Second Sunday of Advent
December 4, 2016
By Rev. Bob Johnnene OFM
Mission Saints Sergius & Bacchus/ Order
Franciscans of Mercy
Reformed Catholic Church
Based on Reading froms: Isaiah 11:1-10,; Psalm 72, Romans
15:4-9, Matthew 3:1-12
“The Lord will come to save all nations, and your
hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice” the words are the Entrance antiphon for the Second
Sunday of Advent.
The opening prayer for
this Sunday is asking that nothing may hinder us from receiving Christ with
joy.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”
We do not make people feel
comfortable when we are constantly chiding them for things that they have no
control over. We do not make people
less sad when we tell them that they are unwanted in God’s house not for having
committed a grievous sin like murder, robbery, or cursing Almighty God, but for
being true to how God created them.
Recently Pope Francis in a statement to Polish Bishops
had the following comment; “transgenderism
is similar to genetic modification and the nuclear arms race, both of which are
technologies designed to destroy creation. Both of these abominations, as well
as transgenderism, represent blatant sinful acts against Creator God,
" Pope Francis did clarify his statement about transgender
being an abomination by saying this; "These people must be accompanied as Jesus
accompanied them," said Francis. "It's one thing if a person has this
tendency and also changes sex. It's another thing to teach this in school to
change mentalities. This is what I call 'ideological colonization. In addition,
teaching the "gender theory" in schools is one of the threats that
spark a "world war against marriage." When asked how he would
minister to Catholics struggling with their gender identity or sexual
orientation, he said he would not abandon them because this is what Jesus would
do.
The Pope also acknowledged that the issue of
transgender Catholics is a problem of morality which must be resolved. However,
he cautioned that the issue must always be addressed with God's mercy and
"within the truth."
Sadly, what Pope Francis evidently does not know is
that his statement and other statements that the church has made about GLBT
persons has generated violence and even death against Gay, lesbian, and
Transgender individuals.
Some of the Roman Bishops who have spoken out in favor
of GLBT persons need to open the pope’s eyes that when the pontiff makes a
statement like the one he made it reinforces the mentality of those people who
are homophobic and they feel justified in their acts of violence and bigotry.
The Roman Church also bans and has fired people who
teach scientific facts, as I do, that God creates people with their sexual
orientation and that some people are born with the body of one gender but the
overriding chromosome that controls their inner feelings and mind is making
them feel like the opposite of what their body is this has a scientific name,
“Dysphoria”.
The Roman church throughout
history has often refused to acknowledge accepted scientific facts and now they
refuse to accept that people are born with a homosexual orientation, or that in
the process of their creation some genes did not evolve so an individual might
have the outward physical form of a male or a female but their psychological
mind and even their external actions are those of the opposite sex their bodies
carry. This refusal of accepting majority scientific findings is just like
their refusal to accept the finding of Galileo and persecuted him.
True they repented
hundreds of years later for that and all the other many sins that the hierarchy
of the church committed in the name of God.
That did not make
Galileo’s life any easier while he was alive and if a few hundred years from
now they decide that they were wrong and indeed God does create people with
their sexual orientation or that some individuals are born with the physical
appearance of one sex but their seminal self and their anatomic sex are of the
opposite sex, making them feel that the reflection they see in a mirror has a
very strong disassociation from who they are and it is usually, accompanied by
a kind of shock, confusion, or mental jarring. They have a strong, gut-level
sensation that whoever is behind the mirror is not them that everything thing
is wrong and surreal, they feel like their life is a mirage, alien, unreal, and
very distant, giving them persistent discomfort about their assigned sex and
its usual gender role; the Mental inner feeling may become apparent in
childhood or not appear until adolescence or adulthood. Individuals may attempt
to live as members of the opposite sex and seek hormonal and surgical treatment
to bring their anatomy into conformity with their belief. Being Transgender is
not the same as transvestism.
Just as the churches
apology for refuting Galileo’s scientific findings did not help him during his
life their awakening to scientific fact about homosexuals and transgender
persons in the future will not help those who are being persecuted and often
murdered now.
In this year proclaiming
and honoring God’s infinite mercy we need to realize that children of God are
hurting now !
People are starving now
and they need comfort now
Those who are dying from
lack of food, living in housing that is inadequate or being discriminated
against and abused because they are homosexual or transgender need to find the comfort
of God’s love from those of us who claim we love God and Jesus Christ.
The Gospels are full of
stories of how Jesus reached out to the poor, lame, lepers, the “unclean” the
non-Jew and the eunuch. He did not withhold His love and healing from anyone if
they believed and desired to follow Him, .
He did not reject someone
because they were not of the Jewish faith. No! He reached out to all people.
Our second reading reminds
us that a day to the Lord could mean a thousand years and a thousand years like
a day.
For us, God’s children and
the brothers and sisters of Christ, we are here to do God’s work in our time;
we are here to make changes in our time. We need to evaluate how we treat
others like Christ would have treated them.
Do we accept all as Christ
did, or do we discriminate because we are self-righteous and think that our
lives are exactly how everyone else should live theirs?
The second reading also
tells us that God wants NOBODY to be lost.
Have we answered the call
“Come follow me” as Peter and Andrew did, and began living our lives according
to the directions Christ Gave us in the Beatitudes and with the words “Love the
Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as
yourself”
Do we do for our neighbor
what we want done to us?
These are questions we
need to ask ourselves during this Advent season as we prepare to celebrate the
wondrous birth of Our Savior especially this week when we celebrate the
Immaculate Conceptions of Our Lady on Thursday.
God ordained that she be
born free of the stain of original sin so that her womb would be a pure vessel
for His son to be conceived from.
Let us look to Our lady
for guidance as to how to conduct our lives and ask her to intercede to her
beloved son on our behalf that we become more open and accepting of others.
That we live our life daily in a way that brings honor and glory and praise to
Almighty God by consoling all those who are suffering and in need that we meet
on our daily journey of life. Amen
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