Christmas 2021

Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.

In answer to the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement of the Incarnation and Birth of our Savior, the Virgin Mary spoke the word “Fiat” – “Let it be done to me according to your word,” and she conceived the Eternal Word, who was made flesh in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As Pope St. John Paul II was wont to say, when Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, the Heart of the Son began to beat beneath the Heart of His Mother.

These two Hearts – of Mother and Son – would beat in unison for the next nine months while Jesus was living in Mary.

The human heart is the most perfect and noblest symbol of the interior life of person: of our thinking, our willing, our affections & emotions – and our love.

Never were there two Hearts more united – in grace and holiness, in mutual love and affection, than the Hearts of Jesus, the God-man, and of Mary, sinless and filled with grace from the first moment of her conception.

At His Birth, when Jesus opened His eyes for the first time, He looked into the eyes of His mother, Mary, and she gazed into His eyes.

Our interior life shines forth in our eyes, which are windows to our souls, to our hearts.

On this point, let us ask:  What was it like, O Virgin Mary, to gaze into the eyes of your Son, your Godand your Maker, for the first time?

What was it like, Mary, to gaze into those eyes which reflected not only His soul, but uncreated Light, the infinite Word of God; He who was eternally begotten in the bosom of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God? What was it like, Mary?

When a ray of light is reflected by the purest crystal, it produces another ray that embraces it, in what may be called a single kiss of love.

In a similar manner, the look of Jesus was reflected in the pure eyes and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, uniting them both in a single embrace of love.

It was most fitting that the first act of contemplation by Jesus upon the earth should be most like that which He experienced from all eternity: that mutual gaze of love between the God the Son and God the Father.

On this Christmas, let us contemplate not only that look of Jesus toward His Mother, but also that first gaze of Mary into the eyes of the Christ Child.

It was a gaze:

– All-Pure, because she is the spotlessVirgin of virgins;

– Exceedingly tender, because she is the Mother who bore Jesus in her womb for nine months as a living tabernacle of the Word made flesh–and who now with greatest affection and devotion holds Him in her arms;

– Altogether Holy, because she is the holiest of creatures, the sin of Adam having never touched her.

And when the newly-born Christ Child opened His divine eyes for the first time and gazed into the pure, mild and tender eyes of the Virgin Mary, He was filled with complacency, joy and peace, because He saw in the eyes of His Mother a near-perfect reflection of that that gaze with which His heavenly Father had looked upon Him from that Eternal Day on which He was begotten.

Jesus wants to look at our hearts, our souls, as He looked upon Mary. Are our hearts pure, tender and holy – like that of the Virgin Mother?

AND Jesus wants us to look at Him in the same way that His Mother Mary did. Are we able to look at Jesus, to gaze into those divine eyes so full of love for us, with that same purity and selfless love of the Blessed Virgin?

Let us recall today, on this great feast of Christ’s Birth, that the Son of God became man and entered our world in order to reclaim lost souls for the heavenly kingdom.

But that is not all. As St. Augustine says, “The only Son of God, having become the son of Man, makes many sons of men the sons of God.” Yes, my dear friends, we are called to be sons in the Son; sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

The Prophet Isaiah tells us thatJesus Christ is the great Light that has come into the world to enlighten us who had walked in darkness and dwelt in gloom.

And through St. Paul, Jesus exhorts us to reject godless ways and worldly desires, and to live temperately, justly and devoutly in this age, until He appears again in glory on the Last Day.

Let us rejoice on this Christmas Night (Day)with the all the angels who cry aloud with joy: Christ the Lord is born; today the Savior has appeared.

Today let us join the entire earth which echoes thesong ofthe angel choirs, and archangels’ joyful praise: Glory to God in the highest, Alleluia!

Homily 3rd Sun. Advent Yr C

(Evil of Abortion; Jesus Living in Mary)

Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D., J.D.

Did you know that at the moment of conception a human being’s unique DNA is created, DNA which never existed before – and will never be repeated again?
At the moment of conception a human being’s unique traits are already present – e.g. the sex, hair & eye color have already been determined.
An unborn baby’s heart begins to beat only 22 days after conception, 3 weeks and a day – before most women even know they are pregnant.
By week 3 you can see the baby’s ears and eyes; by 6 weeks the baby has fingers and toes.
Between 6 and 11 weeks the child in the womb grows five times in size.
By the 11th week the baby can smile and frown, wiggle its fingers and toes, and even suck its thumb.
At 13 weeks the baby’s ears start picking up vibrations and it is comforted by the heartbeat of its mother, and later by the sound of its mother’s voice.
At 6 months the baby is fully developed and everything is functioning as it will at birth – and for the rest of its life.
At 38 to 42 weeks the baby is born.
Everything I just stated can be said about every unborn child, about every one of us before we were born, AND about Jesus Christ, who spent the first nine months of His human life in the womb of His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary – a beautiful thought to consider as we journey through this holy season of Advent, preparing to celebrate the joyful Birth of our Savior.
God has revealed to us through the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jer. 1:5).

In light of these truths, I am asking your prayers today – in the days to come – for our country, because at this time in our nation’s history we stand at an historic crossroads:
whether to continue to allow the legalized murder of preborn babies in the womb by abortion – an ongoing holocaust that has taken the lives of over 60 million human beings over the past 50 years; or whether to prohibit this evil which is like a deep, festering cancer on our country.
You’ve probably heard that this past week the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision on a Texas law that outlawed abortion after the “heartbeat” of the child could be detected. The Court’s decision allowed the law to stand, but permitted challenges to it – it’s a bit complex, I won’t elaborate on it here.
But the week before last the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning a Mississippi law that basically prohibits abortion after 16 weeks.
The decision in this case will likely determine the fate of the lives of tens of millions of human beings in the future: whether or not children in the womb will be given the right to life under our Constitution, or be denied that right.
First, a little history.
In the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court said that a fetus is not a person but “potential life,” and therefore does not have any constitutional rights – especially, and most importantly, the right to life:
Roe v. Wade gave a woman the right to abort the child in her womb during the full nine months of pregnancy.
The Court’s rationale really made no sense; it was mind boggling:
What exactly is “potential life”? It’s a contradiction in terms. Either something is alive or it is not. A child in the womb is most certainly alive.
The S. Ct. created this “right” to abortion – supposedly based on a right to privacy; but it is found nowhere in the Constitution and for this reason Justice Byron White, who wrote a dissenting opinion in Roe v. Wade, called the Court’s decision creating a “right” to kill unborn babies by abortion an exercise of “RAW JUDICIAL POWER.”
As Abraham Lincoln said in debating Stephen Douglas when the latter claimed spoke of a “right” to own slaves: “He cannot logically say that any body has a right to do wrong.”
Almost 20 years after Roe, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the S. Ct. had the opportunity to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision; but refused to do so even though by this time all the medical evidence clearly showed that human life begins at conception.
The rational for allowing the murder of children in the womb to continue in our country was basically summarized in one sentence: I quote: “people had organized their intimate relationships and made choices … in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event contraception should fail.”
So, the killing of children within the womb must remain “legal” because women need a back-up when contraception fails.
Fast forward 30 years to 2021. Two weeks ago, in oral arguments before the Supreme Court over the State of Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, pro-abortion Justice Sonia Sotomayor made statements that reveal how those who favor abortion will use any argument, no matter how ludicrous, to keep abortion legal.
In response to the argument that during the abortion procedure the preborn children feel pain while their tiny bodies are being torn apart, Justice Sotomayor said: “There’s about 40% of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.”
Really? Here Sotomayor compares the unborn child, who is alive during the abortion, with someone who is already dead. And the preborn baby is definitely not brain dead: science shows brain waves detectable at 5 weeks.
Moreover, for over a decade now doctors have been performing surgery on infants before birth, while still in utero, and when they do so they administer pain medicine to the unborn child. Why? Because they know that the preborn child can feel pain when operated on.
One doctor responded to Justice Sotomayor’s statement: “To compare an unborn child to a brain-dead person or a corpse flouts science which tells us that at 15 weeks gestation, a baby’s organs are fully formed, her heart pumps 26 quarts of blood a day, and her lungs are already practicing drawing breath.” (Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie)
On this point, it’s important to remember: Presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices, who vote either to keep abortion legal, or to recognize that preborn babies have a right to life.
Right now it looks like there might be a majority on the Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Let us pray that they do.
In the Gospel today we see that John the Baptist preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ by preaching repentance from sins: He tells tax collectors not to collect more than is due, and soldiers not to practice extortion.
Let us pray that we will be humble enough as a nation to acknowledge our sins against the dignity and sanctity of human life in the womb that have been ongoing for the past 50 years.
This is a fitting topic to consider as we approach celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior.
At this time a little more than 2000 years ago, the BV Mary was carrying Jesus in her womb, making her way with St. Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, about 90 miles away.
Just think: the All-Powerful Son of God, who had shared in the glory of the God the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, became man at the Incarnation, and allowed Himself to be enclosed in the immaculate womb of His Mother, Mary for nine months before she gave birth to Him.
Why was it part of God’s plan that Jesus should come to us through Mary in this way? What purpose did God have?
No doubt, God wanted to teach us to imitate Jesus: As any other child living in its mother’s womb, Jesus was totally dependent on His Mother, for His human life and nourishment. What a wonder: that the Creator should be totally dependent upon a creature of His own making!
By living in Mary as a Babe in her womb, Jesus teaches us to have that same dependence on Mary for everything and to entrust ourselves – our wants, our needs, our lives – totally to her: she is truly our spiritual Mother in the order of grace, who not only foresees our needs, but protects us from harm as well.
The oldest known prayer to Mary in the Church, the Sub tuum praesidium, dating from the late 200’s if not earlier, reflects this notion: “We fly to thy patronage or holy Mother of God, despise not our prayers in our necessities, but ever deliver us from all dangers, O glorious & Blessed Virgin!”
Contemplating this great mystery of “Jesus living in Mary” also allows us to imitate the Virgin Mother. What immense joy must have overflowed in Mary’s Heart, knowing that the Eternal Word took flesh in her womb and was living within her. Her Heart was literally bursting with joy as she awaited her Son’s birth – a beautiful thought during this holy season of Advent.
During this holy season of Advent we can imitate Mary, and share in her joy by meditating on the Joyful mysteries of the Rosary, especially the first three Joyful mysteries: the Annunciation, Visitation and Birth of Our Lord.
We can also imitate the Virgin Mary when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion: for those few minutes after we receive Him, Jesus lives in us as He lived in Mary for nine months; we become, like Mary, living tabernacles of the Most High. Let us, during this holy season of Advent, strive to imitate Jesus in His total dependence on Mary in all that we do; let us also strive to exude that same joy which Mary held in her Heart as she was making her way to the little town of Bethlehem, to give birth to the Savior of the world.

Homily 2nd Sun. Advent Yr C

(Evil of Abortion; Jesus Living in Mary)

Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I am asking your prayers today for our country. At this time in our nation’s history we stand at an historic crossroads:
whether to continue to allow the legalized murder of preborn babies in the womb by abortion – an ongoing holocaust that has taken the lives of more than 60 million human beings over the past 50 years; or whether to prohibit this evil which is like a deep, festering cancer on our country.
If you have not heard, this past week the Supreme Court heard arguments and will now be deciding a case that will determine the fate of the lives of tens, maybe hundreds of millions of human beings in the future: whether or not children in the womb will be given the right to life under the laws of our nation, or be denied that right.
First, a little history.
In the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court said that a fetus is not a person but “potential life,” and therefore does not have any constitutional rights of its own – especially, and most importantly, the right to life:
it gave a woman the right to abort the child in her womb during the full nine months of pregnancy.
The Court’s rationale really made no sense; it was mind boggling:
What exactly is “potential life”? Either something is alive or it is not. A child in the womb is most certainly alive.
The S. Ct. created this “right” to abortion, supposedly based on the right to privacy; but it is found nowhere in the Constitution and for this reason Justice Byron White, who wrote a dissenting opinion in Roe v. Wade, called the Court’s decision an exercise of “RAW JUDICIAL POWER.”
Almost 20 years later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the S. Ct. reaffirmed the Roe v. Wade decision.
The Court refused to overturn Roe v. Wade even though by this time all the medical evidence clearly showed that human life begins at conception.
The rational for allowing the murder of preborn children in the womb to continue in our country was basically summarized in one sentence: I quote: “people had organized their intimate relationships and made choices … in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event contraception should fail.”
There you have it, my friends. The killing of children within the womb must remain “legal” because women need a back-up when contraception fails.
Fast forward 30 years to 2021. Just this past Wednesday arguments were made before the Supreme Court in a case that may at least partially overturn Roe v. Wade. The State of Mississippi has passed a law that basically bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In oral arguments before the Court this past Wed., pro-abortion Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is clearly in favor of striking down the Mississippi law as “unconstitutional,” made a statement that reveals how those who favor abortion adamantly refuse to acknowledge the truth about the humanity of the unborn child and will use any argument, no matter how ludicrous, to keep abortion legal.
In response to the argument that during the abortion procedure the preborn children feel pain while their tiny bodies are being torn apart, Justice Sotomayor said: “There’s about 40% of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.”
Really? Here Sotomayor compares the unborn child, who is alive during the abortion, with someone who is already dead. And the preborn baby is definitely not brain dead: science shows brain waves detectable at 5 weeks. Moreover, for over a decade now doctors have been performing surgery on infants before birth, while still in utero, and when they do so they administer pain medicine to the unborn child. Why? Because they know that the preborn child can feel pain when operated on.
One doctor responded to Justice Sotomayor’s statement: “To compare an unborn child to a brain-dead person or a corpse flouts science which tells us that at 15 weeks gestation, a baby’s organs are fully formed, her heart pumps 26 quarts of blood a day, and her lungs are already practicing drawing breath.” (Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie)
It’s important to remember: Presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices, who either vote to keep abortion legal, or vote to recognize that preborn children have a right to life.
Right now it looks like there might be a majority on the Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Let us pray that they do.
The sins of our nation will come back to haunt us, if they have not yet done so already.
In the Gospel today we see that John the Baptist prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ by preaching repentance from sins. Let us pray that we will be humble enough as a nation to acknowledge our sins against the dignity and sanctity of human life in the womb that have been ongoing for the past 50 years.
This is a fitting topic to consider as we approach celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior. At this time a little more than 2000 years ago, the BV Mary was carrying Jesus in her womb, preparing to make her way with St. Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, about 90 miles away.
Just think about this: the All-Powerful Son of God, who had shared in the glory of the God the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, became man at the Incarnation, and allowed Himself to be enclosed in the immaculate womb of His Mother, Mary for nine months before she gave birth to Him.
Why was it part of God’s plan that Jesus should come to us through Mary, by living within her for the first nine months of His human life? What purpose did God have in doing things this way?
No doubt, Jesus wanted to teach us to imitate Him by His example. As any other child living in its mother’s womb, Jesus was totally dependent on His Mother, for His human life and nourishment. What a wonder this is: that the Creator should be totally dependent upon a creature of His own making!
By living in Mary as a Babe in her womb, Jesus teaches us to have that same dependence on Mary for everything, and to entrust ourselves – our lives, our desires, our needs – totally to her. For she is truly our spiritual Mother in the order of grace, who not only foresees our needs, but protects us from harm as well.
The oldest known prayer to Mary in the Church, the Sub tuum praesidium, dating from the late 200’s if not earlier, reflects this notion: “We fly to thy patronage or holy Mother of God, despise not our prayers in our necessities, but ever deliver us from all dangers, O glorious & Blessed Virgin!”
Contemplating this great mystery of “Jesus living in Mary” also allows us to imitate the Virgin Mother. What immense joy must have overflowed in Mary’s Heart, knowing that the Eternal Word took flesh in her womb and was living within her. Her Heart was literally bursting with joy as she awaited her Son’s birth – a beautiful thought during this holy season of Advent.
During this holy season of Advent we can imitate Mary, and share in her joy by meditating on the Joyful mysteries of the Rosary, especially the first three Joyful mysteries: the Annunciation, Visitation and Birth of Our Lord.
We can also imitate the Virgin Mary when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion: for those few minutes after we receive Him, Jesus lives in us as He lived in Mary for nine months; we become, like Mary, living tabernacles of the Most High.
Let us, during this holy season of Advent, strive to imitate Jesus in His total dependence on the Blessed Virgin in all our endeavors, in everything we do.
Let us also strive to exude that same joy which Mary held in her Heart as she was preparing to make her way to the little town of Bethlehem, to give birth to the Savior of the world.

Homily 25th Sunday Yr B: Love in Service

Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.

Jesus foretold His passion and death three times to His Apostles.
In last week’s Gospel, St. Mark relates the first time, when Peter protested at hearing this and Jesus responded “Get behind me Satan. Your are not thinking as God does but as men do.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes his second prediction of His upcoming passion and death. This took place after Jesus’ Transfiguration on Mount Tabor. Jesus says: “The Son of Man will be handed over to men are and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
St. Mark tells us that Jesus’ disciples “failed to understand his words” and that “they were afraid to question him.” Why was this? Because as Jews, based upon Old T prophecies, the disciples knew that the Messiah would be a king; and as most of the Jews they were expecting a king who would establish an earthly kingdom, restoring Israel to its former glory under King David 1,000 years earlier.
The disciples had no idea that Jesus came to establish the kingdom of Heaven on earth through the Church that He would found on Peter and the Apostles, and that this Kingdom would be fulfilled and perfected only in heaven.
They and other Jews overlooked the Old T prophecies which foretold that the Messiah would suffer – like that from the Book of Wisdom, our first reading: “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he . . . reproaches us for transgressions of the law . . . Let us condemn him to a shameful death.”
Not only that, the disciples thought that they themselves would be given positions of power and authority in this earthly kingdom.
This misunderstanding by the Apostles explains why they were arguing who was going to be the most important, the greatest, in this earthly kingdom. (Just think – the Apostles had been with Jesus for a couple of years by now and they are still so petty, arguing about who among them is the greatest!)
Jesus takes this opportunity to teach them a lesson that is essential to the whole Gospel message: that those who will rank first in the Kingdom of Heaven will not be those who seek to be the first and greatest, but rather those who seek to be the least, and the servants of all.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes clear that true greatness is measured by service to others, being a servant to all.
What precisely constitutes being a servant of all, service to others?
First of all, it must be done in love. Mother Teresa of Calcutta (St. Teresa) I uttered one of my favorite lines: “Faith in action is love, and love in action is service.”
There’s an old saying, that you spell love with four letters: T-I-M-E. If you love someone you spend time with them.
Loving service to others requires that we sacrifice our time – for their benefit or their need.
Moreover, sacrificing our time, talents and energy for others necessarily entails a renunciation of self – of a selfish, self-seeking attitude; of dying to self for others; detaching ourselves from self and committing ourselves to the service of God and neighbor, in love and for love.
This is why in last week’s Gospel Jesus said that if we want to follow Him, to be His true disciples, we must deny our very selves: “Whoever loses his life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will save his life.”
St. Francis de Sales said: “To love our neighbor in charity is to love God in man.”
Dying to oneself and one’s self interest practically means to always seek the good of others; to put other peoples’ good and well-being before our own; to seek the happiness and welfare of others before our own happiness.
Now, to a worldly person, this Gospel message of Jesus sounds as if it would make for a dreary and depressing life; a life of no fun and enjoyment.
But herein lies one of the great paradoxes or apparent contradictions of Christianity: The more we sacrifice our time, talents and energies for others and put their interests before our own, the greater joy we experience in this life.
How can this be? It is a mystery, solved in Christ, who spent Himself for others. And the lives the saints who followed Jesus give witness to this beautiful truth.
Those who live lives centered on themselves, lives of selfish self-interest and self-indulgence, who pursue only of comfort and pleasure, are often the most unhappy and sad people. Their lives lack true joy.
The more we give of ourselves God and others, the more we receive.
The more we die to self in imitation of Christ, the more He will pour His life into us.
The more we strive to be the last of all and the servant of all, the more we experience those great Fruits of the Holy Spirit: authentic peace and joy – in this life, and in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Homily 24th Sunday Yr B: “Who Do People Say that I Am?” (Christ v. Islam)

By Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.

“Who do people say that I am?” This was the question posed by Jesus to the apostles at Caesarea Philippi.
They respond: some say your John the Baptist, others Elijah the prophet, or one of the prophets.
But Jesus then asks: “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter responds: “You are the Christ.” Actually, in St. Matthew’s gospel, we read that St. Peter responds: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Who precisely is Jesus? Since His coming into the world more than 2000 years ago, this has been what you could call the perennial question.
It is accurate to say that most of the people in the world today do not really know who Jesus Christ is: Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims.
We believe, as we profess in the Creed, that Jesus is the Eternal Son of God the Father – “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made (He’s not a creature) consubstantial with the Father.”
Simply put, Jesus is God who became man while remaining God.
But right from the beginning of the Church there were heretics who denied this truth.
In the late first century there were the Docetist gnostics, who believed and taught that the material world is evil, therefore God would never really become man; therefore Jesus is the son of God who only appeared to be man. St. John the evangelist, at the beginning of his Gospel, refutes these heretics: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:1, 14).
A few centuries later, the heretic priest Arius said just the opposite: that Jesus was not God, but only a very holy man; that He was just a creature. The Council of Nicaea condemned this heresy and gave us the creedal formulae that I just recited, which we profess every Sunday at Mass.
The heresy of Arianism was condemned at Nicaea in 325 AD but it did not die out; it kept circulating around the Middle East for hundreds of years, and was resurrected in a big way, so to speak, in the 7th century by a fellow named Mohammed, the founder of Islam, who claimed that Jesus was just a holy prophet, but that he, Mohammed, was God’s great and final prophet.
By denying that Jesus is God, both Mohammed, and Arius before him, deny the Most Holy Trinity: three divine Person in one God. We are left only with God – in Arabic, Allah.
In the first epistle of St. John the Apostle, near the end of the NT, we read these words: “He who denieth that Jesus is the Christ is the antichrist. He who denieth the Father and the Son, he is the antichrist” (1 Jn. 2:22).
So, both Arius, and Mohammed after him, are truly antichrists; i.e., precursors of the final Antichrist who will come at the end of the world, and who will demand worship of himself rather than Jesus Christ.
Islam is a powerful force in the world, with more than 1 billion people adhering to this heretical religion.
In light of the fact that today [yesterday], September 11, marks the 20th anniversary of an Islamist terrorist attack on our country, it is good to explore the beliefs of those who adhere to this religion.
We read Isaiah’s prophecy about how Jesus, the Messiah, would suffer and die for our sins; we believe that because of Original Sin and all of our sins, we need a redeemer, and that Jesus redeemed us by dying on the cross, thus atoning for our sins.
Muslims have no such concept; in fact, believe Jesus, b/c he was a prophet, did not die on the cross; Judas died – God/Allah put the face of Jesus on Judas.

In the Islamic mind, there are really two worlds: the world of Islam (Dar-al-Islam) and the world outside of Islam (Dar-al-Harb, the sphere of war).
In the world of Islam there is peace (Islam means “peace” and “submission”), because Allah is worshipped and Muslims are in power. Muslims do not distinguish between government and religion; there is no secular state in Muslim ruled countries; the religion of Islam is in effect the state and everyone falls under the rule of Islam (sharia law).
The world outside of Islam is in a permanent state of war (Jihad/holy war) because Muslims do not rule there; the world will be in permanent war until Allah is the only God worshipped. Therefore, the world outside of Islam is in a permanent state of jihad.
Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, a Jesuit priest and professor of Islamic studies at the pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, speaking of ISIS and other Islamist terrorist groups, like those that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, says:
“It is false when people say such attacks have nothing to do with Islam. ISIS is not doing anything which is neither in the Koran nor in the Mohammedan tradition. ISIS is the application of what is taught. It’s not outside Islam. Or something invented. No, they are applying Islam. When we hear it has nothing to do with Islam – that [Islam] means ‘salaam’, that is, ‘peace’ – this is all false. It’s not true.” (National Catholic Register, 4/1/17).
Jihad (holy war) is a religious duty incumbent upon every individual Muslim.
Now, that’s not to say that all Muslims want to do violence to non-Muslims like us. But, I cannot recall one Muslim leader who has condemned 9-11 or any other Muslims terrorist attack, can you? Why is this? Because all that they do can be justified by what is written in the Koran.
Muslims regard us as heretics, because we believe that Jesus is God. It regards the Incarnation as blasphemous. They claim we are polytheists. The truth is, that we leave only one God, but three persons in one God.
“Christians are blasphemers and infidels.” Koran 5:17
That Islamic terrorists are not doing anything which is not approved of in the Koran, here are some teachings from the Koran: “Slay them wherever you find them. Idolatry is more grievous than bloodshed [i.e., it’s better to kill non-believers than to let them live as “idolators”]. . . . Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God’s religion reigns supreme.”
“Fight in the ways of Allah. Kill the unbelievers when you meet them. Fight against them.” Koran 2:190-193
What is our response to the threat of Islam? We must love Muslims – and convert them to Christ. But as I noted, this is difficult, because they consider us who believe that Jesus is the Son of God who became man, as heretics.
I believe (with Archbishop Fulton Sheen) that Our Lady of Fatima will convert Muslims to her Son. She will crush the head of the serpent, Islam.
Fatima is the name of Mohammed’s daughter; and the town of Fatima, Portugal was named after a Muslim woman in the 12th century who lived there and who converted to Catholicism when the Catholics conquered the Muslims in that land.
It is, I believe, most significant that Our Lady chose to appear in the town of Fatima in 1917 with a message of peace, and that is honored under the title Our Lady of Fatima.
Let us pray that we can be Our Lady’s troops who go out into the world and convert all peoples in all nations, especially the Muslims, to Christ, so that they may honor Him as their Lord, their King, their God and their Savior!

Homily: Assumption of BVM (2021)

Fr. Dwight P. Campbell, S.T.D.

This Sunday we celebrate the glorious feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven.
Mary’s Assumption was defined as a divinely revealed dogma of the Church – which means all the faithful must believe it – by Pope Pius XII on Nov. 1, 1950.
Pius XII was not proclaiming a new teaching; he was merely confirming in a most solemn manner a truth about Mary that had been believed and taught in the Church from the very beginning. Here are the words of the definition:
“We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory.”
Nowhere in the Bible do we read about Mary being assumed body and soul into heaven. Yet, Pius XII said that Mary’s Assumption is divinely revealed. So, how did God reveal this to us, so that we must believe it with divine faith?
As Catholics, we do not look to “Scripture alone” as the source for our belief in truth revealed by God: that’s a Protestant approach to the faith which began with Martin Luther, called Sola Scriptura.
As Catholics, we believe that in addition to sacred Scripture, God reveals truths to us through something called Sacred Tradition; i.e., the teaching of the Church handed down from the time of the Apostles through preaching.
One of the forms of this teaching, perhaps the most important form, is the sacred liturgy, and here we can look to the prayers in the Mass.
There’s a saying in Latin, lex orandi, lex credendi, which basically means how we pray reflects what we believe.
The earliest Masses in the Church in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated her bodily assumption. These Masses date to the fourth century in the East and the fifth century in the West.
The prayers composed in these Masses reflect the belief of the Christian people, and these prayers were based upon the preaching and teaching that had been handed on to them from the Apostles. As pope Pius XII said in his Bull defining the Assumption, “the liturgy of the Church does not engender the Catholic faith, but rather springs from it, . . . as the fruit comes from the tree.”
In explaining the foundation for our belief in Mary’s bodily Assumption, great saints over the ages have used an argument from “fittingness.”
The separation of our souls from our bodies at death is a direct consequence of Original Sin. In faith, we believe that if we die in a state of grace, i.e., with a share of God’s divine life in our souls, that we will rise on the Last Day, at Christ’s Second Coming, in a glorified body – a body that will be like that of Jesus, who rose from the dead in a body glorified; a body that will have no hunger or thirst, no sickness or pain, a body that will never die.
All those in Heaven and in Purgatory (which ends at Christ’s 2nd Coming), whose souls have been separated from their bodies at death, will receive their bodies back in a glorified state.
It is then, at the resurrection of the dead, that all who have died in a state of grace will be fully redeemed, with bodies glorified.
The Virgin Mary did not undergo this separation of her soul from her body at the end of her life here on earth. (Actually, Pius XII never defined whether Mary died, but weight of Tradition, including modern Popes, say that although she did not have to die since she was free from Original Sin she did in die to be more fully conformed to Jesus who died; although they call her death the “Dormition” or “falling asleep”.)
At her death, Mary was taken up to heaven with a glorified body.
Why? It was most fitting that the Mother of the Son of God would share fully in the fruits of Christ’s Redemption, and be the first to be fully redeemed;
it was most fitting that Jesus should not permit the body of her from whom He took flesh to undergo corruption, but should rather glorify it!
Mary was always totally united with her Son – in conceiving, giving birth to Him, and at His death on the Cross.
As an example I will quote words from homilies of some ancient saints, who linked Mary’s other privileges – her being Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception and sinlessness, her virginity – with her bodily assumption.
Perhaps the greatest preacher on Mary’s Assumption was St. John Damascene from the 7th century. In a sermon he said:
“It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to her Son [a glorified body], . . . It was fitting that she who had seen her Son upon cross and thereby received into her heart sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to him [Mary is Co-redemptrix], should look upon him [with bodily eyes] as He sits with the Father.”
Another saint from the 8th century, Germanus of Constantinople, said “your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust.”
A more recent saint, Pope John Paul II, in his homily at World Youth Day in Denver, Colorado on August 15, 1993 (at which I was present and celebrated the Mass with him along with hundreds of other priests), said:
“The Son [of God] took His human life from her; in return He gave her the fullness of communion in Divine Life. . . . In Mary the final victory of life over death is already a reality.”
The Church also looks to the Scriptures as a basis for Mary’s bodily assumption. Although her assumption is not explicitly revealed in Scripture, it is there implicitly.
For example, our first reading for today’s Mass: Rev. 11:19-12:1:
“God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.”
In the Old T., the ark of the covenant was the wooden chests, covered with gold, that carried the 10 commandments, the word of God written on two stone tablets.
In the New T., Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant: In her womb she carried the very Word of God in Person: the Son of God who became man.
The ark of the old covenant was a type – a future foreshadowing – of Mary, the ark of the New Covenant.
And the Blessed Virgin Mary herself is a type of the Church: The “woman clothed with the sun, moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars” symbolizes the Church in its final perfection, its final glory, when we, the members of Christ’s Body, have been purified are united with Him in bodies glorified at the resurrection. This is our second reading today from 1 Cor., where St. Paul speaks of the resurrection from the dead, when at Our Lord’s 2nd Coming, “those who belong to Christ” will rise with glorified bodies and be united to Jesus Christ.
It is then that the Church, which is Christ’s Mystical Body, will be fully perfected – a perfection which the BV Mary has already attained in her glorified state. As the Second Vatican Council teaches: “In the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached the perfection whereby she exists without spot or wrinkle.”
Another basis for the Church’s belief in Mary’s bodily assumption is from silence: there is no mention or record of her bones. As the tombs of SS. Peter and Paul and the bones of the faithful in the catacombs give witness, the Church from the beginning venerated the bones of its saints. The fact we have no mention or record of Mary’s relics speaks loudly in favor of her bodily Assumption.
Pope Pius XII defined Mary’s Assumption on Nov. 1, 1950. On Oct. 30 & 31, Nov. 1 and Nov. 8 of that year, Pope Pius XII, while walking in the Vatican gardens, saw a miracle of the sun somewhat like that seen by the pilgrims at Fatima on Oct. 13, 1917: The sun appeared as opaque globe surrounded by a luminous sphere, and it circled about inside this sphere, shaking and palpitating. Many think this was a reward from Heaven for having defined the Assumption as a dogma.
While on this earth, we are in battle with the forces of evil, especially the Devil – as was Mary, as depicted in our first reading from Revelation, which speaks of the “huge red dragon” who tries to devour the Son to whom the woman, who is Mary, gives birth.
As revealed in Genesis, Mary is the “woman” who crushes the head of the serpent; and as revealed in Rev. 12:1, that same woman, Mary, is the heavenly Queen who reigns – clothed with the sun (the grace of Christ), crowned with twelve stars (Queen of Aposltes), with the moon (an image of the Devil) under her feet.
As Pope St. John Paul II said in his World Youth Day homily:
“As Mother of the Church, you [Mary] guide us still from your place in Heaven and intercede for us. You lead us to Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, and help us to increase in holiness by conquering sin.”
Let us always turn to Mary, our heavenly Mother and Queen, pleading for her intercession that we may conquer sin in this life in order that we may be raised up on the last day to reign with her and her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.