 liar and do not let one lie to you. Who is that liar? The liar is the one who tells you that Jesus Christ is not Lord, that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God. And don't we have a lot of liars in our world today that tell us, Jesus is just one holy person among many right up there with Buddha and Mohammed. Or people try to go for the great general, right? Hey, as long as you believe in God, whatever that means, then you're okay. Sometimes we hear the ridiculous claim, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe in something, completely ridiculous. So you're comfortable with someone worship Satan or worship the branched Davidians and causing harm or radical Islam. Are you okay with that? Well, no, no, no, not those. Well, then be careful what you say, because you say it's okay to believe in something or it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you believe in something, then be careful what you say. We know as Christians that God the Father sent his son Jesus Christ in order to save humanity, not just to save us who have accepted his claims, but to save humanity. There is one God and there is one Savior. As Christians, we have been marked from the beginning of our time as a church, when we've sent the time we were founded by the Lord Jesus by that radical claim. There is one God and one Savior. Now our Jewish ancestors, they were considered arrogant, especially by the ancient world, because their claim is similar to ours. There's only one God and your God is the one true God, how arrogant. They were dismissed, they were persecuted, they were mocked. But for the vast majority of salvation history, they held the line. We have inherited that claim that witnessed the faith. We hold there is one God and one Lord, one Savior. If we hold anything else, we are a liar. It means we strip the gospel of its strength. We strip the sacraments of their grace. We strip the capacity of our Christian discipleship to change our hearts and to change the world. I believe as Pope Saint John Paul II constantly bemoaned that the reason why the church is so weak is because the vast majority of Christians do not truly believe. They are compromised, they have sold out, they have given into something else. You go into Christian homes and not find a cross, which is he a copy of the Quran for cultural reasons or a statue of Buddha for cultural reasons. How would those possibly belong in a Christian home? And yet we don't see crucifixes or people are embarrassed to put up religious symbols in their home. What will the neighbors think? It's ridiculous. People are comfortable putting out Santa Claus at Christmas, but they won't put out the nativity anymore. Dear friends, it's so important that we Christians understand the claims that we have accepted and they're radical and the world doesn't like them. And we are called arrogant and narrow-minded and closed. We are told all kinds of things about ourselves. And what happens to the vast majority? They compromise because of respectability. I want my neighbors to like me. To hell with your neighbors. To hell with your neighbors, right? Why don't you focus on Jesus Christ and worry about whether or not he's happy with you? How about you go back to the claims of the faith that you have accepted freely? Anyone can walk away from the way of the Lord Jesus. If we have chosen freely to follow the Lord Jesus, this is what it means. And within our tradition, it's clear. If you claim you are a Christian, but do not accept the radical claim that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you're a liar. Then you're a liar. And don't email me with your petty complaints. Talk to Saint John and the Holy Spirit, huh? It's clear. It's in the scriptures. You have seen it. Do you truly believe? Because let me tell you what happens when we believe. When we live this radical claim, the anointing of God, which we hear about in 1 John, that's a synonym for the Holy Spirit. You have received the anointing of God, the Holy Spirit. John tells us the Holy Spirit teaches us what is right and true. When we allow ourselves to truly believe and to live our faith according to that belief, then grace can work. And when grace comes, it changes things. It makes them better, more beautiful. It reorders and realigns the fullness of our world. When we allow the Holy Spirit to work, powerful things occur. Suddenly life is respected. Motherhood is cherished. Family life is understood as sacrosanct. Things change when grace is allowed to work. But compromise the gospel, turn into some self-help guide, turn Jesus into just one of many great religious leaders in American history, world history, then you've stripped the gospel of its power. Oftentimes people will do that and then they hit those hard times and they need the strength of the gospel and they think that the gospel has failed them. People who suddenly have turned Jesus into just one more religious leader have stripped the sacraments of their power if they even go to the sacraments, blasphemously receive the Holy Communion, never going to confession, and then they get sick with cancer, they don't understand why God doesn't heal them. Are you kidding me? What God are you talking about? The God that you have not worshipped? The God that you have not relied upon? The God who's grace? You have not allowed to enter into your heart for decades? Are you really shocked that he cannot work in your soul? We should wake up and realize the consequences of our actions. One of God's greatest gifts to us is our free will. We choose to say yes or no, and when we say yes, we choose whether or not we are going to be faithful. God's grace is powerful. It can heal. There are many broken hearts in our parish, many suffering hearts, many people who are dying of many illnesses in our parish, and God can heal them either in this life or can heal their soul in order not to be afraid and to so enter into paradise and be ready to enter paradise. But there are a lot of souls who don't truly accept the claims they say they believe, have become liars among us, have stripped the sacraments of their power. They think they're great and wonderful. They don't even think they need healing. They rely more on their doctors rather than seeing their doctors as instruments of God. And then they die. And I suspect that they're very surprised when they wake up in hell. Where did you think you were going to turn out? Where did you think you were going to end up? You have become a liar. You have betrayed the gospel. You betrayed your Lord. Where did you think you were going to end up? Never forget their friends. Hell is real. People go there. According to our early fathers, a lot of people go there. The reason why the Lord Jesus came and had to die on the cross at horrific death was because of the utter terror and horror of hell. Because God does not want any of his children to go to such a horrific place forever. Which is why he has given us the Lord Jesus. The reason why we receive the sacraments. The opportunity to allow his grace to work to transform us into changes to restore us, to heal us, to lift us up. But we have to allow grace to work. Grace cannot work in the soul that has given up or passed on the cross. We have to carry the cross. We carry the cross. We acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. Grace can work. And that doesn't mean this is not a health and wealth gospel up here. Hey, believe in the Lord Jesus. You're going to get your money. You're going to be healed in this life. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is something actually far more important. Believe unto the Lord Jesus and accept the workings of his grace. And God will take care of you. He will take care of each of us. That might mean a healing in this life or the greater good of a restoration and a renewal of your soul into eternal life in heaven. That is the far greater good. I encourage you as we celebrate this mass. Place whatever heartaches you have on the altar of God. Ask God abundantly for the grace to heal in one way or another. But then provide the open heart, the docile heart so that he can work in you and through you. Allow your heart to fully and radically live to claim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Do not be a liar among us. We have too many of them already. Be the exception. Be one of those faithful, willing, docile instruments of God's grace that acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord and will let him work. Do that and you will be shocked, surprised, every day cut off guard by wonder at what God has done in you and through you. I now invite you