Feast of Saint Giovanni Calabria (4 Dec 2008)

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of visiting with friends of mine who have a beautiful family of well-educated and accomplished people. It was a joy to be with them and hear of their activities and the new babies that are coming into the family.However, there is a heart-breaking situation among them because one of their daughters has married a man who has turned his back on reason and prudence and virtue and has become addicted to drugs. In the gospel of today’s Mass, Our Divine Lord contrasts the wise man who builds his house upon rock and the fool who builds his house upon sand. When the weather grows stormy, the house on rock stands firmly. The house on sand collapses.

We — all that we are, all that we have, all that we do, are like one of those houses and one of those two builders. Are we wise, or are we fools? Are our houses wisely built upon rock, or foolishly built upon sand? That family of whom I speak are certainly wise. How the young woman came to marry the man she did, I don’t know. And what drove her husband to surrender his rational, intelligent, productive life to the false pleasures of narcotics, I have no idea. But these things happen, and we see the tragic results of them.

Our Divine Lord tells us: heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. The truth and value of God’s commandments are eternal and will last longer than our earthly sky and world.

These considerations remind me of an experience I had during my days in the Navy in California during the Korean War. I was stationed at the naval air station in Alameda, just across the bay from San Francisco. One day, one of the men that I worked with invited me to come visit his family in Monterey, California, over the weekend. We drove down there, and as we entered the house, the first thing I noticed in the living room was a table near the door on which there were about six Sunday missals, one for each member of the family. Whether they were there all week long, or whether they had been put out in preparation for Mass that Sunday, I don’t know. But there they were, proclaiming silently but very effectively that this was a Catholic family who worshipped God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sundays. What a great thing to see when you go into a home unknown to you and prepare to meet a family you’ve never met before! These were people of faith, of prayer, of worship. These were people whose house was built upon the rock of their love of God. I felt at home immediately; they were members of what is called “the household of the faith.” I have lost track of that family; I can’t even remember their names. But I remember very clearly those missals in their living room and the fact that we all attended Mass that Sunday. If we keep the Lord’s day holy, the Lord’s day will keep us holy. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.