June 20, 2023 Column Father De Celles News

“Pride Month”? It has always been interesting to me that the “LGBTQ” activist
use the term “pride” to promote their movement, and celebrate their proclivities
during “Pride Month.” Because in Christianity “pride” is one of the “Seven Capital
Sins,” in fact it is known as “the Queen of vices” (no pun intended).
What then is “pride”? Webster’s dictionary offers two diametrically opposed
definitions: : on the one hand, it is “reasonable self-esteem: confidence and
satisfaction in oneself: SELF-RESPECT.” But on the other it is, “exaggerated
self-esteem: CONCEIT.”
Christianity recognizes these distinctions: reasonable versus exaggerated
self-worth. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas quotes St. Jerome saying, “there is
a good and an evil pride”; or “a sinful pride which God resists, and a pride that
denotes the glory which He bestows.”
Even so, the term “pride” is generally used in Christianity to refer to the
“exaggerated” sense of self, or as Aquinas defines it: “Pride is so called because
a man thereby aims higher than he is… Pride may be understood as overpassing
the rule of reason, and in this sense we say that it is a sin.” And he continues,
most pertinently, “it is written (Sirach 10:14): “The beginning of the pride of man is
to fall off from God” because, to wit, the root of pride is found to consist in man
not being, in some way, subject to God and His rule.” So pride is the (always
unreasonable) presumed self-sufficiency from God.
Because of this it is considered “the Queen” or “the Mother” of all
vices/sins: in pride we consider ourselves greater than God, love ourselves more
than God, and therefore we do what we want, not what God wants. We obey
ourselves, not God. Thus, pride is really the “original sin” of Adam and
Eve, who thought they knew better than God, loved themselves more then Him,
and did what they wanted, not what God commanded.
Even in its positive definition (“a pride that denotes the glory which [God]
bestows” or “reasonable self-esteem”), “positive pride” is something to be careful
of, because it can so easily slip into the vice of pride, due to our fallen nature
(sin) and concupiscence (our tendency to confuse good with evil) and the
temptations of the devil.
So pride is not really something to celebrate.
And yet it makes perfect sense that the LGBTQ folks embrace it as their
motto. Think about it: going back to Genesis, and the creation of Mankind in His
image as male and female, complimentary to each other, equal in dignity but
radically and wondrously different. God defines humanity by his gift, he creates
us a certain wonderful way. But then pride enters, and man begins to yield to
pride and reject God’s creation, his plan, His/The truth about the nature of man.
The sin of Pride is what the “gay” and “transgender” movements are all
about: they reject God and his plan in nature for mankind.
So then, how can a Catholic celebrate “pride month”? We cannot.
 
Month of the Sacred Heart. Instead of “Pride Month,” for almost 200 years

Catholics have celebrated June as the Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And
what does Jesus say about His Heart? “I am meek and humble of heart.”
The Sacred Heart is a humble heart. And so St. Paul tells us, “Christ
Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant…. He
humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
It is in His humility that He was able to love the Father as a Son so much
that Jesus would obey His Father unto death, and able to love us so much that
He would die in service to us.
Let June be a month of humility for you. And in your humility, reject the
pride of Adam and Eve and imitate Christ, making the words of St. Peter your
own: “we must obey God rather than man.”
 
Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This last Friday, June 16, was
the Feast of the Sacred Heart. This feast was established by Pope Pius IX in
1856, reflecting the request Our Lord made in an apparition to Saint Margaret
Mary Alacoque, when showed her His heart and told her,
“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even
to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I
receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege,
and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.
…Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set
apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart…”
 
Irony, or Devilish Plot? With all this we see just how diabolic and vicious it is
that the Los Angeles Dodgers decided to honor the blasphemous and radically
anti-Catholic group called the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” on June 16, i.e.,
the Feast of the Sacred Heart. As Jesus once said of the wicked Pharisees and
scribes: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being
sentenced to hell?”
Thank God the president of the US Bishop’s Conference, Archbishop
Timothy P. Broglio (of the Archdiocese for the Military Services) and Archbishop
José H. Gomez of Los Angeles responded to the Dodger’s attack with the
following statement:
“This year, on June 16—the day of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus—a professional baseball team has shockingly chosen to honor a group
whose lewdness and vulgarity in mocking our Lord, His Mother, and consecrated
women cannot be overstated. This is not just offensive and painful to Christians
everywhere; it is blasphemy.
“It has been heartening to see so many faithful Catholics and others of
good will stand up to say that what this group does is wrong, and it is wrong to
honor them. We call on Catholics to pray the Litany of the Sacred Heart on June
16, offering this prayer as an act of reparation for the blasphemies against our

Lord we see in our culture today.”
Hopefully you received our parish “constant contact” email inviting you to
the Holy Hour last Friday to pray the Litany and make reparation to Our Lord and
His Sacred Heart present in the Blessed Sacrament.
 
Religious Freedom Week. Considering all this, it is more important than ever
that we defend our Catholic Faith and we observe Religious Freedom Week,
which runs from this Thursday, June 22, the Feast of St. Thomas More (and St.
John Fisher), through June 29, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul. St.
Raymond’s will keep this “Week” by:
 praying the “Prayer for Religious Freedom” after every Mass;
encouraging all parishioners to pray the “Prayer for Religious Freedom” daily at
home, and perhaps also making the Novena to St. Thomas More.
 
Oremus pro invicem. Fr. De Celles