Be built into Spiritual Houses to offer Acceptable Sacrifices!
Homily preached Sunday, May 7, 2023
by Monsignor Michael Deering

Here are a few Topics that I studied and used in College:

• Non-linear differential equations
• Laplace Transforms
• Fouiere Analysis

You probably never heard of them before unless you’ve had some Engineering background. I used them to get my College degree in Electrical Engineering 1975.

My specialty was Power Distribution and Power Systems Analysis ...

 and I used the above tools to do that type of work.

You know, many Engineering students look forward to the day ... after graduation

when they can earn their Professional Engineering certification.

Having your PE, your Professional Engineering Degree is a prestigious degree to have, especially if you ever wind up running, or owning an Engineering Company.

As a Senior I looked forward to getting my PE and I was encouraged by passing the difficult EIT (Engineer in Training) exam as a Senior. That was the first gate!

The second gate would take place after working at least 5 years in the field of Engineering. Then I would be eligible to take and hopefully pass the PE, Professional Engineering exam.

However, with the Energy Crisis of 1975, none of the big power companies were hiring and so I took a job in Technical Sales with the Eastman Kodak Company, which moved me into a Sales career and away from an Engineering career.

Now with my Dad being Vice President of McConnell Sales and Engineering Company here in Birmingham, he had aspirations of me one day taking over his company and so he would occasionally suggest that I still try to get my PE degree.

So one day, some 10 years after Graduation, I decided to surprise Dad and get my degree. So, I ordered 2 big Professional Engineering study manuals that had been compiled to assist someone to prepare for the big exam.

But when I opened them I was shocked and humbled. They were talking about many complex things … things that I hadn’t used for over 10 years and had forgotten.  Things like:

   Non-linear Differential equations, Laplace Transforms and Fourier Analysis!

The old adage is so true:  “What you don’t use, you tend to lose.”

And I had certainly lost my ability to solve Electrical Engineering problems.

I remember going to my Dad and telling him that it would take a heroic effort on my part to refresh myself on all that I needed to know to pass the PE exam ...

and I just didn’t have the time or the desire to do it at that time.

And I never took the PE exam.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever recognized how much you’ve forgotten about something that you used to know so well?      I bet it has.

Those of you who studied French or Spanish or Latin in High School, are you still able to converse or translate those languages?   Not if you haven’t used them since then!

Those of you who were good at Biology or Chemistry or History or Geography, are you still able to speak accurately and intelligently on those topics?

If you haven’t continued to refresh yourself in any area of study,

you can be assured of growing stale and foggy about the material.

This is a universal problem with us human beings:

 “What we don’t use, we tend to lose.”

Now God knows this!     Since He made us, He knows our limitations ...

and He also  knows what we need to overcome them.

He knows that keeping us ... refreshed in ... the truths about Him ...

     is essential to us ... remembering ... Him.

And that’s one of the reasons ... why He commands everyone ...

   to come to Church every week!

If we can forget Algebra or Geometry or History or Civics, subjects that we studied, were tested on and knew very well, then we can certainly forget Religion.

Especially when you consider that many of us never really studied Religion!

Many people never attended Catholic grade school or high school.

Many people had only one hour a week of formal training in Sunday School PSR.

Many people had no formal training in Religion at all.

Most people never took Religion in College.

So it’s no surprise that we’re so lacking in knowledge about God and His Church! Many never learned it to begin with ... and for those who did learn some things,

if they didn’t continue to study them through the years, so much ends up forgotten.  

The only way to stay fresh in the truths about God ...

is to remain faithful in prayer and study about Him.

In our Second Reading today from St. Peter’s 1^st Letter, he writes,

      “Come … let yourselves be built into a spiritual house”.

Peter’s words indicate the reality that getting to know God is ...

an ongoing transformative process and not a one time event.

It’s a continuous process that happens over time.

I’ve had some people tell me that they were saved, back in 8^th grade at age 15!

And so they think that their salvation is a done deal as of that date ...

 and there’s nothing further that they need to do.

Well, that’s great that you chose Jesus as Lord at age 15.

But did you choose Him again at age 16, and 17 and 18?

Did you choose Jesus as your Lord and Guide at 28, and 38 and 48? 

Salvation is a process … it is not accomplished in an instant

Peter says that we are to come to God to let ourselves be built into a spiritual house.

Houses aren’t built in an instant; they are not built in a day. They are built over time … with most houses going through repairs and remodeling through the years.

Our spiritual lives are the same way! They too go through repairs and remodeling.

They are built over time … with time devoted to prayer and study.

St. Peter goes on to state the purpose of building ourselves into a spiritual house.  

He says, it’s so that we become “a holy priesthood ...

to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

That one statement contains so many important truths!

First of all, when we are baptized, we are clothed with Christ and enter into

the common priesthood, also know as the priesthood of the faithful.

That’s what Peter means when he says that we become a holy priesthood.

I’m in the Ministerial Priesthood; and all of you are in the Common Priesthood.

With this grace, we are now able to ... and expected to ...

offer spiritual sacrifices to the Father … in a personal way for sure ...

but more importantly in a communal way at Holy Mass.

Mass is the re-presentation of the once for all Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross!

It is a participation in the eternal sacrifice made once on Calvary ...

and made present ... again and again at every Mass!

Jesus, the unblemished Lamb, was the only acceptable sacrifice that could atone for our sins and repair the separation that existed between God and man.

And now, in every Mass we get to offer all of our praise, our prayers, and our petitions to the Father with and through Jesus, who is truly present on the Altar.

Yes we get to offer ourselves to the Father along with Jesus, the only acceptable sacrifice! That’s why the Eucharistic Prayer closes with the words:

“Through Him, with Him, in Him, O God, almighty Father,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”

To which you all respond, “Amen”!

This is why there is no other prayer in the world ... that compares with the Mass!

The Mass stands alone as the greatest most powerful prayer in the world!

It is the ultimate spiritual sacrifice that we can offer to the Father.

This is not a sacrifice that you can participate in at home …

no, you participate in it ... in community ... in Church!

God wants us to be united with Him, through His only Begotten Son,

at least once a week in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

You see, God loves us and He doesn’t want us to forget how much He loves us.

So He commands us to gather together in His House every week so that we:

1. get refreshed in the truths about Him

as we hear His Holy Word proclaimed in the Scriptures, and

2. get to offer the acceptable spiritual sacrifice to Him

which is His Only Son Jesus, truly present on the Altar, and

3. get to receive the Body and Blood of His Divine Son Jesus

into our bodies to strengthen our union with Him. 

These are great truths … truths that we should never forget.

Don’t let them become like the Quadratic Formula or the Periodic Table or

the list of State Capitals or U.S. Presidents … things you’ve forgotten.

Rather, keep the truths about God fresh in your mind by faithfully attending Mass every Sunday, and by doing whatever else you can to learn or relearn your faith.

God’s desire is for us to be built into a spiritual house …

so that we can offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to the Father.

Contemplate the dignity and the mission that St. Peter described for us today:

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,

so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his own wonderful light.” Don’t ever forget it!