PLANTING A FLAG FOR CHRIST: At daily and Sunday Mass throughout the Easter Season, we read from the Acts of the Apostles. This is the biblical book in which Luke tells the story of the infant, apostolic Church and the spread of the Christian faith. It’s an amazing story! Though repeatedly ostracized, rejected, persecuted and martyred, brave Christians spoke the name of Jesus and proclaimed his gospel of love. It is due to the evangelical courage of those first disciples that there are some 2.4 billion of us Christians in the world today. Our Christian forebearers understood that to follow Christ was a risky proposition. Our Lord had warned them while he was still alive that “you will be hated by all for my name’s sake (Mt 10:22).” St. Paul echoed Christ’s words: “Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12).” There have been many times throughout the last 2,000 years that brave women and men stood for Christ at the cost of their very lives. Particularly due to the socialist and fascist ideologies that held sway, the 20th century saw more Christians put to death for their faith in Jesus than in all the previous centuries combined. That is a staggering reality. Although a strain of anti-Catholicism has always been present in American society, there is now a virulent anti-Christian animosity that is growing in intensity. Almost daily now, we hear of bias, hatred, and outright disdain for Christianity and Christians. The governments themselves of once devoutly Christian nations are now persecuting believers with a frightening regularity. The age of Christendom, when the West generally held to the same Judeo-Christian value system, has come crashing down. We have again entered an apostolic age, a time when we must choose between planting the flag for Christ (and thus being rejected by the prevailing culture) or turning away from Christ and his Church (by offering our allegiance to the new, secular religion). I remind you of this, not to discourage or frighten, but to encourage and exhort. Our parish rally cry is Totally on Mission. To be totally on mission is to give ourselves completely to and for Christ. What an exhilarating call! I pray that this call resonates in your heart! In this new apostolic age, we cannot be half-hearted Christians with one foot still firmly planted in the world. Jesus needs our all. He needs us to give him 100%. Make no mistake, though, that when we offer ourselves in such a full-hearted manner to Christ, there will be a price to pay. For to proclaim that Christ is Lord is to proclaim that every other way of ordering human existence is in some way insufficient or misguided. Many, therefore, find the gospel to be offensive. After all, light scatters the creatures who live in darkness. Therefore, we must take pains to always proclaim Christ with a humble heart and with love. We must speak the truth in a manner that respects human dignity and individual conscience. There must, in the words of St. Augustine, be no poison in our judgments. Nonetheless, the truth of Christ must be proclaimed! Even the difficult truths of the gospel must be defended without compromise or equivocation! Clearly, then, to proclaim the gospel is to directly challenge the secular orthodoxy of our culture. There is a price to pay for doing this. When we refuse to bend our knee to the anti-family LBGQ agenda (which is different thing than lovingly ministering to a same-sex attracted person), we may be called haters or we may lose our job. When we refrain from worshipping at the altars of gender theory and transgenderism, we may be attacked on social media or no longer welcomed in our friend groups. When we declare abortion to be a humanity-destroying evil, we ourselves may be branded as evil or described as backwards or be hauled away to prison. When all of this happens – and it is happening to many Christians right now - we can take comfort in these prophetic words of Christ: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven (MT 5:11-12).” Take courage, little flock! Christ is our hope and our strength and our shepherd. If you and I can contribute to the building up of the kingdom in some small way by planting a flag for Christ, I hope that we will do so. In fact, we must.

Mary, Mother of the Redeemer – Pray for us!
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Pray for us!
St. Anthony – Pray for us!
St. Joseph – Pray for us!
Fr. Steve