The Abomination of Sodom

Gospel Reflection for July 27, 2025 - Luke 11:1-13

And it came to pass, that as he was in a certain place praying, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

And he said to them: When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.

And he said to them: Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: Friend, lend me three loaves,

Because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him.

And he from within should answer, and say: Trouble me not, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth.

And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.

For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.

And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion?

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him? (Luke 11:1-13 DRA)

In the readings for this Sunday, God teaches us an important lesson, one which runs counter to our modern culture and many popular ideologies in the Church: He is infinitely generous and merciful, ever ready to bestow on us His very divine life with all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost, if only we will turn away from sin.

By violating His laws, whether those He designed into our very nature or those He has revealed to us in Tradition, we reject Him, not merely as some pernicious pagan deity offended by our lack of obeisance but as the God who is Goodness itself, whom to reject is to reject all that is good and the Source of every good thing.

There is nothing good apart from Him, only darkness, despair and misery, no matter how Satan and his worldly minions try to offer worldly goods – God’s creatures which participate in His Goodness – as possible alternatives to Him, as ways to bring us the true and everlasting happiness which exists in Him alone. The goodness of creatures is meant to point us to God, to incite us to love Him by the love He shows in giving them to us, not to replace Him as our false gods and idols.

This was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah: by their abominable sin of sodomy, among their many other despicable acts, they prefigured the wickedness of the Romans whom St. Paul would describe millennia later:

For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. (Rom 1:22-27)

For centuries, Satan tried in vain to destroy the Church primarily through external threats, from Roman persecution to non-Christian sects like the Arians and Muslims to heretics and schismatics who broke off from the Church to the atheists of the Enlightenment, Communism and fascism.

But in recent decades, since the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, he has used a much cleverer two-pronged strategy:

-Violate the truths of Tradition not through explicit heresy but through disciplines and non-infallible teachings which most Catholics will treat as infallible and binding, such as the blessing of gay ‘couples,’ all the while seeming to affirm the dogmas of the Faith (not to mention the other disciplinary violations of Tradition following upon the Novus Ordo);

-Masquerade grave sins, such as sodomy and transgenderism, as inculpable weaknesses which may fail to reach the unattainable ‘ideals’ rigidly given to us by God but which should be overlooked by us out of ‘mercy.’

This strategy has led to the full, even if undeclared, schism of the German church, to Pride Masses, transgender godparents, adulterers receiving the Eucharist and a pro-LGBT ‘Catholic pilgrimage’ to the Vatican in Italy – all under the watchful eyes of priests, bishops and popes who do little to stop it.

Amidst all this evil and confusion, we must never cease to remind the world and ourselves of Our Lord’s words: seek, and you shall find. God is ever waiting for us, generously holding out the loaves of His Body for our salvation, if only we will ask for it and turn away from our lives of death and corruption in sin, one which leads not to happiness but only to eternal damnation.

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