In homily spoken on 26 August 2007, the founder of the Heralds of the Gospel, Monsignor John Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, advocates in favor of discipline and observance of norms, as a way of promoting mutual respect, the success of society and the union between the You.
Watch the excerpt:
Following are the very words of Monsignor John Claudia:
Discipline is indispensab[1]le, because if we are not corrected, if we are not oriented, if we do not receive from someone a notion of how we should behave… Education is fundamental, it is indispensable.
Now, that's what God does to us, and God calls it a narrow door. Because, of course, to get through this door, you have to stick to a series of rules, a series of rules, a series of guidelines, respect for others, respect for their own personal conveniences. It is necessary to treat itself as a temple of the Holy Ghost. We are a temple of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit.
And that's why we ourselves, with us, must have extraordinary respect. Even if we are alone, even if we are preparing one morning, this morning, that morning, for common activities and currents of life, yet our respect for ourselves must be integrity, total, full. Therefore, we must not only respect others, but to ourselves. For this it takes discipline, there is nowhere.
In times gone, discipline was much stricter. I myself went through a very different disciplinary regime than there is today. And if I give something today, it's because of the discipline I've received since childhood, it's because of the discipline I've received in high school, it's because of the discipline I've received in the army.
Want to do their own wills, want to be totally loose, dropped, and as if it were a animal, an animal… Animal and animal have discipline. We teach the dog to sit down, we teach the dog to bark when the thief comes, we teach… There are dog masters who give dogs a perfect animal education. Now, why won't the man have his education?
It is not enough to listen, it is not enough until it communes, what is needed is to have a discipline of life. Without discipline of life, we do not practice virtue as we should, because our inclinations will do exactly the opposite of what is the Law of God.
We are living in a time of crisis everywhere. Why is that? Because since we are conceived in original sin, our tendency is precisely to give wide to our passions, to give wide to our inclinations. And our inclinations are not always good, on the contrary, since we are conceived in sin, our inclinations have to be evil; and often we want something that is not in accordance with the Law of God, we want something that is not in accordance with the social law itself.
Discipline puts our inclinations, our delusions of doing our own will, puts everything on track. How to gather people? How to make peoples praise God; give God all the glory they must give? Just within a disciplined life, there's no other way.
We see, in the Gospel itself, Our Lord saying to this who asks, "Lord, how many are saved? Are there many or are there few who are saved?" Our Lord is not answering. Our Lord says, "Prepare to employ every effort possible to pass through the narrow door!". It is passing through the narrow door that we will then participate in the eternal feast.
And so, we are, in this Liturgy, being invited to a disciplinary life.
What little can be applied today, of correction, guidance, the little that can be used of education, training in the line of education: accept! Accept with love; accept with joy. Because as soon as we become rods, checkers, value and category!
[1]Homily excerpt of August 26, 2007.