“The days of Evil are numbered. It is Evil that must be afraid.” (Pope Francis). The Seasonof Lent is meant to be a Springtime of Renewal for our spiritual lives. Through the disciplines of Prayer, Fasting and Works of Mercy we are to take ground away from the devil and apply the Victory of Jesus to every aspect of our lives.
Given the devil’s primary attack on marriage and family by substituting lust for love, this Pastor’s Corner will focus on the Virtue of Chastity. Though not the most important virtue, (Charity and Humility are), the Virtue of Chastity is Crucial for conquering one of the most dominant evils of our day. The words below seek to condense the Wisdom of the Saints for resisting sins of lust into one paragraph.
When facing the temptation to focus on and indulge oneself in intense sexual pleasure at the expense of God’s Will, one’s own dignity and the dignity of other persons, the wisdom of the saints is to crowd it out rather than struggle against it. This means that I need to become enamored with the awesome, holy and sacred, truth, goodness and beauty of the God-given meaning of human personhood, sexuality, marriage and family. By focusing on what is true, good and beautiful, the counterfeit of lust will lose its force of attraction over me. God created sexual pleasure to be good. In God’s plan, sexual pleasure is not meant to be the focus, rather it is meant to accompany a loving act of total, free, faithful, open-to-new-life, Gift of Self to a spouse in the renewal of a marriage covenant. This God-given meaning of sex is awesome, sacred and worthy of reverence. It can inspire the virtues of self-mastery, chastity and authentic love. The blessings and the virtues of true love draw their meaning and their power from the love of Jesus, who is the true bridegroom of the human race, of the Catholic Church and of every human soul. In Jesus the counterfeit of love, which is lust, can be resisted, crowded out and purified. I can encounter Jesus decisively in the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist. Jesus’ Gift of Self to me enables me to resist the sins of lust and every other sin as well.
 Lenten Blessings, Fr. John 

What is the Root Cause of Social Problems of divorce, broken families, misery, addictions, crime, greed and injustice? Connecting the Dots: In prior Pastor’s Corners I have been pointing out that the forces that attack and weaken our human community in its very foundations, are the forces that weaken and destroy marriage and family. During my last year of high school (1967), I was taught through the secularized media that the root cause of misery and poverty in the world is over-population. Therefore, the solution would seem to be birth-control. After entering the seminary, my eyes were re-opened to the Truth that the root cause of misery and injustice in the world, is, and always has been, SIN, that is, a broken relationship with God. A lack of trust in our Creator and sustainer always has a negative impact on the way we relate to one another. Therefore, the real solution is reconciliation with God. And the Good News is, God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him, may not perish, but may have eternal life (John 3:16). As disciples of Jesus and members of His Body, the Church, we are called and empowered to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem. Why have so many people rejected the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual morality – on the God-given meaning of human personhood, authentic love, sexuality, marriage and family? Why is our society awash in the politically correct propaganda that lust, pornography, “safe-sex”, promiscuity, shacking-up, same-sex experimentation, contraception, sterilization, embryonic stem cell research, abortion-on-demand and gender confusion are civil rights? I believe that St. Paul answered the question about the Root Cause of Social Problems most concisely in his Letter to the Romans: Therefore, these men are inexcusable. They certainly had knowledge of God, yet they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks; they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools. … For this reason God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. … They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. (Romans 1: 20-22, 24-25).
Blessings, Fr. John

​Cuál es la Causa Fundamental de los Problemas Sociales del divorcio, las familias rotas, la miseria, las adicciones, el crimen, la codicia y la injusticia? Conectando los Puntos: Anteriormente en el Rincón del Párroco he estado señalando que las fuerzas que atacan y debilitan a nuestra comunidad humana en sus propias fundaciones, son las fuerzas que debilitan y destruyen el matrimonio y la familia. Durante mi último año en la escuela secundaria (1967), me enseñaron a través de los medios secularizados que la causa fundamental de la miseria y la pobreza en el mundo es la sobrepoblación. Por lo tanto, la solución parecería ser el control de la natalidad.  Después de entrar en el seminario, mis ojos fueron reabiertos a la Verdad que la causa fundamental de la miseria y la injusticia en el mundo, es, y siempre ha sido, el pecado, es decir, una relación rota con Dios. La falta de confianza en nuestro creador y sustentador siempre tiene un impacto negativo en la forma en que nos relacionamos unos con otros. Por lo tanto, la solución es la reconciliación con Dios. Y la Buena Noticia es que tanto amó Dios al mundo que le dio a su Hijo único, para que todo el que crea en él no perezca, sino que tenga vida eterna (Juan 3:16). Como discípulos de Jesús y miembros de Su Cuerpo, la Iglesia, somos llamados y empoderados para ser parte de la solución, en lugar de parte del problema.  ¿Por qué muchas personas rechazaron la enseñanza de la Iglesia Católica sobre la moralidad sexual – en el sentido dado por Dios de la persona humana, amor autentico, sexualidad, matrimonio y familia?  ¿Por qué nuestra sociedad está inundada en la propaganda políticamente correcta que la lujuria, la pornografía, el “sexo seguro”, la promiscuidad, la fornicación (shacking-up), experimentación con el mismo sexo, anticoncepción, esterilización, investigación de células madre embrionarias, aborto a petición y la confusión de genero son derechos civiles? Creo que San Pablo contesto la pregunta sobre La Causa Fundamental de los Problemas Sociales mas concisamente en su carta a los Romanos: Por lo tanto, estos hombres no tienen excusa. Porque habiendo conocido a Dios, no lo han glorificado, ni le han dado gracias, sino que han puesto sus pensamientos en cosas sin valor y sus mentes se han oscurecido. Alardeando de sabios, se han hecho necios.  … Por eso Dios los ha entregado, siguiendo el impulso de sus apetitos, a una impureza tal que degrada sus propios cuerpos.  ...Cambiaron la verdad de Dios por la mentira, y de haber adorado y dado culto a la criatura en lugar de dárselo al Creador. (Romanos 1:20-22, 24-25).
Bendiciones, Fr. John 

Saint Pope Paul VI prophetically warned the world in 1968 about the serious consequences that would follow if there was wide-spread disobedience to the God-given meaning of human sexuality, marriage and family. Find below Section 17 of his Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae – On Human Life.
Responsible persons can be still more easily convinced of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they stop to reflect upon the consequences of the use of the methods of artificial birth regulation. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened to conjugal infidelity and to a general lowering of morality. One does not need much experience to know human weakness and to understand that human beings – especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point – have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, and must not be offered an easy means to evade its observance. It can also be feared that the man who becomes used to contraceptive practices, may in the end lose respect for his wife, and no longer caring about her physical and psychological well-being, will come to the point of considering her a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer his respected and beloved companion.
Consider also the dangerous weapon that would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who have no concern for the requirements of morality. Who could blame a government for applying, as a solution to the problems of the community, those means acknowledged to be permissible for a married couple in solving a family problem. Who will prevent rulers from favoring, and even imposing upon their people, the method of contraception they judge to be the most effective, if they should consider this to be necessary? In this way, men, while wishing to avoid the individual, family or social difficulties they encounter in observing the divine law, would come to place at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most private of conjugal intimacy. (HV-17)
Next week I will explain Why dissent from the teaching in Humane Vitae is a Root Cause of our society’s most devastating problems.
 
Blessings, Fr. John 

In June of 1979, (now Saint) Pope John Paul II returned to Poland to retrieve a manuscript he had been working on since 1974. In September of 1979 he began a series of 129 Wednesday Audiences that would share the contents of this manuscript with the world. His original title for the manuscript was, Male and Female He Created Them (Gen.1:27). An alternate title given to the work by its author is Human Love in the Divine Plan. The work has now been published in English with the title, Man and Woman He Created Them, A Theology of the Body.
 
In July of 1968, (now Saint) Pope Paul VI published, Humanae Vitae – On the Regulation of Human Births. In the face of the new technology of a hormonal birth-control pill (approved by the FDA in 1960), and mounting pressure from many persons both within and outside the Church, this Papal Encyclical set forth in clear terms that it is intrinsically evil to deliberately sterilize the marriage act. The dissent from this teaching by some bishops and many theologians in most of Europe, Canada and the U.S. was great. As a consequence, present day surveys show that 80 to 90 percent of “Western” Catholics do not follow this teaching of the Church.
 
Humanae Vitae inspired Cardinal Karol Wotyla to use his philosophical and theological gifts to provide a total vision of the human person. It is reported that, over a four-year period, he wrote the entire manuscript, now called, Theology of the Body, in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. George Weigel, author of a three-volume biography of St. John Paul II, describes TOB as the “antidote to the porno- revolution and the culture of death.” George Weigel predicts that TOB is like a time-bomb ready to go off during the Twenty-First Century.
I thank God that in St. Joachim Parish the time-bomb of Truth and Love in TOB has been going off for years now in our Marriage Preparation Ministry and our Youth Ministry. We are grateful to all who help with these important ministries.
 
Blessings, Fr. John