Thirteenth Sunday Get Baptized into Christ Deacon Louis Zemlick July 4th real Freedom, Christ

2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16a. b is you are a man of God do not LIE to your servant. No catechism teaching except vs. 16b to all our hearts.

Psalm 89:2-3, 16-19 Abrahams Faith give Birth even today. Especially in America.

Romans 6:3-4, 8-11 Missing Vs. 5-7 read the church doesn't want to talk about Sin yet we are. CCC means Catechism Catholic Church. CCC537,628,648,654,658,730,790,977,1006,1085,1227,1694,1697,1987 To learn and teach to Echo Down what the Holy Catholic Church has done for Us, What God has done for us Thru Christ Jesus and the Power of the Holy Spirit and Fire.

Gospel Matthew 10:37-42 CCC858,1506,2232 WE have been Baptized INTO the Life of Jesus, Birth life death resurrection, we are called into this mission of Love, to battle against the darkness and to heal The broken.

Blessed Mother Mary Pray for us to your Son Jesus help make us worthy Sons of God.

DeaconLouisZemlick.com    Please come home, and invite someone.   

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone. This is Deacon Louis Himeleck here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan. We're glad you're with us here today for this 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. We just call ourselves the Epiphany Radio Program. You hear that beautiful. So the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Playing that off of the internet, off of YouTube. And uh yeah, it's quite beautiful. It's actually an adoration. Uh we can talk about adoration a little bit too, but of a yeah, so we've got that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Got that going for us. Beautiful music, beautiful Catholic hymns and music.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So um got some great readings today, and of course, you know, next Saturday is Independence Day. I believe it's next Saturday. And um, but also this week and this day, um, June 29th, Saint, which is tomorrow, uh, St. Peter and St. Paul, June 30th, the first martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, the first of July, Saint Junipur Sarah, priest. And the third, July 3rd, is Saint Thomas the Apostle. So some great feast days there, as we always have in the church, you know, great intercessors for us, those who have gone before us, who can help us maybe and even help us to relate better in the church to uh whatever situation we're going through. And it's quite beautiful to, you know, I have a great devotion to say, and even if it's your own name, that's the other thing. Even if it's your own name. I'm gonna read the scriptures here in just a minute. I just want to give you a little tidbit to just think something to think about while we're uh pretending we're in church, you know, because but this does not replace going to mass. Believe me, it does not even come close to being in the real presence of Jesus Christ and going to Mass, even if you are not um ready to go to Mass, maybe just go and sit in the empty Catholic church or go to a daily mass and just sit there and listen and be healed, my brothers and sisters. Um, no matter what age you are, whether you're five or fifteen or fifty, we all have healing that we need to go through. And especially young people, you know, any young people who are listening, listen, life, life is hard. You know, they make it, they make everything seem like it's uh real easy and everything like that, or you know, getting divorced is easy. And you know, you know, think about the kids, you know, everybody thinks, well, the kids are very resilient. Yes, they're very resilient, but they take in everything. They take in everything, and it's and it's so important. You know, my age, I have grandchildren now, but it's so important when you talk to them how you can crush them so easily by saying uh just by raising your voice, just by getting your voice way up there, you know, it can just really, it can really crush a person. So I'm just I'm just saying be attentive to that. But listen, we all need healing. Hopefully these words today will help. But I encourage you, encourage you, encourage you, go to holy mass, receive the sacraments, and receive the sacraments worthily, you know. Um, you know, the church is a gathering place. It is not a sacrament factory. You think about that. I heard someone say that this last week, that some people treat the church like a sacrament factory. And maybe we can do that. You know, we think, wow, I've received Holy Communion. Um, you know, I've received some sacramentals, holy water, and blessed myself and said some prayers and was with the community, but I didn't talk to anybody. I got what I needed, and I left. That is not worshiping God, my brothers and sisters. And that's not going to holy mass. That's not going to church. You need to try to connect. You need to, you know, maybe look around a little bit, see if there's anybody you know, or maybe you don't want somebody to see somebody you know. But uh we're all in need of healing, no matter what your age is, whether you're five or fifty or a hundred, um, we all need healing. We all have something that uh is bothering us, you know, uh preventing us from getting good sleep, preventing us from loving, really, yeah, preventing us from loving. And it'd be so sad, you know, if you know we die and then we go to heaven and Jesus says to us, why did you stop? Why did you stop loving me? Because that's what God's gonna say. Why did you stop loving me? In other words, why did you stop loving God? And you know, we can make a lot of excuses, you know, well, my mom died, or you know, this happened, or that happened. And I'm sorry, you know, tragedies do happen, but at the end of the day, sooner or later, you know, after a few years go by, we finally realize wow, I could have helped others. I could have helped others who have gone through the tragedy of losing a child or losing a spouse or getting divorced or losing a job or going bankrupt, right? Or losing a business. Come close to doing that a few times. Think about this. My brothers and sisters, our greatest tragedies can be our greatest strengths. See? Our greatest tragedies can be our greatest strengths. Most of you know that I'm in recovery, and I, you know, I talked about that last week at a meeting. Mentioned that last week. St. Paul talks about that, you know, about the thorn he has in his side. Ask God to remove her, get this rid of this thorn. I hate this thorn in my side. It's sin, it's trauma, it's life, it's painful, it's annoying, and we blame God for it. When God is teaching us, teaching us how to be like Him. And in our baptism, in our baptism, my brothers and sisters, we have entered into this life of Christ, and it is not an easy life. Much better than without Christ, absolutely, but still, we have entered into this life with Christ. Okay, so there. I preached a little bit there for seven minutes, and now we're gonna go right into the scriptures. So these are the holy scriptures that are set at mass throughout the world, and um uh I always get these from uh the USCB.org website, and they have daily readings there, they have a lot of good information there. Also, EWTN is a great source, as well as um uh catholic.com, catholic.com, which is catholicans uh. Okay, here we go. Uh 2 Kings verse 4, 8 through 11, and then 14 through 16 a. We'll read the half sentence too, which is kind of funny. Or read the half sentence at the end when I preach about all the readings. Okay, here we go. One day Elisha came to Shannum, where where where there was a woman of influence who urged him to dine with her. Afterward, whenever he passed by, he used to stop there and dine. So she said to her husband, I know that Elisha, a holy man of God, since he visits us often, let us arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for him with a bed, a table, chair, and lamp. So when he comes to us he can stay there. Sometime later Alicia arrived and stayed in the room overnight. Later Alicia asked, Can something be done for her? His servant Gahazal answered Yes. She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years. Elisha said, Call her. When the woman had been called and stood at the door, Elisha promised this time next year you will be fondling a baby son. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. And you could also translate that holding a baby son. Sometimes we look at these words and we don't think they're correct, but it's it's old English. Okay, here we go. Psalm eighty-nine, verse two through three, sixteen through seventeen, or excuse me, sixteen through nineteen. Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord. The promises of the Lord I will sing forever. Through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness, for you have said my kindness is established forever. In heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness. Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord. Bless the people who know who know the joyful shout. In the light of your continence, O Lord, they walk. At your name they rejoice all the day, and through your justice they are exalted. Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord. You are you are the splendor of their strength, and by your favor our horn is exalted, for to the Lord belongs our shield and the holy one of Israel, our king. Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord. Our second reading is from the book of Romans, chapter six, verses three through four and eight through eleven. Now we gotta read five and seven in between part two. We'll do that. Brothers and sisters, are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Were we indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live as newness of life. If then we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all. As to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. That is so powerful. I can't wait to read the other part. But we're gonna read the gospel. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. This is Matthew chapter 10, verses 37 through 42. A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord. Jesus said to his apostles, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward, and whoever gives only a cup of cold water to the one of these little ones to drink, because the little one is a disciple. Amen. I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward. The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. May the words of this gospel wipe away our sins. Wow, that last part is so powerful because the little one is a disciple. Now we we we talk about, you know, one of the one of the criticisms of the Catholic Church by other churches is that we baptize babies. And look at what this gospel says, because this little one is a disciple. Amen. I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward. You my brothers and sisters, do not believe the silliness of the world, of these factional churches, many of them splintered away from the Catholic Church some 500 years ago. And I tell you, the theology and the thinking has gotten worse and worse and worse. Worse and worse and worse. This is why you see so many young people with the interest of coming back into the Catholic Church. They know that their grandfather and their great-grandfather, mothers, families, ancestors from their lands, even throughout the Middle East, my brothers and sisters, you know, the country of Turkey was a Christian country, a Catholic country. Virtually the entire country. And many of these areas over there in the Middle East, even in Africa, are converted by the sword. Converted by the sword, forced. Or, you know, here your people are starving, so here's $20 so you can feed your family. Oh, you gotta do you just gotta join our religion. It's a very, it's a bad, it's a sickness to do such thing, do such things to people. Okay, so here we go. We're halfway through. And I and I think about this, and and and you know, as I was talking about that earlier, about this, you know, it just just hit me like a ton of bricks, that we are called to be like Christ, to invite everyone. You know, no matter what church you're going to now, no matter what religion you are, whether you're a Muslim or whether you're an atheist or or or agnostic or a Zoroastrian. The interesting part is about in the country of Iran is most of those people were Zoroastrians. See? Most of them there's Zoroastrians, but they were, of course, converted by the sword and endless with Islam, right? Forced. Forced. And in a certain way, that's the world's religion. The world's religion is forced upon us. Many places, you know, if you don't believe the worldly things, you know, you can't work there. If you don't believe all of the worldly things and all of the sinful ways of our world, well, you can't do business with us. I'm sorry, you got you got to go somewhere else. You know, you're an extreme Christian. When the fact of the matter is, the only thing extreme about the Catholic Church is love. It's love, my brothers and sisters, and it is truth. And it has lasted some 2,000 years. We think about this with come this coming Independence Day. Well, in a certain way, the church teaches, yes, independence is good, but dependence is also good. Dependence upon God. It's what you depend on that matters. See what you depend on. And God tells us quite good quite frankly in this gospel reading today, quite just quite plainly, last week too, you must depend on God. You must love God first. And then all of your other relationships will be better. See? So we think to ourselves and we have to ask ourselves, no, where am I at in my life? Am I happy in my life? Or do I just bend with whatever the world tells me I have to believe? You have to believe this, you have to believe that. I think about it with the with the global warming, global heating, the you know, or freezing, right? With the weather. The politicians have taken the weather and some of the businesses too, but and and and just twisted our minds into a knot that oh, we're we're all gonna we're all gonna die. It's the it's and they basically saying it's the end of the world. This is it. Really? This is it now? Right now, all this stuff's been going on in the world, you're saying it's gonna happen now? Well, maybe it is, but I'll tell you what, I don't think it's made by us. Now I'm all for clean water and clean air and you know, pick up your trash. I saw a kid walking the other day, too, and just undoes a thing and just throws the trash out. How sick is that? You know, pick up your garbage, stop acting like pigs, stop acting like children. See? I mean, it's like really, you know, and people will say, Well, I have the freedom to do that, I have the independence to do that. No, you don't. Because God's gonna ask you, maybe when you get to heaven, if you get to heaven, judgment day, stand in front of God, and God asks you, Why do you constantly do that? And you might say, Well, I'm angry. I'm what are you angry about? I'm angry because I never knew my dad. I never knew my mom. They never called me, or they're constantly on their phones, or they're constantly on Facebook, but they never have time for me. Right? They're constantly loaning their friends money, but they won't give me anything. See, almost like the prodigal son's resentment, right? We think about that. Think about that. But our baptism, my brothers and sisters, if you haven't been baptized, get baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. And you might say, Deacon Louis, there's no way I want to do that. I'll be baptized into Christ's death. I'll be baptized into the crucifixion. I'll be baptized into people spitting on me and hitting me and harassing me and cussing and swearing at me, people who will not hire me, people who will fire me because I believe in Jesus, because I believe in God, because I believe in the truth, because I believe in doing the right thing, because I believe in authentic and real love. The world hates it, the devil hates it. And yes, many businesses and institutions and government agencies hate it. So we have to keep our faith like a secret, right? But I tell you, my brothers and sisters, pray, pray, pray, because the truth is the truth, right? Into, not like, but into the life of Christ. Through our baptism. Our first reading is quite beautiful. There's no exact teaching on that 2 Kings, but read the entire story. Read the entire story of this 2 Kings chapter 4, verses 8 through 16A. And I'll tell you what got edited out of that. That's 16A. Holy Macro, where is it? I know it's I know I got it here. The 16a. Alicia promised, this time next year you will be cradling. See, there's a different word, right? Instead of fondling. Why do they use cradling? Jeez, this is so goofy. Cradling a baby son. She said, My lord, you are a man of God. Do not deceive your servant. Now there is a grown-up conversation with God. God makes a prophet promises something to this person, this woman, and she said, Don't you deceive me. Make sure you do this for me, right? And if you read the whole story, it's it's quite beautiful. It's quite beautiful. So no exact teaching on Psalm 89 is all about prayer and then baptism, uh, being baptized, being buried with Christ. Through baptism, the Christian is sacramentally assimilated into Jesus. You hear that? 537 of the catechism. And uh look at all of these catechism teachings. You're thinking about joining the church, read the catechism. You know, you say, read the Bible. Well, read the Bible, yeah, of course, yeah, read the Bible. But what am I supposed to live like as a Christian? What are the rules? What are the regulations? How am I supposed to act? How am I supposed to live? Okay, nobody else has got a catechism like the Catholic Church has got a catechism that says this is what it is, this is what it's all about. It's the battle between good and evil. Here's the instruction manual. We got two of them. We got the Bible, we got the Holy Bible, and we got the catechism of the Holy Catholic Church. See, it also keeps the bishops in line and the cardinals in line, hopefully, and the priests and the deacons and the sisters, keeping them in line, saying, No, this is the teaching, not what you think, not what you want to teach in this part of the country, this part of the world, this, that or the other thing. And the German Catholics are not all of them, but a good part of them. It's just like 500 years ago. They're rebellious. Rebellious. What makes them so rebellious? You know, I tell you what I think makes them so rebellious? Money. Money, money, money. Just like uh Mr. Krabs, right? And SpongeBob. Money, money, money. Money, money, money. That's what it's all about. The Father's voice. We become sons of God through our baptism. We are buried with Christ. Baptism, the original and full side of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the womb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. So if you want a new life, become Catholic, become a Christian, right? Leave the other religions behind. This is the fullness of God's revelation, my brothers and sisters, the Holy Catholic Church. All seven sacraments. All seven sacraments. Hear it again. All seven sacraments. The meaning and the saving significance of the resurrection. The Paschal mystery has two aspects. By his death, Christ liberates us from sin. By his resurrection, he opens for us the way to new life. It's from Romans 6, which we just read. These are also from Romans. The work of the Holy Trinity in the resurrection. It is the principle of our own resurrection. Even now, by the justification of our own souls, and one day, by the new life, he will impart to our bodies. That's from Romans 8. Okay, that's really good. We only got a few minutes left. One body, the resurrection, the Eucharist. This is especially true of baptism, which unites us to Christ's death and resurrection, and to the Eucharist, holy communion, by which really sharing in the one body of the Lord, we are taken up into communion with Him, with Him and with one another. 790 of the Catechism. Okay. Baptism in the church. Do you realize that we've all been baptized into Christ? Christ's work in the liturgy, this divine eternity, the paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he has destroyed death. And all that Christ is, all that he did and suffered for all men and women, participates in the divine eternity and transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the cross and the resurrection abides and draws everything toward life. And in a certain sense, my brothers and sisters, and then 1697 of the catechism, there's this catechesis. And read the catechism of the Catholic Church. If you're thinking about coming into the church, listen to this to teach and learn and to echo down. Hear that? Echo down. Through the last 2,000 years, the teachings of Jesus Christ, the teachings of God, what God has planned for us, my brothers and sisters, for you and for your families. So beautiful. So beautiful, my brothers and sisters. So go to Mass today. You know, I was going to look up these other scriptures, but I encourage you to look up Rome, read all Romans 6, 3 through 11. And the silly part that they left out, uh, Romans 6, 5, verses 5 and 7. Read those. I'm not going to look them up because I need to talk about this. Go to Mass. Come back to the church. Be healed. Heal your family. Heal these things that have happened in the past. Bring all of these things forward into the light of day and have God heal them for you, for your family, for all generations, my brothers and sisters. This is what recovery is about. This is what healing trauma is all about. It's all about love. God teaching us how to love. God bless you all. We love you. Happy birthday, America. God bless America. We love you.