pray for the dead, especially for our deceased Cursillistas, our own loved ones, but also for those who have been forgotten and those who have no one to pray for them.  The second thing we come here today for is to remember.  I find it very moving to pray the Liturgy of the Hours in a Catholic cemetery.  For the Liturgy of the Hours is the official prayer of the Church that priests and religious promise to pray for themselves and for the whole Church and which lay people are also invited to pray.  Praying the Liturgy of the Hours in a Catholic graveyard connects me with all those immigrants who brought their faith in Christ and His Church to this land so many years ago.  It connects me to those countless mothers and fathers who worked hard to make a good life for their children but most especially showed them in very simple ways how to live their Catholic faith.  Praying in graveyards reminds me of the generation after generation that struggled to pass on their faith to their children and that each generation is called to pass on that faith to their children.  So we come here to remember how our sponsors were such a great example for us calling us to the Cursillo, we remember all those who continued in the Cursillo method and taught us to devote our piety, study, and action, to the spread of the Gospel.   A very holy priest, Fr. Dom Maruca, told me when my own mother was passing into the next life, he told me that that last thing your mother teaches you is how to die.  Our deceased Cursillistas gave us a wonderful Christ-like example of how to live and how to die that we should all remember.  So remember when the light of that first Easter morning dawned, Mary Magdalene and the other women went to Jesus’ tomb.  They did not forget Jesus even after he had died.  They continued to care for Him.  And because of their love and concern for their loved one, they were among the first to experience the joy of the Resurrection. It is at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that we encounter Jesus.  As the would-be Pope Benedict XVI said “Liturgy must really have its great continuity. . .in which I really meet the millennia and through them eternity.”  That is why we remember. That is why we come here today.  We come to be taken up into eternity.  We come here to today to be re-membered.  We are RE-MEMBERED—brought together again as a member of Christ’s Mystical Body, --- in the great memorial of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  In the Mass, Jesus is not just remembered in an intellectual and sentimental way.  In the Mass, Jesus is substantially present—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist.  When we remember Jesus in this way—He is really and truly with us.  How is that possible?  Jesus tells us in the Gospel, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains I me and I in him.”  Through our baptism, our reception of the Eucharist, as well as the other sacraments, we are joined to the divine life of Jesus.  St. Therese of Lisieux recalls her own First Holy Communion.  In her autobiography, she writes, “ She felt so weak and frail that she wanted to unite herself forever to His Divine Strength. And her joy overflowed.  Soon she was weeping, to the astonishment of her companions, who said to one another later on “Why did she cry?  Was there something on her conscience?  Perhaps it was because her mother was not there, or the Carmelite sister she loves so much.”  It was beyond them that all the joy of heaven had entered one small heart, and that it was too frail and weak to bear it without tears.  As if the absence of my mother could make me unhappy on the day of my First Communion!  As all heaven entered my soul when I received Jesus, my mother came to me as well.”  Therefore, in the Holy Eucharist, we come to be re-membered not only with the Body and Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ but with all those faithful who have gone before us.  And if our deceased Cusillistas were joined to Jesus through the sacraments, our faith tells us that they will be remembered by Jesus through all eternity when He will raise their mortal bodies to join Him in heaven—even if we should forget.

All Saint's Day (31st Week in Ordinary Time B) 2009

I often wonder why I am here.  Why am I standing up here dressed like this?   What are you doing here?   I am here today to tell you who you are.  You are a child of God, made in His image and likeness and God loves you.  Why did God make me?  God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this life so that I can be happy with Him forever in the next.  Our purpose, our destiny, is to live forever with God.  If we do not fulfill our purpose in life, our life is like an unsharpened pencil.  It has no point.  Today we celebrate and remember all those people who achieved life’s purpose and are in heaven- from the great canonized saints of the Church’s official recognition to people throughout the millenia who are unnamed but are mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  Someone (Francis Thompson) once wrote, “to most, --even good people-- God is a belief.  To the saints, He is an embrace.”  You can’t really love an idea and an idea cannot love you.  The saints became saints because they fell in love.  They fell in love with the person who is love Incarnate—Jesus Christ.  God loves you so much, He gave up His Only Son for you.  St. Frances De Sales wrote, Jesus knew my name when he was hanging on the cross.  St. Therese of Lisieux tells the story of how she thought about the glory of the saints in heaven.  If we compare a large drinking glass full of water to a little thimble full of water, they are both full.  So too with God’s love, no one will feel excluded or empty because they have not done great things.  They will be full of the love of God as much as they can hold.  The only question is how big will our souls be if we reach heaven.  If we love only ourselves or the things of this world, then there is no room in our heart for God or even for heaven.  A saint is someone who lives in the presence of God and enjoys being there.  So we come here today to be in the presence of God and to celebrate All Saints Day.  We come to celebrate with those holy people who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith and to remember that we are called to live forever in the Presence of God.  We are all called to be saints.  The question is do we enjoy being in the presence of God.  Do we look upon God as some mean old taskmaster that tells us you have to go to Mass, you can’t have fun, you can’t do that?  Or do we look upon God as the awesome, unimaginably powerful and wonderful creator who desires to be intimately united with His creatures?  Pope Benedict has written that prayer is an intensely personal act by which we come into a personal and intimate union with God.  God is not a slot machine into which we put so many prayers and hope our prayers are answered and we hit the jackpot.  The Church is not a social club where we come to make ourselves feel good by helping the poor to experience middle class prosperity.  Church is not a place where you come to be entertained by the dynamic preaching, or the upbeat powerful music, or your child’s performance.  We come to Mass to experience and to be united with the God of the universe; a God who is so awesome and who is so magnificent and yet a God who died on the cross for me.  We gather around this altar to join the angels in their triumphant hymn and to cry “out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”  Jesus is that Lamb of God; The Lamb who was slain.  Jesus was crucified for love of us. God loved us to death.  Prayer calls us into that intimate union.  That is why we come here today.  We come to be intimately united to the only one who truly loves us.  The only one who died for us.  The only one who conquered death and rose from the grave.  We come to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to learn how to love that much.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen, says that our heaven or hell begin here on earth.  So if you don’t enjoy the love of God that pours out from every syllable of the Mass, which is heaven breaking into earth, what makes you think you will enjoy heaven?  St. Elizabeth Ann Seton before becoming Catholic yearned to receive the Eucharist, to feel that love which God pours out in this Most Blessed Sacrament, an uncountable number of martyrs gave their lives rather than deny the love of the Lord Jesus showed them, untold mothers and fathers worked so hard to instill the Catholic faith in their children, numerous priests and consecrated religious sacrificed their lives for their true love, Jesus Christ.  If we truly realized what happens on this altar our hearts would burst with love.  May we all take to heart the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila, “O Lord, save us from sour-faced saints.”

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B) 2009

We hear in the Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus Christ was made High Priest of the new and eternal covenant and that He is “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”  I was already to prepare a homily on the priesthood and the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  Wednesday, I came over to the church to pray before Jesus, the High Priest, present in the tabernacle.  I remember asking the Lord Jesus what He wanted me to say in my homily.  It was then that I remembered that at this Mass, today, we will be celebrating the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  So as I thought about the Anointing of the Sick, I began to see similarities between the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  There are four sacraments that use oil in their celebrations:  (Should I give you a quiz?  Can you name them?)—they are Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick.  Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders use Sacred Chrism, while the Anointing of the Sick uses a special Oil of the Sick.  When the newly baptized is anointed with the Sacred Chrism, the priest or deacon says, “As Christ was anointed priest, prophet, and king so may you live always as members of His Body, sharing everlasting life.”  By our Baptism, we are anointed priest, prophet, and king.  To be a priest means to be able to offer sacrifice.  The Priesthood of the faithful which we all receive by our Baptism is different in kind and degree from the ministerial priesthood that is covered upon a man in the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  But in its own way, those who are baptized are called to offer the sacrifice of their lives to God.  The word “sacrifice” comes from two Latin words, “sacrum” and “facere.”  “Sacrum” means “Holy” and “facere” means to make.  To “sacrum facere,” to “sacrifice” means to “make holy.”  By our Baptism, we share in the Priesthood of the Faithful and we are called to make little daily sacrifices, making our whole lives holy in the sight of God.  In the Old Testament, priests, and prophets, and kings were anointed with oil to signify that they were “made holy” in the sight of the Lord.  The word “anointed” in Hebrew is “messiah” and in Greek, anointed is “christos.”  Jesus is called the Christ because He is the Anointed One.  Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Anointed One, is the ultimate High priest, or as it says in today’s reading, “a priest forever.”  When a baptized and confirmed man is ordained a priest in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the bishop anoints the priests hands with oil to symbolize that the priest is now conformed to Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, and is empowered to offer the same sacrifice that Jesus offered on Calvary in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  When the priest anoints the hands and head of the sick person in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the sick person is set apart, is made holy, so that they my offer the sacrifices of their suffering and unite them to the Cross of Jesus Christ.  You who are about to be anointed are called to unite your suffering to the Cross of Christ for the redemption of the world.  Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to that that one of the worst things in the world is wasted suffering.  Use this Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick to be the instrument in which you unite your suffering to the Cross of Christ for the salvation of the world.  That is why your response, your “AMEN” is very important.  When I come by and anoint your head, I will say, “Through this holy anointing, may the Lord in His love and mercy, help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit.”  Your response is “AMEN.”  Your response says “Yes, Lord, I am ready be conformed to Christ and offer my suffering in union with the Cross for the salvation of the world.  That is what you “AMEN” means.  I will then anoint the palms of your hands and will say “May the Lord who frees you from sin, save you, and raise you up.”  When you say “AMEN” to this prayer you are accepting God’s love and forgiveness and the spiritual healing of your soul and if it is for your salvation, a physical healing.  As the great St. Thomas Aquinas wrote,  the Sacrament of the Anointing of the sick "does not always restore the health of the body . . .because it may be that a man's life is not expedient for the salvation of his soul."  Be assured that whatever happen in this sacrament, you are like Bartimeus, in today’s Gospel, and you are to “Take courage, get up, [because} Jesus is calling you.”