Homily: Accept suffering to save lives

On the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, 13 May, Father Linus Clovis, FLI’s Spiritual Director, offered Holy Mass for all of FLI’s Friends for Life and their intentions. The Mass was offered in London, and the homily was recorded.

Three great periods of distress for the Church

In his homily, Father Clovis speaks of “three great periods of distress.”  

“The first,” he said, “was that of the Arian heresy, where the priest Arius denied the Divinity of our Lord. Arius claimed that Christ was but a creature, a great, the first creature, the greatest creature that God had ever created. On this teaching, the whole Church could have floundered, but our Lord had promised that the gates of hell would not prevail. And so God raised up Athanasius, that great bishop of Alexandria, who fought with all of his strength and all of his life to affirm, to assert, and to teach the certainty of the Divinity of Christ, that He is consubstantial with the Father.”

“This period of turmoil for the Church was such that every doctrine was challenged, and, in fact, the very nature of the Church was at stake. Was revelation a matter of authority that which has been delivered to us by God? Or was it subjective – what we want to believe? This was what was at stake: Religion could either be given to us by God, in which case we, difficult as it is, we accept and obey. Or it could be what we feel to be right. And so, in effect, it was saying that we are God, and we can determine where truth lies – what is good and what is evil – that ancient temptation from the garden.”

The third great period of distress is our times, “where there is confusion at all levels.”

This is the era in which Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three shepherd children in 1917, urging them to pray “very much” to go to heaven. 

Our relationship with sin

Father Clovis retells how the children asked about their two friends, Maria and Amelia, who had died. When asked about Maria, Our Lady assured them she was in heaven. However, in answer to their question about Amelia, Our Lady responded, “She will be in purgatory until the end of time.”

“This, when we think about it, is a consolation and yet, at the same time, a sadness. It’s a consolation because at least she is destined for heaven. The sadness, because her journey is still prolonged and delayed. And why should she, a young girl in 1917, why should she be in purgatory until the end of time? What sin did she possibly commit? Well, we need to remember that it is not the sin but rather our reaction our relationship with the sin … Saint Paul complains, ‘The good I want to do is what I cannot do. The evil I want to avoid is the very thing that I do. Who can save me?’ And so when we sin, our immediate response should be one of repentance and sorrow for it. And it doesn’t matter how many times we’re sorry; the point is, we should be sorry.”

Accepting sufferings for the salvation of sinners

He discussed Our Lady’s call to accept sufferings for the salvation of sinners, saying, “Surely this is a message for our time when we see so many sins so boldly committed, utter defiance of the law of God.”

“Will we accept the sufferings that God chooses to send us in his mercy for the salvation of sinners? We also ought to respond, “Yes, we will.””

Speaking about truth and the “enmity towards the truth,” Father Clovis noted that “to speak the truth today is, in fact, to be accused of hating.”

“But quite the contrary, to speak the truth is loving, because in speaking the truth we point the way to eternal life… To hide the truth is, in fact, to hate and to wish the destruction of those who could have been saved,” he said.

In concluding his homily, Father Clovis observed, “We see the weakness that we do not have the power to fight the evils all around us … but we can, listening to Our Lady, accept the difficulties, the trials, the sufferings God in His mercy will send us and use it for the salvation of souls, for the promotion of the work of Family Life International and for the saving of the lives of many children who are destined for heaven, and above all for the salvation of sinners.

To listen to Father Clovis’ homily, please click play on the audio player at the top of this page.