Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost – September 30, 2012 by Father Trinh

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Lord Jesus graciously heals us of our sins. Generally speaking, we need to express our sorrow for our sins, we need to show some sign of faith in the Lord Jesus, and, then, receive the forgiveness and blessing from the Lord. In only a few rare occasions, one of which is recorded for us in Matthew, according to St. Matthew, Chapter IX today, we understand that a group of people brought to the Lord Jesus, a person who was sick, who has the palsy lying on the bed. This man cannot move by himself. And it’s recorded for us, quote, “And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the man sick with palsy, ‘Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee’” unquote. The Lord Jesus saw their faith and He had compassion upon the man with palsy. The Lord can look at us, and if the Lord sees our faith, our charity for our neighbors, seeing, for example, in our families and in our spiritual family here, Our Lady Help of Christians, if the Lord saw that we utilize our faith and practice charity by caring for the sick in our parish through the Lord, He will bless all of us, and especially, He will forgive the sins of the person whom we refer to.

Of course, I’m not talking about black magic and impatience, as though we just do a couple of pious actions and the Lord will have to forgive us our sins. I am not talking about that. The Church is talking about our faith and our charity to assist our neighbor even to ask the Lord to forgive them their sins, and often it will be done. Do you ever think about it? Many persons, perhaps even your relatives and close friends, fail to receive the blessing and the forgiveness of God because you and I are so stubborn and close our hearts, and refuse to assist them with our prayers, our penance and all else, even to carrying them to the Lord.

So let us sincerely ask the Lord to help us so that we can work together under the leadership of our Pastor, Monsignor Perez, so that we can effectively carry the sick to the Lord, and ask the Lord to heal them, to forgive them of their sins. Please note in our scripture today, the Lord put the forgiveness of sins above the healing of the flesh.

Don’t try to be charismatic to heal the flesh. It is a trap of the devil. If we focus too much on sensational healing of our flesh — Yes, the Lord still continues to heal our flesh. The quickest way is to make sure you come and see your doctor regularly, have a checkup, and the Lord will work miracles through your doctor and nurses and all those who can care for your body. Save time, precious time, to ask the Lord to heal us of our sins, because sin will bring death upon our soul. We might have to go to hell because we refuse to repent. But we won’t go to hell just because we have physical sickness. So, why should we worry too much about healing our physical body and neglect to heal our spiritual souls?

So, the Lord Jesus taught us by healing the soul, forgiving the sin of the man with palsy and of us if we sincerely approach Him in humility. Ask God for the grace to go to confession often. Ask God that we will prepare ourselves well, so that when the Lord says to us, as when He said to the sick man, “Arise, go. Your sins are forgiven”, make sure that we hear from our priest, Monsignor Perez, and his assistant priests, and hear often, (I recommend even once a week or more if you need it,) hear often from them the words of healing that the Lord allows His priests to say to you, Ego te absolvo. That’s healing. Sin ­­­­­binds us to death. Priests of God ­­­untie the binding and heal us. We should go often and prepare ourselves well, so that when the Lord says to us, “I forgive you of your sins. Go in peace”, we are ready to go. Many are lost because we are not there when the Lord, through His priest, wants to heal us and forgive us. Make sure we receive the blessing from the Lord. Ego te. You are the te that needs to be there. If you are not there in the confessional, you cannot receive healing of your soul.

Give thanks to the Lord after you receive it, and help others to receive healing, too, especially if others are children under your care. Arrange for them, show them not only by teaching but by your example that you love the Lord, that you have faith in the Lord Jesus. And you go to confession often to be healed of your sins, so that we can approach the holy altar of the Lord with good conscience, knowing that the Lord will nourish us with His Body, Himself. So we prepare ourselves well so that we can be intimate to our God. Then when we approach closer to Him, He will not feel offended because of our unrepented sins. We want, when we kneel down to receive communion, the Lord on the hands of our priests to look down and feel joy because in a split second He will come down into a soul that obeys Him and obeys the Church and prepare their souls well, so that they will be pure and receive the Lord.

Quickly, five major steps so that we prepare ourselves to be healed, to be forgiven of our sins.

First, we must use the commandments of the Lord, the traditional guidance of the Church, to examine ourselves, bring out the sin that we have offended the Lord. Some are small, and look like ­­­­­­­­­­headache, some are deep and like cancer. We need to bring them out so that the Lord can touch them and heal us. Examine well, and do not try to cover our sickness.

Be humble. Ask the Lord for the grace to be humble and be wise. We are weak and sick, but the Lord is strong and holy and He wants to help us, so approach Him with faith. Examine ourselves well and sincerely ask God for the inner tears of sorrow. Sorrow because we have offended the Lord, first of all. Weaker but still good, sorrow because we inflict our souls by not going to confession so that our souls become weaker and weaker and we might die and have no opportunity to confess our sins and go to heaven. So, feel sorry for our sins.

And make the resolution, promise to the Lord, with Your help, with Your grace, I will not commit sins again. And even if I am able to keep this resolution only for one second, it is worth it if I desire not to displease You, my Lord Jesus.

Resolution — you know, the saints often pray. Ask for the grace that the day will come when you may pray like this. Don’t pray if you are not ready, because the Lord might listen to you and zap you to death. Make sure that you are ready. The saints often pray, Lord, help me so that I do not commit mortal sins, any sin against You. And I prefer death rather than commit mortal sin against You, my Beloved Savior.

But make sure, if you are in doubt, talk to Monsignor Perez, make sure you are ready. Because, if you are not careful, you might be dead next morning. Okay? Make sure you are ready because the Lord might listen to you and allow you to die early, rather than to give you a long life and you don’t know how to take care of your soul well and you end up in hell.

Fourthly, go to confession to a good traditional Catholic priest. Of course, in an emergency, any priest will be okay. But, regularly you should go to a good holy priest. Why? Because usually they will be tough on you. They will do surgery if you have cancer. If you go to easy priest, Oh, go home, no need to confess your sin, then you will be stuck in purgatory longer afterward because you do not do enough penance. So make sure you choose the toughest priest in your parish and go to him. Train yourself that you don’ t turn away from the forgiveness and blessing of the Lord just because the priest is rough. I, myself, prefer to go to the priest that will curse me and chastise me and embarrass me because he won’t let me go easy. He turns every rock around and makes it very tough. Make sure you prepare yourself the other three steps well, so when the fourth step come up you don’t need to cry and feel that the Lord abandoned you. Okay? So that you and I can say, Thanks, Lord. You humble me today. Very good, Lord. It shows that it is very beautiful to receive absolution, but I need to help you by sincerely preparing myself to be healed, to be forgiven well. We need to pray so that I will not take it for granted your forgiveness.

Last step, make sure when you go out you do your penance right away, and, if you are children, you should do it right away. Otherwise, you forget. What if you forget and don’t do it now, later on in purgatory you will have to do it, plus interest. I warned you before, okay?

Five simple steps and do not let the devil deceive you by saying that, Oh, you will have time. You can continue to sin, and at the last minute the Lord is so merciful, He will forgive you your sins. Nonsense. The Lord needs to see faith. What happened that you lost the faith? And you have no one else who has real faith, real Catholic faith to pray for you. Remember the man who was sick with palsy today, the Lord forgave him because of the faithful community, who carried him to the Lord. What happens if you belong to a parish, a church, that they don’t care about believing in the Lord. Don’t trust in them. They might carry you to the demon, rather than the Lord. You know now, there are many places. I am surprised, including some of my relatives, that believe certain wacko communities who will carry them to charismatic healing, rather than line up themselves and go to confession. What would happen when the Lord looks at that crowd? My God, no one wants me to forgive them their sins. They all ask to be rich, to be healed of their little things, but the big cancer in their soul, no one asks me to forgive them.

My priests are ready to raise their hand and give them absolution, Ego te, and yet, they deny it, they don’t show up. They want a lay person and, worse, a non-Catholic, a pagan, to lay hands on their heads and bless them and heal them, but they don’t want Me and my priests to heal them with My sacrament of confession. I chose for them the method to be healed and to be nourished, but they do not have faith in Me and my word. They rejected Me. I feel vomited when I look at them. None of them has a pure faith that I wanted them to have. How can I help them and heal them. And none of them even want to have the true faith to please Me. They blaspheme against me. I have my sacred Holy Oils, and, here they said, No, use this sunflower oil for the healing. I have to turn my back, turn myself away from them until the time when they repent and ask Me to heal them and forgive them. I cannot do much for them. Look, I send them many of My saints, many of My teachings, many of My graces, and My sacraments, and they continue & continue to reject My blessing. What should I do? I teach man, Do not give the pearls to the swine, lest they will trample the pearls under their dirty feet and turn around and attack you. The beautiful pearls are the sacraments of the Lord, and among them, the pearl of the sacrament of confession, which will heal paralysis of the soul, which will heal the palsy of the soul, which will heal lukewarm faith in the soul. Let us be brave and go to the Lord and ask the Lord to heal us because the Lord wants to heal us. Our first reading, simple, to the Corinthians & to us, remind us the Lord wants to confirm in us by His sacraments, by His real teachings, so that we can wait for Him, for His second coming, knowing that we have only one Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And no matter what the world is turning and changing into, we calmly remain faithful Catholics to the end, because we know our faith in God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is always waiting for us at the gate of heaven. If we cannot go to heaven, it is our fault and no one else. If the Lord cannot raise His hand and say Ego te, we know that it cannot be done, because the Ego, the Lord, the priest, is there, but the te, you and I are not there to receive the healing.

Lord, we run away from you so many times. Please help us to accept your invitation and return to you, especially through your sacrament of confession, so that we can receive the sweetness of your charity, of your healing, of your forgiveness. Lord, train us and help us so that one day with the saints we may pray, Lord Jesus, I am yours and I prefer to be struck dead rather than commit mortal sin against You. Lord, until that day, we are weak and sinful, but You love us and want to heal us. Look at the faith of the real Catholic Church, and see it. The Mother Church still carries us who are sick and paralyzed in sin. Heal us, Lord.

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.