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The Sunday TV Mass is produced and broadcast weekly by the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls to bring the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy into the lives and homes of those shut-in and unable to join their local community for Mass. The Mass is broadcast on the local CBS affiliate and has an audience of approximately 9,000 viewers. We also broadcast on Siouxland Christian Broadcasting.

Broadcast Schedule

Sunday
10:00am CT - 9:00am MT - KELOLAND TV
9:00am CT - KSCB cable channel 30 (Sioux Falls)

This Week's Homily

July 20, 2008
Celebrant: Fr. Justin Wachs

Judgment is the second to last reality that each one of us will face in our lives. For many of us, especially as we grow older and as the years pass more and more quickly by, the thought of judgment evokes fear. This is particularly the case when memories of all those sinful things that we have done. Sometimes even the smallest of things many years ago. Haunts us to such an extent that the thought of facing God becomes a great and foreboding anxiety.

Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting upon this in his encyclical on hope, wrote, “the prospect of judgment has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God’s justice. Faith in Christ has never looked merely backwards or upwards, but always also forwards to the hour of justice” (41).

Thus, for the one who believes in God and lives in his sight, there is no reason to fear. Indeed, as the Holy Father noted, judgment becomes a source of hope as our readings today remind us. God is good and forgiving, abounding in kindness. He permits, even longs for, repentence for sin.

Thus, as we see in the gospel, he allows the weeds to exist with the wheat, at least until the time of harvest. Because God is just, “evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing happened” (44). Yes, we will be responsible for our lives; however, because God is merciful, he invites us to own up to our wrongdoing and seek forgiveness and to live anew in his sight. We can, indeed, we will be forgiven in this life and in the next if we but turn to him. But, be on guard, that forgiveness depends upon our own justice. We ask the Lord to forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

For man, forgiveness can be difficult to offer, especially when the trespass is great or recent. However, God comes to our aid. Judgment is a source of hope. Because God is just, “there will be “‘undoing’ of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright” at the eternal banquet in his kingdom. What is more, the spirit comes to our aid. Grace is given that we might imitate Christ whose merciful love met divine justice upon on the cross when he took our sins upon himself and washed them away in his own blood.

Pope Benedict notes “both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. In the end souls stand naked before the judge” (44). That is then. Now, however, there is still time for repentance and choosing to live under the reign on God’s infinite, merciful love.

Today, as we receive our Lord in Holy Communion, even through an act of spiritual communion, we are given a foretaste of this love and are given the grace to work out our salvation in fear and trembling with the confidence that in becoming more and more like him, in living always in his sight, we will be received into the joy of his kingdom.