Holy Week Sermons – Bishop Basil Meeking

To remain faithful to its vocation the Catholic family should practice firstly daily prayer. Pope Pius XII said, “We implore you, have at your heart to keep this wonderful tradition of Christian families: Public evening prayers, to meet at the end of each day, to implore God’s blessing and honour the Immaculate Virgin with the Rosary in his praise for all those who  sleep under the same roof. If the harsh and inexorable demands of modern life does not leave you time to devote to give gratitude to God through these blessed few minutes, or add to it, following the cherished custom of our fathers, a short reading of the lives of the saints, saints that the Church proposes to us as models and special protectors every day, beware of sacrificing, for fast that it must be, this time together that you devote to God, to praise and present your desires, your needs, your sorrows and your works. The centre of your existence must be crucifix or image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Let Christ reign in your home and that you meet every day around him. “(Address of 12 February 1941).

O Catholic families, fathers and mothers, children, young men and girls, do not be afraid to fight against sin, against the seductive spirit of the neo-pagan ideology. Do not be afraid to fight to defend the commandments of God, to defend the integrity of your faith and your chastity. Do not be afraid to be heroic. Let us hear what Pope Pius XII said: “In modern times, as in the early centuries of Christianity, in countries where religious persecution is rife, open or underhanded and no less harsh, the most humble faithful can, from one moment to the other, be in dramatic need to choose between their faith that they have the duty to preserve intact, and their freedom, their livelihoods or even their own lives. But normal times, under ordinary conditions of Christian families, it sometimes happens that souls see the alternative of violating an inalienable duty or expose themselves, in their health, their property, in their family and social positions in sacrifices and painful and urgent risks: they see themselves placed in the need to be heroic and to be heroic, if they want to remain faithful to their duties and remain in the grace of God “(Address of 20 August 1941).

My dear brothers and sisters, the Catholic family still has a vocation that is sometimes forgotten today. It is the vocation of being the first seminaries (cf. Second Vatican Council, Optatam Totius, n. 2). What is the most urgent need for the Church and the world today? The most urgent need today is to have truly Catholic families who become the first seminaries of priestly and religious vocations. Pope John Paul II told Catholic couples: “If Jesus with an act of love to your  family, gave to one of your sons the gift of priestly or religious vocation, what is your attitude? I hope you believe in the word of Don Bosco who said: The greatest gift that God can give to a family is a priest son. So be ready to receive this gift with heartfelt and sincere gratitude. “(Angelus, 13 January 1980).

Dear fathers, dear mothers, dear grandfathers and grandmothers Catholics say, “Lord, if you want call one of my sons, one of my grand-sons, to the priesthood.” Young men and women who feel in your soul the vocation to marriage, the vocation to found a domestic church, say, “Lord, if you desire it call one of my future sons to the priesthood. “And you boys and young men, some of you might say,” Lord, I am ready to follow You, if You call me to the priesthood. ”

What a great vocation to be a true Catholic! What a great vocation to fight for the integrity of faith and God’s commandments! What a great vocation to be a Catholic family, a domestic church! What a great vocation to be a young man, a chaste young woman! What a great vocation to be a seminarian and a priest with a pure and ardent heart!
Do not be afraid of Goliath today, the dictatorship of the new global anti-Christian ideology. The Divine love of fire and gift of the Holy Spirit will make us able to defeat the Goliath of today with the five stones of David’s sling.
Come, Holy Spirit and made flower again many domestic churches, which will give us the five stones with which David will defeat Goliath: that is, good Catholic fathers and mothers, pure children, pure young people, intrepid and pure priests and bishops. Come Holy Spirit, come! So be it”.