HOMILIES PREACHED BY FATHER ALTIER ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

Today, as our country takes time to celebrate Independence Day we need to ask ourselves what this really means. For most Americans, we think of "independence" as meaning "I can do whatever I want. I am not dependent on anyone." Unfortunately, in the minds of many Americans these days that includes God. We think, somehow, that we are not dependent on God and that "freedom" means we do not have to follow any rules, we can make our own rules, and we can do whatever we want. But it does not work that way. We can never be independent of God.

We need to understand what this really means. Freedom and independence do not mean "I can do whatever I want. I do not have to follow God's rules. I do not have to do what the Lord wants me to do." We think that is going to bring peace, but what it brings instead is exactly the opposite. It brings total chaos and anarchy. It brings disorder into a world and that is what we suffer with today.

Wednesday July 4, 2001

Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (Isaiah 57:15-19)

Gospel (St. John 14:23-29)

In fact, we hear in the first reading precisely what happens if we are. The Lord tells us: "Because of their wicked avarice I was angry, and struck them, hiding Myself in wrath, as they went their own rebellious way." I think if we looked around our society today, we could say that fits America pretty well - those who are caught in avarice, and those who go their own rebellious way. That is not freedom, nor is it independence. That is the tragedy. We need to understand what this really means. Freedom and independence do not mean "I can do whatever I want. I do not have to follow God's rules. I do not have to do what the Lord wants me to do." We think that is going to bring peace, but what it brings instead is exactly the opposite. It brings total chaos and anarchy. It brings disorder into a world and that is what we suffer with today.

But for Christians, as we come together today and we celebrate this feast, we recognize that what is ours is the true freedom of the children of God. We recognize that what is ours is independence from the devil and from his way so that we can do things God's way. It is not throwing off the yoke of God, which the Lord tells us is light and easy; but rather, it is throwing off the yoke of sin so that we are no longer slaves to sin but we have the freedom to do God's Will. That is what true freedom is. It is independence from the oppressor and God is never oppressive.

Remember that it is God Himself who gave us free will. God, in His love for us, will always treat us according to that freedom He has given to us. He will not even violate that if we choose to use our freedom against Him, if we choose to use our freedom in a way that it was not intended to be used. What God wants is for us to use the freedom that He gave us in the right way: to choose what is just, to choose what is right, to choose what is going to bring about the greatest good. He wants us to use our freedom to choose love. In this way, we can actually use our freedom to choose to be dependent on God.

If we want to think that we can be independent of God, He will allow us to walk our own way. That is what we hear in the first reading: "They went their own rebellious way." But thanks be to Him, He tells us that He saw their ways and He will heal them and lead them, He will give them full comfort. That is what we are looking for - true life, true comfort, and true peace. The Lord tells us in the Gospel that the peace He gives is a peace the world cannot give. The world can give an external kind of peace. It can give a sense of peace to the body. As we look around America for all the pleasures and comforts we say, "Well, now that I can settle back in my big over-stuffed chair, my body can have a sense of peace." But that is not the peace that the Lord gives. The peace of Jesus is in the soul, it is in the heart; it is a spiritual peace. That is the peace that we all really desire.

In order to have that peace, it means that we have to know true freedom. True freedom is doing God's Will in all things because God's Will is always what is perfect and what is best. It never violates us, even in the slightest manner; but is that which will uphold our dignity and perfect our dignity. When we are being treated with dignity and we are acting according to our dignity, then we will have peace. The only way that will happen is if our prayer life is in order, we are following the commandments of God, and we make ourselves independent of ourselves and of the devil so that we can be completely dependent on God. It is to die to self in order to live for the other. That is where true freedom and independence come.

So for us as Catholic people, as we celebrate with the country this day of our Declaration of Independence, this day where we celebrate freedom from oppression, we need to understand it in a spiritual way and be able to apply it in a deeper way, in a way that the world cannot apply it. But in the way that only a Christian person can - in the way of Jesus Christ. Not externally, but internally to know true freedom, to know true independence, and to know the true peace that only Jesus Christ can give.

Note: Father Altier does not write his homilies in advance, but relies solely upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Thursday July 4, 2002

Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (Amos 7:10-17)

Gospel (St. Matthew 9:1-8)

Today as our country takes time to celebrate our independence, we need to ask ourselves what this freedom that we are celebrating really is because over the course of the past few years, and particularly since last September, we have watched many of those freedoms that we have taken so much for granted be taken from us. But it was done in a rather interesting way: We asked for it. The media convinced the people of America that it would be a very good thing to beg the government to take away the freedoms we have always had. They happily obliged, and they have many more in store coming very soon to this country. As Mr. Bush has made clear, he is about to embark on a new Homeland Security Act that will employ 79,000 people. As it is advertised, they will be watching everything from airspace and airplanes to highways, bridges, and supermarkets. They will be able to take away any of the freedoms we are accustomed to.

Now this all sounds very negative, but it is very important to be able to ask the question: What really is the freedom that we ought to be celebrating? There is a freedom which no one can take from us, that is, the freedom of our will - and it is the freedom to serve God. There is no greater freedom than the one we hear of in the Gospel reading today, that is, freedom from sin. Jesus looked at the paralytic and He said, "Your sins are forgiven you." Nothing is greater than that freedom, to be freed from the bonds of death, to be freed from the jaws of hell, to have our sins forgiven so that we can go to Heaven. There is nothing that is greater than that.

And no matter what kind of external freedoms may be taken away, no one, absolutely no one, can take away your free will. God will not take away your free will. The devil does not have the authority to take away your free will. The government cannot take away your free will. Nobody can take your free will. You can freely give it up, but no one can take it from you. That is a gift which God has given and it is an irrevocable gift. It is yours and you may choose to do with it what you will.

Now, God also has a free will and He has chosen to create us in His own image and likeness. He has given to each one of us a task to perform on this earth. And He teaches us that the greatest freedom, as far as the way we live our lives, is to do the Will of God. Anybody in any country, in any place - somebody in a Communist prison camp in China - would be able to do the same thing. A person in the most horrendous of situations, externally, still has free will and can still freely choose to do the Will of God at every moment of every single day. That is the gift God has offered to us.

Saint Paul asks the question about this freedom, and he makes sure he tells us that it is not a freedom to sin. It is not a freedom of license, but rather, it is a freedom to be able to excel. It is a freedom to choose what is right and to do the Will of God in all things. We can look at some people who have lived this life. Because they chose to exercise this freedom in the fullest capacity, they paid for it with their lives. All of the martyrs chose to use this freedom that God gave to them to truly serve God and to pour themselves out in love for the people around them. There were others who were terrified by the freedom they saw these people exercising, and sought to put them to death. But even that could not remove their freedom; they freely chose to die for Jesus Christ.

When we look at all of the things that we, as Americans, hold to be near and dear to us, we need to look a step deeper and look at what God has created in us from the first moment of our conception. He gave to each one of us a free will. And He gave to each one of us the capacity to make a free choice every single day and every single moment of every single day. The choice of whether we are going to do God's Will or whether we are going to do it some other way, whether it is our own way or the way that somebody else tells us to do, we have that choice. But we have the choice and the freedom to be able to act in accordance with the fullness of God's freedom to do what God wants of us everyday. That is being offered to us and cannot be taken away. That is cause for rejoicing: freedom from sin and freedom to serve God.

No matter what the circumstances politically or externally may be, that is still a freedom that we have. Even if somebody - as they have tried to do in some of the Communist countries - tries to say, "You do not have the freedom to exercise your religion, to practice your faith," they still cannot take it away. They might be able to take away the external practice of it. The Communists, for instance, in many countries closed all the churches and destroyed them but they could not take away the freedom of the will of the people to believe in Jesus Christ and to serve Him in freedom all the days of their lives. We must keep that in mind as we go forward because no matter what happens this is the freedom that we must celebrate above all else: that we have the free choice to serve God and to choose the Lord, that we have freedom from sin, and that we have freedom from death. In the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, death has no power over us and we can look death right in the face because we know that we have life in Jesus Christ. Nothing that most people would be afraid of has any power over us if we are truly one in Christ. That is the freedom we need to celebrate.

So, yes, we celebrate the freedoms that our country offers to us but we, as Christian people, recognize an even greater freedom. We rejoice in Almighty God for granting us that freedom, the freedom that He gave us as a gift of love, the free will that He gave us to serve Him, to love Him, and the freedom from sin and death which is ours in Jesus Christ.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Friday July 4, 2003

Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (Genesis 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67)

Gospel (St. Matthew 9:9-13)

Today as our country takes this time to celebrate its birthday, its independence, we need to really stop to ask ourselves what this independence is all about. For many of us, when we think of our personal independence it is more a matter of pride; it is that we do not want to be controlled by anyone and we do not want anyone telling us what we are supposed to do. It is not true freedom. True freedom is actually to do the Will of God.

So when we look in the Gospel reading today, we hear Jesus going to Matthew and telling him, “Follow Me.” Now most of us probably would not look at that as freedom – we are being told what we are supposed to do, we have to follow somebody else. Yet Matthew recognized that this was indeed his freedom because in following Christ he recognized he was free from that which was holding him bound, and that was his own self. It was his dependence on material things, on a name, on a position, on whatever other things he was holding onto, all of the attachments of the world. And so in gratitude for his newfound freedom, he had a banquet for the Lord. When the Pharisees, who were held bound by all of the laws that were self-imposed and the way that they had determined religion was supposed to be practiced, saw this they said, “Why does the teacher eat with sinners and tax collectors?” And Jesus said to them that people who are well do not need a physician but sick people do.

When we think of that answer, we recognize that even though we want to protest our own personal independence in so many ways, we realize how many people we actually do make ourselves dependent upon. We are anything but independent when it really comes down to it. If you just think about all of the bills you have to pay and all of the people you are dependent upon for day-to-day life, we realize that our idea of independence is not necessarily what we would like it to be. But the true independence that the Lord has won for us is precisely what we need. Just in order to live our day-to-day life we are dependent on people, for instance, to provide electricity and clean water, pick up the garbage, handle the sanitation, deal with all the day-to-day things of our lives. We are dependent on many people, and that is not a bad thing. In fact, it is our pride that makes us think we do not need anyone.

But when Jesus says, “Follow Me,” we have to make the choice. He will not force us to follow Him. He will not violate the freedom which He gave us in creation, but He asks us to make an act of the will, to be completely independent in making ourselves completely dependent on Him. We recognize that if we are sick we become dependent upon the physician. Jesus is the Physician of our souls. He is the One Who came to heal us, to free us from that which has us in bondage and in shackles – which is sin and the devil. That is where our real freedom is lost because the devil is not simply asking us to make a free act of the will (even though that is required, ultimately), he simply wants to take what we have. Jesus, on the other hand, wants to give us what He has and He wants us to receive. It is a completely opposite perspective.

But the devil has been so good in convincing people that license and freedom are one and the same, doing whatever you feel like doing. “If it feels good, do it. It’s what I want, I have a right to it.” He has convinced us that that is freedom. It is not. In fact, Saint Paul, as well as Our Lord, told us that we are all going to be slaves to someone. If we are going to sin, Jesus said that we become slaves to sin. We have to make our choice of where that slavery will be. These, again, are not ideas that tend to go with our concept of independence, but there is a freely chosen slavery – it is a slavery of love, it is to give one’s self entirely to another person, that is, to Jesus. We can offer ourselves totally to Him just as He has offered Himself completely for us. And as He has made Himself the slave of all of us, we, in turn, in an act of true freedom and in an act of love, can make ourselves a slave of love to Jesus Christ. That is the gift that is being offered to us.

So as our country celebrates its independence from tyrannical rule, now after more than slightly two hundred years we have gotten to the point where we have decided that freedom means anything other than what it really means – freedom to sin, freedom to do what is wrong, freedom to trample on other people, freedom to do whatever I feel like regardless of what it means for anybody else, making things into rights which are not rights and taking rights away where they are supposed to be given, making things which are immoral into laws which are upheld and protected while those people who want to do what is right and moral are considered to be outlaws and violators of the rights of others. That is not the independence that our forefathers had in mind. It is not what the Constitution of the United States of America upholds, but there are people in positions of power that are not interested in what is right. They are interested, rather, in forwarding an agenda, and it is an agenda that can only be said to be that of Satan.

We have our choice to make. We can choose freedom, which is to do the Will of God, or we can choose license, which is to do whatever we want to do. One makes us a slave of Jesus Christ, a slave of love, and one makes us a slave of sin. The choice is ours. One brings true independence by making ourselves totally dependent on Christ, and one brings complete dependence in the worst kind of way, in this world and forever for that matter. And so the choice is very clear. But because God gave us a free will, He will never violate it, and we have the freedom to make the choice for or against God, for or against Satan. That is what it really comes down to. Jesus looks today at each one of us and says simply, “Follow Me.” Now the choice is ours to follow Him and to follow the way of true freedom.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

July 4, 2004

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I (Isaiah 66:10-14c)

Reading II (Galatians 6:14-18)

Gospel (St. Luke 10:1-12, 17-20)

In the Gospel reading today, Our Lord tells His disciples that they are to go out to all the towns and villages where He had intended to visit and they were to make one announcement: The kingdom of God is at hand. If the people received them, then they would be blessed; if the people did not receive them, they were to shake the dust from their feet and they were to make the announcement nonetheless that the kingdom of God is at hand. There would be no excuse for those people, Our Lord makes very clear, because they had heard the truth that the kingdom of God is in their midst but they had rejected it.

Today the exact same announcement has to be made. How many people who were born and baptized into the Catholic Church have rejected the Church? They have decided either that they know better than the Church and therefore they do not have to follow the teachings of the Church, or they have decided that they could find someplace that was more fun and so they have left the Church, or in essence they have decided that they do not need the Lord at all and so they do nothing. Now, of course, these will also be people who are very quick to tell you they still believe in God, as though that is somehow going to get them somewhere. We have to be very clear: The Lord came into this world and He called people to repentance. He called people to change their lives and that has not changed. The same proclamation is being made that the kingdom of God is in your midst.

The kingdom of God in this world is the "Roman Catholic Church", and it is there for anyone who desires the fullness of truth. We live in a time where we have lots of people who want to call themselves Catholic but do not want to follow the teachings of Christ. Once again, we must be very clear: They have divorced themselves from the Church. There is no such thing as a Catholic with a “but” at the end of that; you either are Catholic or you are not. If you are Catholic, it means you are going to follow the fullness of the teachings of Christ; and if you do not want to follow the teachings of Christ, you have cut yourself off from Christ. You can still say you believe in Jesus – but so does Satan. That is not saying much just to be able to say, “Well, I believe in God,” or, “I believe in Jesus.” Saint James says that the demons do as much and they tremble, but that was not enough to keep them from falling and it certainly is never going to be enough to get them out of hell. They have made their choice. Oh, they believe in God, and not only do they believe in Him but they know God. They know the reality of God, they know the reality of what God requires, and they decided that they knew a better way. Jesus says in the Gospel reading that He saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky.

But He tells us, Do not rejoice so much that the demons are subject to you as that your names are written in Heaven. The only thing that matters is to be able to go to Heaven; nothing else matters at all. Everything needs to be looked at in light of eternity: “Is this going to bring me closer to God, or is it going to lead me away from Him?” Nothing else matters. Everything is going to be left behind; everything in this world is passing. The whole world is going to pass away one day in fire, and what will remain is our souls. So we need to look very carefully at what it is that we are doing. Are we saying that we believe in Jesus but our lives betray the reality that we do not? Or are we truly seeking to live the life of Christ? Saint Paul makes very clear what that is going to be when he says, May I boast in nothing but the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ through which I have been crucified to the world and the world has been crucified to me. He understood there was only one thing that was of true value, and that was eternal life. And there is only one way to eternal life, and that is through the Cross.

We look at the first reading and we hear about Israel and the New Jerusalem and about nursing with delight and being fed. That is exactly what we have the opportunity to do. The Church is the New Jerusalem, the New Israel in our midst, and we have the fullness of the teaching of Christ. We have the fullness of truth right there at our disposal to feed our souls, and we will find comfort and we will rejoice. But notice what God says right at the very beginning of the reading: that those rejoicing in Jerusalem are those who have mourned over her. When we look at the state of the Church today we need to mourn, not because somehow the teaching is not there because it is –the fullness of the truth is not going to be destroyed or taken away or watered down, it is there for anybody who wants it. The Church is still the Mystical Body of Christ and the fullness of truth subsists only in the Roman Catholic Church, as the Second Vatican Council tells us. All of that is there. So it is not the Church per se that we would mourn over but it is the deplorable state of what is going on within the Church that we need to mourn over, but to do so in a proper way – not gloating: “I have the truth and these other poor souls do not,” that is not what it is about; not rejoicing: “Because the vast majority of Catholics are not living their faith, it’s okay for me not to live my faith either. After all, if the majority is doing it, it must be all right. That’s the American way, isn’t it?” We all know better than that too. But it is to be able to look at the reality and see that there are people who are making willful choices against the truth and against God. We need to pray for those people. We need to bring to the world the same announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand.

In the last line of the first reading, it says that you will see the power of God as He restores Jerusalem. In our day, we are going to see the power of God as He restores the Church. Not to the glory of all the wealth and all the things that one might think about, but rather to the glory of the truth, to pure and unadulterated worship of God. That is what the Church is all about. We are going to see that happen, and what a glorious day it is going to be! But before that happens, the Church is going to be crucified and we will be able to say with Saint Paul, I bear the marks of Jesus in my body, and we will rejoice in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The choice is given to each one of us. The time is at hand. Are we going to choose the Lord? Are we going to walk with Him to Calvary? Are we going to allow ourselves to be crucified with the Church? Or are we going to abandon Christ in the time of His Passion? Either way, the announcement is the same, but the question we have to ask is “Are we going to be ready to receive Our Lord, or are we going to reject Him? Is He going to shake the dust from His feet right in front of us because we do not want anything to do with Him, because we are embarrassed of Him, because what He is asking of us is too hard?” Look at the crucifix and see the price of your soul. Look at how valuable you are to God. Was that too hard? Jesus did not think so; in fact, He told His disciples that this is what He was longing for. It is what He desired.

Are we willing to go with Him to Calvary? Are we willing to be crucified with Christ? Each and every one of us without exception is going to need to make that choice because the day is at hand. Are we willing to go with Jesus? Are we willing with Saint Paul to boast in the Cross of the Lord? Not at a distance, not theoretically, but from the Cross. Are we willing to be crucified with Christ? If so, you are going to see the glory of the Church restored in the fullness of what She truly is. The truth will be recognized, accepted, and understood by all those who are willing to go to the Cross with Our Lord. The truth is going to be rejected and it is going to be trampled underfoot by those who reject the Cross. There are only two choices in this situation. It is either for Jesus Christ or it is against Him. It is for the Cross or it is against the Cross. It is to be crucified with Christ or it is to run away. There will be no standing at a distance looking and saying, “Well, yeah, I believe in Jesus but…” The dust will be shaken against us and we will have made our eternal choice.

We need to make that choice, we need to make it seriously, and we need to be committed to what it is that we have chosen. The glorious day of the Lord is at hand and we need to praise Him for that. What a joy that we have the opportunity to be crucified with Christ. The saints throughout history have longed for this day and they did not see it, but God in His mercy has chosen us to have the privilege of being crucified with the Church. We have to make a choice. The Mystical Body is soon to be nailed to the Cross – are you willing to be nailed with Him? Or are you going to walk away? There will be no standing at the foot of the Cross, at a distance, beating our breasts and wondering what happened. If you are not on the Cross, you have no part of Christ. Anyone who wants to be a bystander has cut themselves off from the Lord. We need to be very, very clear so that no one will be able to say they did not know. Each one of us with Saint Paul will be able to say, May I boast in nothing but the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ through which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me. Each one of us who is willing to go to Calvary with Christ will be able to say, I bear the marks of Christ in my own body. We finally, thanks be to God, have an opportunity to be real Catholics, to be real Christians, to really put into action the faith that we profess. This is the most glorious of all times, if we are willing to accept His invitation. The kingdom of God is at hand. The choice is entirely ours. Will we choose the world? Or will we be crucified through the world? Will we choose the Cross and ascend in glory to heaven? Or will we reject the Cross and fall like lightning from the sky? There are only two possibilities, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Monday July 4, 2005

Independence Day

Reading (Genesis 28:10-22a)

Gospel (St. Matthew 9:18-26)

In the readings today, we see very clearly what true freedom is all about. We can compare that to what our country is celebrating in so many unfortunate ways on this day. Of course, on the secular level there is the celebration of freedom from a foreign power, that we have independence and can do what we want as a nation. But that has been completely twisted now to the point where “I can do anything that I want and no one can tell me any different. I have complete autonomy and freedom means license.” But what we see in the readings today is very different from that.

We see, first of all, in the first reading, Jacob (whose name would later be changed to Israel) going to this place that he would call Bethel. Bethel means “the house of God.” In this place he has a vision of the angels of the Lord going up and down on this ladder, and he recognizes that God dwells in this place, which is why he changed the name. It is in the dwelling place of God that we find full freedom for our souls because each one of us is the dwelling place of God. God dwells within each one of us if we are in the state of grace. And so it is with God within that we have freedom from everything that would keep us bound.

In the Gospel, we see that there is freedom from death as Jesus raises this little girl from the dead. But not freedom from physical death, rather freedom from eternal death, that we have the freedom to live forever. Now every single soul, we know, is going to live forever in one of two places. But for us it is the freedom to live with God and to live without sin for all eternity. For those who make the wrong choices in this life and choose eternity with Satan, there will be no freedom at all. They will be held bound to the slavery of sin in which they are already in, and they will be held bound by slavery to one who hates them. For those who love God, on the other hand, the freedom of the children of God is going to be theirs, and it already is. They have the freedom to live according to the way that God created us to live because we have the grace of God to be able to do it. It is not something we can do on our own. It is purely a gift.

We see also in the Gospel reading today that this woman who is afflicted with a hemorrhage comes up to the Lord, touches His cloak, and Jesus simply looks at her and says, Courage, daughter, your faith has healed you. If we have true and complete faith in Jesus Christ, we have freedom from everything that this world afflicts us with. We have freedom from anxiety and worry. We have freedom from oppression, inside and out. We have freedom from sin. We have freedom from Satan. We have freedom from everything that is going to hold us bound because we are in Christ and Christ has overcome everything that can even possibly hold us in bondage. That is the gift that is given to us.

And as we celebrate in a secular way today the freedom that we have as a country, anybody who is a true Christian must realize how we have perverted the concept of freedom in this country. It really cannot even be called a secular holiday because the way it is celebrated can only be called pagan. It is freedom to sin. Saint Paul asks the simple question about the freedom that we have as the children of God: Does that mean we are free to sin? By no means. We have the freedom to act according to the Will of God, the freedom to be the children of God.

So what we have to do is make sure that we understand and celebrate in a proper way what true freedom is. True and perfect freedom is to do the Will of God. It is just that simple. Perfect freedom is doing God’s Will. Each and every one us, being the dwelling place of God and having the grace of God, is able to do the Will of God. It is in that that we must rejoice. Far more important than freedom from any foreign power is the freedom from the ultimate foreign power – and that is Satan. We have the freedom to act according to the way that God has created us to act, and we have the freedom to become the persons God created us to be. It is in that that there is great rejoicing. So we thank God for the freedoms that we have been granted in this country, but most of all we need to thank God for the freedom that has been granted us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: freedom from death, freedom from sin, freedom from oppression at the hands of the enemy of our soul, so that we can live in the true freedom of the children of God.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

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