22nd Sunday after Pentecost 12.10.08 Give to God what is God’s.
Give to God what is God’s – how much belongs to God? Everything. Though not all of it is useful to Him, such as money. He has no need of our cars, houses, clothes etc, but He would like us to use them according to His will.
For one thing we should not make false gods of them, but see ourselves as merely stewards looking after God’s property. He wants us to use our possessions for the good of all. Thus the rich should help the poor; feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and so on.
If God does not want our property as such, what does He want from us? Our hearts. He wants our love, our allegiance, our homage.
He wants us to love Him to the point that we would readily do His will on any point, large or small, without argument or complaint.
This is the ‘tax’ He asks from us. It cannot be measured in money; it comes from the heart. It is a spiritual offering.
In this sense we can never pay Him enough; if there is any more we can give Him then He wants that too.
It might sound demanding, but remember we are made for this. We are created to know, love and serve God. It is our destiny, the thing we are most geared for. Like a racehorse to race or a bird to fly, we are designed to love God.
And God never commands something without also giving the means to carry out the command.
So if He says, I want everything from you, He will also make it possible for us to give that.
One major way He assists us to give everything to Him is through the Sacrifice of the Mass.
In the Mass we are praying in overdrive because it is not just our own thoughts and sentiments that we offer to Heaven, but Christ Himself. We offer God to God, the perfect
Sacrifice, pleasing to Him and an offering that does fully satisfy the definition of ‘everything’.
God the Son takes our offering and joins it with His own, so that we are truly giving to God what is God’s.
We are very fortunate to have the Mass, fortunate to be able to offer it freely in a place where we are not persecuted. When we think of the English martyrs and others who risked torture and death to offer the Mass, then we realize we have it easy.
We who are attached to the Traditional Latin Mass rejoice at its gradual and steady re-introduction into the life of the Church. We have discovered the beauty of this rite, and we hope others will continue to discover it.
It is a treasure that God has given to us, beautiful and useful at the same time. It is our way of giving to God what is His.
All we have to do is get on board. Like getting on an aeroplane. It does the flying; all we have to do is climb on – then we say we are flying.
So with the Mass. It does the work, we might say; all we have to do is climb on, attach ourselves and let our offering be taken up to Heaven.
The most beautiful thing this side of heaven, said Fr Faber of the Traditional Mass.
Now we will have another priest in Adelaide to offer this Mass every day. We rejoice in that,
Long may the Mass flourish, until it merges into the heavenly liturgy which knows no end.
May it be multiplied indeed, in its frequency, and its fruitfulness to the world.
