Maybe I am a bit lazy with what I should post personally but I just got this Homily from Mass last Sunday from my sister in law through email.  Just a lot to to contemplate as a Christian mom.  The BUSY part really resonates on  me and I wanted to share it with you.  

Homily on 29^th Sunday of Ordinary Time 

Do we know what belongs to God? The coin that Jesus requested had the image of Caesar on it; Caesar is a symbol of government.  Therefore this coin symbolizes for us the duty that we have as citizens.  We give to our government (Caesar) what belongs to it in view of the common good, provided that what we give to the government does not first belong to God. 

And what is the image of God? Certainly it is not found on a coin, but is engraved upon our soul (mind/will). Our soul, made in the image of God, belongs to Him and it is to Him that we give ourselves.  In order to be able to give ourselves to Him, we first put on the mind of Christ in the formation of our conscience: we think as Catholics.  Faith is a pure gift from God; our life needs to be informed by our Catholic Faith.  If not, it is simply blind. 

Unfortunately Catholics often think and act as though Christ didn’t exist. 

Among many other things, what keeps many Catholics from thinking clearly about important matters is addiction to media.  This numbs the soul.  Henry Ford once said: “2% of people think; 3% of people think they think; and 95% of people would rather die than think.”  

The difficulty is that it is almost impossible to step outside our culture to get an objective look at these matters. Therefore we need to rely upon the teaching Church (Magisterium), which interprets the Word of God and sacred Tradition for us. We need to read the lives of the saints to see how they struggled with similar issues in their lives.  

We swim in our increasingly anti-Christian, pagan culture, and the temptation is for us to go with the flow.  Go with the flow?  In this respect I am reminded of what GK Chesterton said: “A dead body floats downstream; only a living body can swim against the current. 

What, then, are some practical guidelines to the negotiating some of the traps before us in media viewing?   

We need to be guided by our Catholic Faith in our discernment of media.  We are to respect our souls and not watch poisonous programs. Certainly we do not watch racy and steamy programs that robs the soul of innocence and makes a person cold and selfish (such as Grey’s Anatomy), or gratuitous violence that make one insensitive to sufferings others (NCIS, Criminal Minds). The danger to our soul is real. Yet people shrug and say: “It ain’t doing harm to nobody.”  But it harms our soul, made in such innocence. This purity of our soul belongs to God and we render to Him what is His. 

Then there are mindless soaps like Desperate Housewives (need I say more?), Hollywood gossip shows, such as Entertainment Tonight that only itches our ears about the latest scandal or affair in Hollywood. How is this type of program helping us get to heaven, or to keep our minds and hearts to our own business? 

Then there are some programs that simply are a waste of time.  Isn’t it ironic how some Catholics can memorize the finalists on Dancing with the Stars, but cannot list 10 commandments?  How many can name the starting lineup for Broncos but not repeat at least three saying of Jesus?  

Are we giving to God what belongs to Him?  Then there are cotton-candy talk shows such as Oprah, who peddles New Age spirituality. She recommends here viewers to read two new age books: Course in Miracles, and New Earth. And countless Catholics buy these books and drink in these errors without recognizing that it is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope that none of you read that garbage. Again, we give to God what belongs to Him: our mind formed by the saving truth of Jesus, and not a mind corrupted by New Age error. 

It is sad that so many Catholics are practically brainwashed by the media, which helps them justify supporting same-sex marriage and abortion, for example. These are not natural attitudes (like atheism), but are learned from others. Want a proof? Go into a second grade classroom and ask the children: “If a woman is pregnant with a child, should she give birth to her baby or get rid of it?”  They all will say something like: “Of course she should give birth, for it is a wonderful thing to have a new baby!” 

Even though children need to be educated and disciplined, they also preserve a pure vision of moral life.  They know intuitively what is good and evil. Children are never pro-abortion. This idea (attitude) is acquired later on in life, when adults lose this child-like innocence and convince themselves that abortion is permissible and it is OK to vote for those who support the killing of the children. 

Many are the causes of this self-deception: 1) selfishness 2) ignorance of Catholic Faith, 3) no prayer life. But much of it we inhale thru media.  

Satan wants to keep us from thinking through deception. He doesn’t do this in an obvious way but instead keeps us busy to prevent us from thinking about what is most important.  Listen to a description of the devil instructing lower demons on how to destroy a family this way:   

“Take this human family, too busy to pray, too busy to think about God, too busy to think about what is going on in their minds.  Tempt them to invent numerous schemes to spend, to borrow, to spend, to borrow.  Keep the father away working long hours, and the mom gone too.  Create a busy tension in the home, so even the home will not be a refuge from this tension and busyness.  Lead the parents to work 6-7 days a week, 10-16 hours a day so that they can afford this lifestyle.  Keep them from spending time with their children.  Over-stimulate their minds everywhere so that they will not have the time to think or hear the still small voice of God.  Create an atmosphere of noise where they will always have the radio on in the car, and the TV on at home.  Let them always be on the cell phone, addicted to it as to a drug. Lead the youth to be desensitized to the sufferings of others by their addiction to violent video games; and let their parents look the other way.  And keep Internet pornography a secret: by this sin we have emasculated millions of men and have prevented them from being loving fathers and faithful husbands. Let the topic of pornography never be mentioned by priests; this will remain our secret.”  

“Keep the family from the beauty of nature and seeing God there, but lead them to an excessive pursuit of pleasure at amusement parks and sporting events.  Let them to prefer movies to conversations.  See that all these things exhaust them and keep them unprepared for the coming week.  Make certain that all stores and restaurants have music and TVs that blare non-biblical and over-stimulating noise.  Overstuff their coffee tables with junk and news that only itches their ears and does not feed the soul.  Have billboards everywhere to tempt them to buy constantly; this will jam their minds and break their union with God.  Fill their minds with a 24 hour news cycle.  Flood their mailboxes with junk mail and all kind of newsletters, with offers of free services, promos, gimmicks, and false hopes.  Keep their mind on buying, buying, and buying. And when the stock market crashes, have them worry, worry, and worry.  It will be easier, then, to control their elections, for when they prepare to vote, they will be anxious about the economy and vote only with their financial future in mind.  Never let them think how their God has promised to be with them in good times and in bad.”  

“Let them form their political views according to media sound bites and on purely secondary issues.  Allow the killing of the millions of babies by abortion to continue.  We have been so successful in drenching their country in blood under our devious lie of freedom for choice. And let us make those Christians in the pro-life movement appear to be religious zealots who are out of touch with modern life.  Most of all, keep those Catholics so busy that they won’t take time to pray that Rosary of theirs, which has defeated us in so many of our battles and will inevitably defeat us in war over abortion.  Let them be content to watch an NFL game for 3 hours, while not investing even the 15 minutes it takes to pray that Rosary, which will slow down their lives, keep their family together, keep us out of their lives, and help them give themselves to God.” 

Such is the Tempter’s plan: for us to be too busy to slow down and find the time to pray. This is the wrong, sinful sense of busy: Being Under Satan’s Yoke. We need to pray much to be saved: not three Hail Marys in the shower or an Our Father as the head hits the pillow.  Many adult Catholics are praying at the level they were in elementary school. This is not enough.  We are called to an intimate, profound union with Jesus Christ in prayer.  One in which we know that we are being saved at every moment.  And we find this greatest intimacy of prayer in the Holy Eucharist.  Let us use this time well. To be too busy to find time to pray is to be under Satan’s yoke. 

Let us think as Catholics and render to God what belongs to Him. Did you know that the average American of 65 years old will have spent 9 years in front of the TV? I think that we can do better than that.  Take some time out today and pick up the Sacred Scripture (and/or the Catechism) and read the saving truth of Jesus for 15 minutes. And then take up the Rosary and pray it for another 15 minutes (and invite your family to pray with you). 

Having, then, put on the mind of Christ, you can be confident that every day and in every way, at school, at home, at work, in the voting booth, you render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. 

Finally, let me emphasize that the right to life is the fundamental right.  Every other human right depends on protecting the sacredness of life from conception to natural death.  The Founding Fathers recognized this in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  They did not list these rights in any random order, but they recognized that first comes life, and only after the right to life come liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

The issue of abortion issue embarrasses some Catholics and they would rather not talk about it (after all, it is uncomfortable knowing that 47 million children have been put to death in our nation since Roe vs. Wade and this killing continues.  Archbishop Chaput recently said in a talk: “And because the homicides involved in abortion are ''little murders'' - the kind of private, legally protected murders that kill conveniently unseen lives - it's easy to look the other way.” How easy it is indeed to look away and focus on secondary issues. But our Jesus our Savior reminds us to care for the least among us, the most helpless: the unborn. 

We can be certain that we will be judged by Christ at our death on 1) whether we vote, and 2) how we vote. Will we vote a Catholic, or (sadly) as someone who just happens to be Catholic? 

It should be clear to us, my brothers and sisters, what we are to render unto Caesar, and what we should render unto God. 
 

Father Gary Selin