Summary:

It occurred to me recently that the Lord in a certain sense is aiming at us, not with malicious intent like a cat ready to pounce on his prey but the Lord is very attentive to us and has full intention of drawing near and drawing us closer to Him. In the season of Advent, we are trying to prepare our hearts in a special way, to receive the coming of the Lord and so part of that means turning to the Lord and seeing that the Lord is looking at us. Seeing that the Lord is looking at us with intention, not indifferent or as if the Lord is, you know, going around and every once in a while casts a glance in our direction. But to look to the Lord and to receive the gaze of the Father upon us is very, very important for us and to prepare ourselves to receive Him.

But it just strikes me that sometimes we may be like the cat with their back turned who is surprised to find that it is the object of another's attention. But truly we are always at the center of the Lord's attention. It is so easy in the spiritual life to set aside time for prayer and to enter into the gaze of God, to realize that God is gazing at us in that moment and then walk away from there and forget that we are still receiving the loving and merciful gaze of God. We may think that we have somehow moved out of that loving gaze, but no, that is not what happens. We simply become less aware of that gaze. 

To turn, so to speak, to Him and recognize that He is looking at us with infinite, divine, love is something quite beautiful to experience and that is a wonderful way to prepare for the coming of the Lord at Christmas: simply to spend some extra time receiving the loving gaze of the Father through Jesus. 

Summary: 

So, friends what is it about our relationship with God that is the cornerstone and the key to healthy relationship with Him? This is the theme that we read all throughout Advent. We have in Brauch a prophet who is telling the Israelites in the midst of their captivity - here is a city and a nation that was taken captive out of Jerusalem in the year 500 or 600 BC, conquered by the Babylonians who killed a great number of the Israelites, took captive the ones that they wanted to keep and brought them into captivity into Babylon. And then Brauch the prophet is telling them when this is happening in their life that God will bring you back to Jerusalem. How in the world is that going to happen? The city was basically destroyed. God will be faithful and continue to love you and bring you back to Jerusalem. And God will come and dwell with you. Why should they believe that? This great tragedy just occurred in their life why should they believe the prophet that God would do something like that? Why should we believe that God will in fact through His son Jesus Christ come back in glory at the end of time and make all things right? Why should we believe that? Why should we take the words of Scripture that say that? Because of one word friends, trust.

Because we trust that God is faithful to His promises and that He is trustworthy and when we have that trust, friends, here is the thing, this is so important. When we have that trust in God, He brings us His peace of heart, right? Because when we know that God is in control that we do our best to live our lives, that His will and His Providence is always for the good. He always is working in the midst of our freedom and our free will and our ability to make decisions and to choose - in the midst of that without violating that freedom -He is working to bring about good. Which means when people make bad decisions that have consequences either personally or in culture or internationally or globally - when decisions are made that create difficulties and suffering for people and messes, God is still at work in the mess. And when we trust that it brings us peace knowing that we don't have to be in control and do it all ourselves. And we let God be God. That is the best preparation that we can make for Advent, friends, is to build our trust in God. 

That is why all of these readings are given to us, and we'll continue to hear them for the next couple of weeks. All of these promises that God had made through the prophets, through Isaiah, through Baruch, through Jeremiah, all of these prophecies and promises that are made to Jerusalem are promises made to us. That He will return; that He is a good God; that He hasn't abandoned His children; that He loves us; that you are beloved, and He delights in you. All of these readings are supposed to remind us that God fulfills His promises because they get fulfilled in Jesus Christ. 

So, a lot of ways to prepare for Christmas - a lot of busy ways to prepare but they are also spiritual ways to continue to prepare during Advent. I would challenge you to do this: ask yourself “Where is my faith?” And faith is built on trust in God. And faith and trust go together. Faith is not just an intellectual belief, an intellectual ascent to something that is taught. Faith is a firm trust in God that what He says is true and then we believe that. Where is our faith right now? And as a result, where is our trust in God? And then make the decision to build our trust in God by looking at all the times that He has been faithful and that He never abandons us and that He's always working for the good. Even though He might allow suffering to happen, He only allows it - and all we need to do is take a look at it the Crucifix – to allow something better. We may not see it even in our own lifetimes, but we trust that He can, and He will bring good out of suffering and difficulty.

So, we never give up hope and we never give up our faith and we continue to be available in our hearts to God and He continues to bring us along until we die and then life begins. So, the next time I come around after Christmas, I want to hear how many gifts were given that had skulls in them. I think that's a great idea for a Christmas gift for any of your family members.  Not, from you know, obviously not from the cemetery – you can buy them on Amazon, I am sure. I wonder how many skulls will be given as Christmas gifts because that would be wonderful. Let me know and I think that would be very special. It is actually a very strong spiritual reminder, friends, I say that tongue in cheek, of course. It is kind of humorous how some of the Saints did these somewhat extreme things, but it doesn't hurt sometimes to give ourselves a jolt in life so that we can stay on track. Have a most blessed Advent season and God bless you on your journey.

Summary:

Like the season of Lent leading up to Easter, the season of Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. I am proposing that we have a Eucharistic Advent this year. A Eucharistic Advent. 

The main principle that is driving the whole idea is a principle that underlies so very much of the spiritual life. And that is: what we receive from God has very much to do with our ability to receive it. There's a principle in philosophy that states: “What is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.” In other words, what we receive from God certainly does depend on God, right? God is the one who gives. But it depends also very, very much on our ability to receive. 

So, what I'm proposing with Eucharistic Advent is that we simply work on improving our disposition to receive the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  Why not others, too, such as Confession. And if you're preparing to receive any of the other Sacraments as well. Or simply working on our disposition to receive from God. Looking at what there is in our life that needs to be cleared out. 

So, perhaps this is a good time in these next few weeks, three and a half weeks until Christmas, a good time for us to take inventory of what there is in our hearts that the Lord would like to clear out. Also, we can ask the Lord for the grace, you know, that He might just stir up something in us. Stir up a greater desire for this, the grace of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and help us to have the strength to make a concrete decision about how we will exercise our faith more and more completely in this holy season. 

Summary:

We may question sometimes whether we can trust Jesus with everything, everything in our life - especially those things that are most dear to us. Maybe we're not fully convinced all the time that Jesus has our best interests at heart especially if there are very important prayer intentions that we lift up to the Lord and the intentions are not granted the way that we see or that we want them to be fulfilled. Maybe we are not always entirely convinced that Jesus keeps His promises. 

But whatever our thoughts about Jesus as King may be, we have to realize that He is a different kind of King then the powers in our world, human authorities. 

In place of a crown of jewels and precious gems, Jesus takes a crown of thorns. In place of a royal scepter, they placed a reed in His hand; they knelt and mocked Him and He submitted himself to that. Instead of fine robes, He was stripped and hung on a cross. Instead of lording His authority over His subjects and making sure they know who is in charge, He chooses the path of humility. He, Himself said, He came not to be served but to serve and to lay down His life. In place of wealth and riches, He chose poverty. Rather than being self-aggrandizing, who is always focused on the good of the other. Instead of residing in some palace or castle or great mansion, He chooses (well, He does reside in Heaven which is a pretty good place), chooses the human heart -broken, struggling. In place of a royal throne, He chose the cross. In place of lavish banquets, choice food and rich wines, He instead makes Himself food for us - giving Himself to us under the humble appearances of bread and wine. 

Jesus Christ is truly a different kind of King and in all of this, He shows us so clearly that He came for our sake. He came for our sake, and He is perfectly worthy of all of our trust, deserving of all of our affection and devotion and yes, our loyal obedience to His Word. 

But I'm also reminded today about the fact that in our Baptism we were anointed with the Sacred Chrism. We were anointed priest, prophet, and king. We were anointed to be sharers in the priesthood of Christ, offering the sacrifice of our life to God. In other words, offering to God all our trials, our ills, our struggles, our pains. Offering to God all our successes and victories, all the wonderful and beautiful things in our lives, everything of our lives. Being shares in the priesthood of Christ means we offer, we make of our lives, an offering to God that is pleasing in His sight. We share the prophetic mission of Christ to speak the truth into the world. To speak the Word of God, to announce the truth of the Gospel. 

Lord Jesus, be our King, help us to be faithful citizens of your Kingdom. Help us also, Lord, to govern as you govern, with love, humility, patience, every virtue, with mercy, strength - total trust and obedience to God the Father.

Summary:

     The first judgment, when we die, we stand before the Lord, we render an account of our lives. He judges us. At the particular judgment - at the end of our lives which these readings are supposed to remind us of - we stand before Christ we know that we are saved at that point when He says “Welcome. Welcome home.” That is when we know we're saved. It is at that point that we are assured of salvation. Until then our salvation is somewhat fragile because we can't risk losing it by saying “no” to God. 

     The second judgment is the one that the Lord is talking about here and will continue to talk about - at the end of the world. And so, He gives us some warnings to help us understand what will happen when all of this takes place. And notice that the Lord is talking about two different events here. He is talking about the end of time when He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. He will gather up those elect and the wicked, He will set aside. There is that event which He says even the Son doesn't know, He, Himself the Son, doesn't know when that will happen. Only the Father knows. So, we have the end of time and then we have another event that He talks about. Notice He says, “This generation will not pass away until these things are fulfilled.”  What He is talking about there is a second and separate thing that is coming at the end of time. 

He is talking about the final tribulation of the Old Testament and a judgment upon the Jewish people that would take place as a result of their sins. That event was the destruction of Jerusalem that historically took place exactly forty years, a generation, forty years to the year that Our Lord said this. He was talking here around the year 30 A.D, and so forty years later the Romans encircled Jerusalem, 70 AD, they starved the people and then they went in and broke down the walls and slaughtered everybody. 

     So, friends, over the next weeks we will be doing readings from scripture about the end of time and how to prepare our hearts for the end of time. How to prepare ourselves properly but most importantly just simply to remain vigilant; to live each day to its fullest, to give thanks to God in gratitude for His incredible blessings and to trust Him. To put ourselves into His loving arms knowing that He is with us. He cares for us, and He strengthens us in whatever situation we might find ourselves. He doesn't remove our suffering, remember friends, or our difficulties in life. What He does is He promises to always be there with us helping us get moving. Amen. 

Summary: 

     Jesus is watching how the people put money into the treasury. And He sees many rich people putting in large sums and He observes the poor widow who puts in a couple of coins worth almost nothing and He praises that widow. He says that she actually put in more than all the other contributors because she didn't have any surplus wealth like they did out of which to contribute. She gave all she had out of her poverty. She gave all she had.

     I came across a quote by Fulton Sheen: “Never measure your generosity by what give, but rather by what you have left.”  Those who were putting large sums of their surplus into the treasury, they had a lot left over and their gift cost them very little. The poor widow had nothing left after she gave the little she had.

     You see, this is the beautiful thing. It is not about really economics in this Gospel. It is not really completely about our material possessions and being generous with those. It is really illustrating what kind generosity of the heart we are called to live in. And in giving of ourselves to God more completely we find ourselves not left destitute but left ready to receive Him. There is a beautiful readiness and receptivity about this spiritual poverty that Jesus is encouraging us to have. There's something good in that. The poet and spirit writer Carol Houselander described or illustrated this principle by speaking of a nest, a bird’s nest, that is empty but had all kinds of potential to receive new life.  

     I was at the Amazing Parish summit a year and half ago in Phoenix. The keynote speaker was Monsignor James Shea who is the president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. He was speaking to a group of pastors and parish leaders, and he said, “Here is the problem with your parish. You hate your poverty.” The problem for us is that we hate our poverty, he said. “We despise it. We can’t stand to be poor.” Not even talking about material poverty - talking about a spiritual poverty. He illustrates the fact that so many of us strive to be self-sufficient.

     God is looking for an empty space in your heart into which He can warm Himself. I know I've mentioned before Jesus words to say Saint Angela Foligno.  He said to her, “You made yourself a capacity and I will make myself a torrent.” But see, we have to go of so many things. We have to give like that poor widow in order to create the space for God. 

Summary:

     “How do I know that I really love God?”  I can tell myself all day long, I love God, but how do I know that that love is real? How do I know that that love is authentic? 

     How do we know? Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “Love tends toward union.” Love tends toward union between the one who loved and the beloved. So, the question might be “Am I tending toward union with God and what would that look like?” So, just a few points for our consideration. 

     How often do we think about God? Do we think about God at various points during the day just pondering the mystery of God? Asking God to help us to understand who He is a little bit better. Asking God to help us to set aside our false notions of God.

     Do we pray to God from the heart? And instead of getting caught in the trap of just saying the words of the prayers that are so familiar to us, do we really pray from the heart? How heartily do we desire Holy Communion? Do we really look forward all week to the opportunity to receive Jesus’ Body and Blood Soul and Divinity into us? Do we make really good reception of Holy Communion even staying after Mass to give thank God? Do we feel ourselves drawn into Eucharistic Adoration? Are we drawn to communion with Christ? 

     Do we notice inside a desire to know Him better? Do we seek Him in Scriptures? Do we want to find Him and how He has revealed Himself in His Word and also how He has revealed Himself to us in His Church? 

     Is there a desire to know the Lord better? What about sharing the good news about Jesus? When we love someone ardently, we find ourselves eager to talk about that person, to share about that other person with other people who might not know them yet. Do we want to live boldly as disciples? The Scriptures also tell us that we know that we love God by keeping His commandments. Do we have a strong desire to live our lives according to God's plan? Not just following the letter of the law but really embracing God's plan for our life. 

     Do we rejoice when God is honored? Do we rejoice when we see the growth of the Church and lament when our Lord is dishonored? Do we celebrate the feasts of the Church with great joy? Do we ache when we see our Lord dishonored? When you hear someone using the Lord's name in vain? Is there something of a twinge or some sort of pain inside or does it just go away with the flow? 

     Finally, what kind of response do we make when we ponder God's love for us, God's infinite love for us? What kind of response do we make with the gift of ourselves? How fully do we make ourselves available to God? Are there parts of us that we hold back from God? Areas in our hearts where we don't quite want to welcome Him in – maybe many places of wounding or shame. Maybe there are places where we're still attached to something - we're afraid the Lord is going to ask us to let go of that, and we don't want to yet. How fully do we give ourselves to God in love? How fully do allow God access to our heart? 

Summary;

The story of Bartimaeus, for example, in today’s Gospel is not just the story of this man who encountered Jesus as Jesus was leaving Jericho. The story of Bartimaeus is the story of me and of you as well. We are poor, blind, beggars calling out to Jesus to come and help us. 

With the ears of faith, we hear Jesus in the Sacrament asking us, each one: “What do you want me to do for you?” That's a great question for us to ponder when we come to Mass. What is it that we're asking? What kind of grace are we asking Jesus for in the Sacrament? Are we asking for the grace just to keep on going one more day, another week? Are we asking for the grace to carry a heavy burden of illness or depression or despair? Are we asking the Lord to heal a physical infirmity? Are we asking the Lord to set us free from the bondage of a repeated sin and the lure of the temptation to that sin? What are we asking? He is saying to you, “What do you want me to do for you?”

And when we come up and approach the altar and receive Holy Communion, this is the most intimate moment of that experience of encounter with Jesus. This is where Bartimaeus and Jesus, we and Jesus, are face to face. And that's where the healing word, the transforming touch, will come about.  Give Him the answer to His question – “What do you want? What do you desire for me to do for you?  

Homily by Fr. David Kruse

Summary:

     What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?  What is the one piece of advice or a piece of wisdom that was shared with you that really stuck? The one that you've been able to carry with you.  The most important piece of wisdom that you really should carry with you every single day and it should be a primary motivator in your life and it has to do with a Psalm in the Book of Psalms. 

     Receive your inheritance! Receive your inheritance. Do whatever it takes to keep your inheritance. That's it! It is from Psalm 90 in the Book of Psalms. It is the only Psalm that Moses authored: "Remember the shortness of life; remember your years are numbered. Life passes like a sigh - seventy years or eighty who are strong will live and it all goes and what matters most is eternity.” 

     Now, the journey of life is all about doing what we need to do – following the Lord, following the Commandments, following God will, which is expressed in the Commandments, in His Church that He has given us and the teachings of His Son. Do whatever it takes to keep your inheritance. It is so important and that helps become a motivator when you don't feel like going to church on Sunday, when you don't feel like being generous to the others in your environment, when you don't feel like following whichever Commandment. So important to get the ‘why’ identified and clarified.

Summary:

What usually happens in the Gospels when Jesus calls someone and says, “Follow me”.  They follow immediately. Remember as Jesus went by and saw Simon and Andrew at their boat. He said, “Follow me.” They left the boat and followed Him immediately. Down the shore a little bit farther, He sees James and John with their father Zebedee in the boat, “Follow me”.  They leave their nets; they leave their father in the boat and follow Him immediately. Matthew, at the tax collector’s booth, “Follow me” and he got up and followed Him. That is the typical dynamic we see when Jesus calls but it's not what happens in today's Gospel, is it? 

However, this man walks away sad and how sad he must have been because he couldn't part, he couldn't let go of those attachments. He was unable to belong completely to Jesus.

How do we respond when we are faced with a hard teaching from Jesus or His Church. After all the teachings of the Church are the teachings of Jesus. How do we respond when we're faced with this kind of difficult, this very hard teaching, or a challenging invitation.

Therefore, what we need when it comes to these hard teachings - it's not to be convinced - but what we need is greater communion with Him. Greater communion with Him - in mind and heart because if we love Him more and more and His hard teachings are less and less of an obstacle for us; if we love him more and more, we will gladly accept all that He teaches. All that He teaches. And all that He teaches through His Church as well.

Summary:

     So many important matters are being identified merely as examples of partisan politics when they are so much more than that. For example, as Catholics we don't see abortion or gender identity or immigration as matters that simply define a person's political stance. For us they have something to do with the very will of God and God's plan for humanity, His plan for human flourishing. It goes so far that the way people engage with these matters can bring them closer to God and it can also move them away from God. So, these things are very important. We have to take such matters rightly.

     Another of those matters is marriage. In today's first reading and in Gospel, these readings focus on the unity and indissolubility, the permanence of marriage, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden and culminating with what Jesus teaches about the divorce in the Gospel of Mark. And one might reasonably ask why is it that the Catholic Church seems to be so hung up on marriage and divorce?

     I think the first answer to that question, why does the Church, why is the Church so concerned about it? Is that Jesus seems to be so concerned about it. Also, beyond the consideration of the harm that is done through divorce, I think the main difference is that when it comes to the Sacraments, the external reality has to correspond to the internal reality. The Sacrament is an external sign, right, instituted by Christ to give greater visibility to the external, visible, the audible, the sensible with the reality that is not seen - the invisible – the grace of the Sacrament

     The grace of the Sacrament is principally for the benefit of the spouses so that they might remain faithful all their life long. But when it comes to the Sacrament of marriage there's actually another layer here. There's another layer of understanding of how the visible reflects the invisible because it's not just that the vows of the couple reflect the invisible reality of their union, the love of the couple as it becomes visible in the community points to Divine Love. It becomes a visible image of the love of Christ for the Church. As the husband loves his wife, so Christ loves the Church as the wife loves the husband, so the Church loves her spouse Jesus Christ. .

Summary:

     What is it about sin that is so serious? Jesus is certainly not a referee sent from the Father to make sure that everyone in this world is playing by the rules and to punish those who break the rules. Rather, we realize that Jesus came into this world to communicate the desire of God that every person would receive the outpouring of the spirit of God. Remember the end of the first reading, Moses is saying, “would that the Lord might bestow His spirit upon them all.” Right? The Lord wants to pour out His life, His spirit into the soul of every human being and if you are baptized, the majority of you are baptized, then you have received this outpouring of the very life of God. The reality of sin is that it inhibits. It squashes the life of the Spirit in us. It gets in the way of our living the life that God calls us to live and actually created us to live so we shouldn't be content with even the smallest thing that inhibits our full life in the Spirit. Sometimes we can easily say, “Well, I'm a pretty good person and I don't do anything really bad.” We should not be content with even the small things that get in the way of our full living of life in the Spirit. 

     We can ask the Lord for very specific help with overcoming a particular kind of sin in our life. Certainly, we can ask specifically for help to overcome pride or self-reliance - those kinds of things - fear. But, for example when we go to confession and we confess a very particular sin, we are asking for grace from God to address that particular thing and He gives the grace in the Sacrament.

     When we approach to receive Holy Communion, there can certainly be very specific burdens or intentions in our hearts and that we can be asking God that through that Communion would He would address those specific areas. We can pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to guide us in specific and particular ways. But sometimes also the grace of God comes in sort of a more general or broad way. For example, when we simply just sit with the Lord in a time of silent adoration, we don't have to be focusing on sins in our lives but just being there in the presence of the Lord is healing. If we are growing in friendship with the Lord, if we are growing in our love and admiration of the Lord Jesus, that's going to have an effect on us. Receiving Holy Communion worthily renews the life of the Spirit in us; helps us with general things as well as specifics. 

So, the good Lord knows the different kinds of battles with sin that we fight. He knows exactly the kinds of remedies we need. 

     So, whatever kind of battle you are fighting, you need to be aware of that. It is also good to take advantage of all the different kinds of remedies that the Lord is offering.

Summary:

The evangelist St. Mark in this portion of his gospel is not only recounting to us the historical event Jesus journey with the with the disciples from the region of Caesarea Philippi down to Capernaum, he is also in a very real sense describing a present reality for us because we are on the journey with the Lord. That is a great way of describing our walk of faith. We are journeying with the Lord and just as the disciples with Jesus arrived in Capernaum and stopped there, went inside the house so, at 9:00 on a Sunday morning, you have taken a little stop in your journey. You have arrived at the House and now it is time to hear what the Lord has to say to you. 

I would suggest today that part of that for all of us is the question that Jesus asks the twelve when they get to the house. “What were you arguing about on the way?” Not that any of you were arguing on the way to church this morning but maybe you were. (laughter). Maybe the question though is something a little bit more profound. What's the, what's the war that's going on? What's the battle that's going on inside as we were walking along the way? Jesus says. “What is going on in you? What war is being fought in your heart? What are the things that are causing turmoil in your life? Or if it's not turmoil, what's going on there?”

Having all of this other stuff going on in life and pouring all of our energy into it without putting Jesus first - that's the danger.

 It is not that we don't have to tend to these things or that they're unimportant we have to put Jesus Christ first and then everything else finds its proper place in relation to that fundamental relationship in our life. 

That's part of the humility that Jesus describes to His disciples. “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” So often we want to say, “Alright Lord Jesus, I love you. I've got to do this thing first and then and then you. Then I'll take care of it, I'll give you some attention. First me and then you.” That is a supreme disorder in life. First Jesus and then everything else. First Jesus and then everything else. 

Summary:

     Did you ever watch any of those courtroom drama programs on television? Perhaps you remember Perry Mason? He was probably the original but there are other shows like Law-and-Order things like that. We are familiar with the courtroom scene. I remember seeing one program, I don't remember which one it was, but there was a young attorney, and a more seasoned attorney was kind of sharing wisdom with him. He said, “When you are in the courtroom, don't ever ask a question that you don't know the answer to already.” Maybe Jesus would have made a good attorney in this sense because He is not asking questions in today's Gospel in order to find out information that He doesn't already know. 

     Keep in mind in the biblical sense knowledge is very deeply connected to love. In fact, it goes so far even in many Old Testament passages just because such and such man who ‘knew his wife’ and she conceived. So, knowledge obviously connotes something very intimate and intimate love. Jesus in wanting to be known by us, by all of His disciples, doesn't want just that we would know about Him - be able to say you know tell stories about what He did and communicate information about the details and data of His life -  He wants us to know him deeply and that that knowledge will lead to deeper and deeper love.

     Love in turn, leads to action and Jesus makes that very clear as he continues. After Saint Peter makes his confession of faith, “You are the Christ”, Jesus goes on to speak about how He is going to suffer and die and rise. And then He says those famous words” Whoever wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” In other words, it is not enough for you to say, “Yes Jesus, I would love to be your disciple. Count me in!” You have got to do something, He says! If you want to be My disciple, if you love Me, you must do something. Deny yourself, take up your request, follow. You have got to take action!

Summary:

 “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared, then will the lame leap like a stag, and then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.”  I begin this morning with a couple of simple questions, and I invite you to reflect on your own answers to these questions in your mind and heart. 

 The first question is: Does God do this? Does God still do this? The second question is: Does God do this for you? Or just for other people? Does God do all of this for you? Is this your experience of God? 

Does God do these things for you? I think if we're honest we can say, “Well, yes. God is gradually bringing about change in our life. He is leading us on the path of deepening and ongoing conversion.” But sometimes maybe we feel like not much is happening. Maybe we question really deeply whether the Lord is doing anything and maybe we kind of say, “Well, if I could just find the key that opens up this door to healing; if I could just figure out how this whole healing thing works; or if God would just make the decision to take away these obstacles in my life then  I would receive most willingly and gladly.” But God is not waiting for us to find the right key to open the door or to rely on our own understanding and wisdom to figure out how do we see this healing. He tells us. 

 He says through the prophet Isaiah: “Here is your God,

he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you.” He comes to save you, not “he waits for you to figure it out and then come.”  He comes to save you, and we all need to hear these words spoken to us. They are not spoken out into some void where no one hears them, or everyone assumes they are spoken to someone else. He speaks them to me and to you. He comes to heal our blindness and our deafness and our muteness, our lameness. He comes and yes, God healed many people in Old Testament times. He sent his son; He sent his son. 

Summary:  

     Remember that when we come to celebrate the Eucharist we are not only reminded of Jesus’ invitation for us to make a firm decision on our own, we are also reminded that in the context here of the celebration of the Eucharist of the communal dimension of our spiritual life. The communal dimension of our spiritual life. So, Jesus does not only elicit a decision from us personally in our own individual, private relationship with God, He is eliciting a decision from us as the church - as a community bound together by the love of God and especially in the sharing of the Bread of Life.

     So, hopefully, we have something of a reputation of being out there and doing good for people.

     I think the Lord wants something even more than that. I think the Lord is calling us to be such a dynamic community that is so on fire with the love of God and so putting that love into action that people are knocking down the doors to get in here because they want to be part of that! Jesus in the Eucharist elicits from our community concrete decisions about how we are going to go out and bring Him into the broader community. Bring Him to people who don't yet know Him; bring Him to people who are confused about what is true and what is false. I realize that we don't have a ‘collective mind’. We are still individuals right. Yes, we can make individual decisions to participate in the ‘movement’ and the mobilization of our parish.

Summary:

In  today's Gospel the Lord spells it out perhaps or takes us even one step farther than our realization that the Eucharist demands something of us. He brings us to the point where we have to make a decision. We have to make a decision. See, this, this conversion in our heart doesn't just happen. It doesn't just come about without our engagement with God's grace, so there is a decision.

Can you decide today to make the Eucharist a more central aspect of your life? Can you make a firm resolution today to give your heart more completely than you've ever given it to Jesus in this Sacrament? Can you make a firm resolution also to make more frequent use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation - to go to Confession - perhaps even quarterly or monthly as a way of strengthening and purifying your heart to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. Will you make a decision to allow Eucharistic Adoration to be a part of your spiritual life? Even just dropping in once in a while - maybe once a week? How about fifteen minutes to stop in when the church is open? Is the Lord inviting you to make a firm decision about evangelizing and sharing with others the good news of Jesus in the Eucharist? What is the decision that Jesus is inviting you to make? How is he calling you to be really intentional about your relationship with Him in the Eucharist? More intentional - I am not saying no one is intentional but He's asking more of that from us.

So, if we can be more mindful about being deliberate and intentional, we can ask the Lord for the grace to do that, we are going to see things change in our relationship with the Lord and especially if those decisions are related to Jesus in the Eucharist and how we can allow Jesus in the Eucharist to occupy a more central place in our life, then the results are going to be phenomenal! They may happen very quickly, but they may happen over time but they're going to be great! The fruits that come about when we give ourselves more completely to the Lord in this Sacrament.

Hear Jesus saying those words to you and asking you the question, what will you do? What will your decision be? What is your choice today? We ask God for the grace to hear His voice, to know what it is He's invited us to and to make the decision. 

Summary: 

     I would like to begin today by saying a few words about Excommunication. Maybe you weren't expecting that topic [laughter] but stick with me!  I think that Excommunication is actually something little understood by most Catholics because most think that it is kind of this sense of getting booted out of the Church. You are out of the ‘excommunicated’ 

“excommunicatio,’ but the truer sense of the word is this: It is a removal of oneself from communion with Christ and His Church. 

     It is relevant for all of us because the same question that is at hand in the matter of Excommunication is at hand for all of us when we come forward or when we are discerning whether to present ourselves for Holy Communion. That question is “If I were to receive Holy Communion, today would I receive Holy Communion worthily?”

     Excommunication is not a punitive act of the Church, it is medicinal. The idea is that the person who is excommunicated would so ardently desire to be back in the communion with Christ and the Church that he would do whatever it takes to make that happen.

     Perhaps none of us at this point is Excommunicated and yet, the same question is still appropriate: Will I receive Holy Communion worthily? Am I willing to take that hard look at my soul and humbly pursue the the work of making things right, putting things in order, before I approach the altar? The Christian life is a struggle for all of us, or it should be. It should be. And the Holy Eucharist is not the reward for the perfect it's food, it is nourishment for those who need help. But we pray that we may never, ever receive this Sacrament unworthily. This Sacrament that is the Bread of Life. This Sacrament that is the true flesh and the true Blood of Jesus Christ. May He give us the grace, may we beg for the grace this day, to receive Him only worthily. 

Summary:

     Jesus at the Last Supper said: “Do this in memory of me.” Do this in memory of me – that is a command that should be taken seriously. It is a solemn command, instruction, given by the Lord to His apostles and through His apostles to all of His disciples: “Do this in memory of me.” It behooves us then to understand what that word this actually means. When He says, “Do this” do what? Do what in memory of Him? Have a simple reenactment? Gather once in a while to think about what He did? Do this in memory of me. 

     Of course, our Catholic faith teaches us that ‘Do this” means celebrating these mysteries, these sacred mysteries, in an ongoing way. Believe that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ. That the sacrifice of Calvary is made truly present on the altar. Offer this sacrifice to the Father every day for His glory and for the sanctification of His people.

     How do we know? There is plenty of evidence in the scriptures to support our belief in the real presence of Christ. The words of Jesus himself: “This is my body. This is the chalice of my blood.” We look to what the first Christians believe. Not only the written text of the Bible that gives us documentary evidence, but we also look at the early writings of the first Christians, the Didache. The writings St. Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, Irenaeus, Clemen, Cyprian, Athanasius, St. Cyril, Hilliary, Basil, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, St. Leo and all the rest. All the rest. There is a living tradition, there is a living tradition that reaches all the way back to Jesus Himself. As He said to His apostles, “Do this in memory of me,” He equipped them - He ordained them - to keep doing this in memory of Him. He appointed them. He sent them into the world to keep doing what He did – making present His offering on the Cross so that all people of succeeding ages could participate in His life-giving sacrifice and draw their nourishment from His body and blood. 

 This Apostolic succession is so key to our belief, our well-founded belief, that this is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. i\

     It comes also down to the very heart of Jesus. The reality of His love for us that led Him not just to give us a ceremony that we can reenact and something for us to remember but He promised that He would come, that He would be present in this celebration, truly present! That He would come to meet us and to come into our life, into our very body, into our soul. He promised! He loved us that much that He wouldn't leave this 2000-year gap between him and us but He would come into the present taking on the flesh once again if you will. Coming near; coming in. That is the nature of His love for us - an infinite, infinite love.

Father Kenny' was away on Sunday, August 4th. .

Summary:

     I would like to share with you this morning just a simple illustration of the power of Word and Sacrament in our Christian life. The Word. Starting today and for the next four Sundays we are going to be hearing passages from the Sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel. As we heard just a moment ago the well-known account of the feeding of the 5,000 but then for the next month or so we are going to be hearing Jesus’ very well-known Bread of Life Discourse. I really encourage you to dig into that passage. Don’t just hear it when you come to Mass but pray with that passage for the next month and not just in an academic sense trying to parse the words or get a literal sense but really enter into this scene and be there with Jesus as He is saying these important truths.

     You can enter into this Word, this passage, today. Beginning of John Chapter Six. You can enter in and find that you are the boy or if you're a female imagine that it was a girl in the crowd. But you can enter in and find that that's you and Jesus is saying he wants you as you are with whatever you have to offer whether that's great or small. He loves you as you are. He is not waiting for you to be something different in order to bestow his love and mercy upon you. He sees you and wants you. You can hear Andrew say to you in the power of the Word, “The master has need of you.” And in that moment, all those ideas about what it takes to be worthy of love are burned up in a flaming heat because Jesus is saying to you: “You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be smart or pretty or tough or fit or whatever in order for me to find you worthy of love. I find you worthy already as you are.” 

As I said before really delve into the scriptures; delve into this past this 6th Chapter of St. John's Gospel, but even more basic, ask. Just begin to ask the Lord each day for a Eucharistic Revival and Renewal. If this is new for you to ask for the Lord to keep opening your eyes to the reality that's here, you have been a Catholic all your life going to Mass every Sunday, ask Him to take you even deeper. It is the Lord's work, revival is. It is not ours. We just need to open our hearts to it. Ask and receive. Word and Sacrament are so powerful. So powerful. And we're invited to experience their power to really and truly transform our lives in Jesus Christ the Lord. 

Summary: 

The kind of accountability that I am really looking at here is accountability for our spiritual life. Who keeps us accountable in the living of our Christian life as missionary disciples? Do we find ourselves when we gather for Mass or when we come to the Church to visit Jesus, do we find ourselves reporting to the Lord how we are doing? And I am not just talking about missionary activity in terms of you know with whom have we shared the Gospel?  With whom have we struck up a conversation about Jesus?

 Our whole life as Christians is a missionary life. The Holy Father has spoken about this on many, many, many occasions. We are not merely disciples; we are missionary disciples. Jesus sends us into the world not just to talk to people about our faith but to live the Christian life in such a way that we radiate the truth and the goodness and mercy and love of Jesus Christ. 

       How many of us then, how many of us have people in our lives who really know what is going on with our walk with the Lord? How many of us share with another soul in this world the difficulties and the joys, the struggles, and the triumphs of our Christian life? If we do not have someone to share like this with, we need to find someone. Even hermits in the desert have spiritual directors that they share with. You who are married - is your spouse someone who knows what is going on in your spiritual journey, in your spiritual life? Is your spouse someone who can say to you, “That kind of language” or “That kind of behavior is not fitting for a Christian.” Do you allow your spouse to say that to you without getting defensive and saying, “Hey, who are you to tell me that!” Give permission to your spouse to keep you accountable in your spiritual life. That also requires sharing a certain vulnerability about our walk with the Lord. And if you are not married, there needs to be someone who can keep you accountable in your spiritual life. 

       Brothers and sisters, come to the Lord. Find someone, yes, who will help to keep you accountable in your spiritual life, your Christian journey, your Christian mission, but don't forget about coming to the Lord person to person, face to face with Jesus, heart to heart. 

Summary: 

I would like to draw out three themes from today’s Gospel. The first one is that the Proclamation of Kingdom of God which is our mission as disciples of Jesus Christ, the Proclamation of Kingdom of God is not only our mission as individuals, but it is a corporate mission. It is the mission of the Church as the Body of Christ. So, Jesus you notice, does not send the twelve out one-by-one, but two-by-two. The work of evangelization, the work of the Proclamation of Kingdom is done in the context of community. And yes, we each have our own mission in this life, but our mission is carried out in the context of the Church. So, it is really very important, very important, to foster an ever-greater sense of community in the Church so that the mission can be ever more efficacious. 

Secondly, the effective Proclamation of the Kingdom of God requires utter trust in God and reliance on God's providence. 

And the third theme is connected with that. We notice that Jesus first summons the twelve; He draws them to himself; He establishes a good strong relationship with the twelve and then He sends them out. So, the mission and our trust in God, both of those first two themes arise from a real and living and dynamic, vibrant, relationship with the Lord.

 We want our relationship with God to be true, real, vibrant, and dynamic. So, how often during the day are we mindful of God? How many times in a day do we turn to the Lord and tell Him that we love him? How frequently are we reconciled with the Lord in the Sacrament of Penance? How frequently do we receive Communion with hearts burning with love? The Lord wants to draw us into an ever more real relationship with Him and that becomes the foundation of the deep, deep, trust that allows so much more to happen in our spiritual lives and in our life in other aspects.

I want to reemphasize the value of Eucharistic Adoration for the purpose of strengthening and making more and more real this relationship with Jesus. Yes, the Lord is everywhere. We can pray at home. But his real presence in the Eucharist is ‘located.’ It is in a specific place. There is something very different about coming to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament then just praying in other places. There is something intensely personal about that encounter. 

So, I urge you, carve out a space for Eucharistic Adoration in your life. As you know, the bishops of this country have been promoting this multiple year Eucharistic Revival : “Come and discover Jesus in this sacrament. Come and discover him in the quiet time of adoration. Find his presence. Discover this whole new avenue that opens up in your Christian life by spending time - even just a little time in adoration.” 

So, I echo that exhortation of the bishops to you. Discover Jesus in this holy sacrament not only in receiving Him in Holy Communion in the Mass but also outside of the Mass. I know most people come to town at some point during the week. Think about just coming by stopping in or at the very least, as you drive by the Church, make the sign of the cross and make a visit even in transit. Discover Eucharistic Adoration. That is the Lord drawing us to himself as He summoned the twelve, drew the twelve to Himself and then He sent them out.

So, these three themes are very present in today's Gospel: Jesus draws the twelve to himself and that relationship with Him is the foundation of their mission. Their mission is carried out in the context of community. So, how important it is for us to strengthen those bonds in the Parish and thirdly, you have got to trust. Trust Jesus with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

Summary: 

 Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has been revealing His divine identity by working a number of miracles. He has healed many people, He has performed exorcisms, driving demons out. He has even calmed a storm on the seas and raised a dead girl to life. Now, at the beginning of Chapter Six, which we just heard, the tone has changed. The tone of this Gospel is quite sad at the end as Jesus is not able to perform any mighty deeds there. There is a real sadness in that statement. There is a sense that Jesus has come. He is revealing that He wants life transformed by Divine Power. He wants people to experience the power of God in their life, in a real way. He is revealing that things are different when you are a disciple of His.

     Any new understanding and depth and knowledge about Jesus is going to come from Him. He is the one who wants to reveal his face to us more completely. He is the one who wants to show us what is in his heart for us. So, all we have to do really is avail ourselves of those opportunities in which the Lord wants to show us His face. And certainly, we do that when we pray. When we have our concentrated time of prayer each day, we can simply say, “Lord, reveal something more of yourself to me. Show me your face. Reveal to me what is in your heart for me, personally.” He will. 

     The most powerful encounter we can have with the Lord is through the Eucharist and not only receiving Him at Mass but also spending time with Him just being present in His Eucharistic presence. Whether during Exposition, Adoration at the Altar or even in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel right here. And I don’t know, I know some of you have experienced Eucharistic Adoration on a very regular basis but maybe that is not part of the life of many of you here. I encourage you to listen to the Lord’s voice. He is calling you there. You can drop in any time and if the doors are locked, call the parish number and dial ‘9’ for an emergency and it will come to my phone and I will come and let you in!  I will arrange for you to come and spend time here if you are willing. There is a time and if you can’t make it when the Church is open, I will come and I will let you in. 

Summary:

 In today’s Gospel, we have two stories of healing. The story of the healing of the woman of afflicted with hemorrhages sort of sandwiched in between the beginning and end of the story of Jairus’s daughter. 

So, this woman for the last twelve years would have had something in a life of isolation, similar to a leper. But here she is. She has heard about Jesus; she draws near and with great courage and boldness she reaches out and just touches His cloak. Now this is a daring thing for her to do because in the understanding of most people present, she would be sort of inflicting, if you will, uncleanness upon Jesus. 

 Of course, Jesus cannot be made unclean. Rather, he makes the unclean clean.. He is not irritated just like being awoken in the boat. He is not irritated when he says, “Who has touched my cloak?”  He doesn't say that like He is put out or something, rather, what's happening here is that He is drawing this woman out from her place of anonymity in the crowd. This woman who is to some degree rejected by the rest; no one wants anything to do with her because if they touch her they become unclean. But Jesus draws her out. He wants to see her. He does not say, “I will just go on my merry way. Power has gone out and you got your physical healing.” He turns around and says, “Who touched me?” He draws her out of the crowd because he wants to see her face to face. He wants her to look at him and to know that He does not reject her; that He loves her. That He is not irritated that she reached out with boldness and courage.

Summary: 

Almost 2,000 years later we are celebrating these two somewhat unlikely candidates for leaders in the church.  Peter, beset by fears and doubts, weakness, he turned and fled. He denied that he knew Jesus three times. Paul, not really characterized for weakness per se but for malice. He was against the Church. Anyone in those days might have looked at Peter or Paul, Simon or Saul and they would have bet money, I bet,  that they would not be great figures in the history of the Church. But they said, “yes” to what the Lord asked of them and those ‘yeses’ along the course of their lives of discipleship had a tremendous impact, a tremendous impact on the world and have had a lasting impact for centuries and centuries and centuries.

How is the Lord drawing near to you today and in these days at this point in your life? How is the Holy Spirit beginning to stir? Is there a newness that the Lord is offering you in your relationship with Him? If you already have a strong relationship with the Lord, do you hear Him calling you to go even deeper to greater depth? The Lord is not done with anyone of us yet and it doesn’t matter how many times we may have said ‘no’, the next time we can say ‘yes’; and you might say ‘no’ after that. But we can say ‘yes’ again after that. The Lord calls so persistently, so patiently. He has wonderful plans for the life of each and every one of us every one of us and the simple key to unlocking those plans is our daily ‘yes.’

Summary:

 What kind of spiritual insight can we gain from today's Gospel passage? Of course, traditionally anytime you see a boat you think about the Church. The boat is so often a symbol of the Church, and the boat is you know being navigated through stormy waters to the distant shore. Jesus says, “Let us cross to the other side.” So, the ‘Church’ with the disciples in it and with the Lord in it is on this journey to the shores of eternal life ultimately. And of course, in the Gospel this huge storm arises, and the disciples are terrified. These, you know seasoned fishermen, are terrified. Jesus is asleep. Jesus is not terrified. He is in the stern asleep on a cushion and so when they wake Him and sort of accuse Him of being uncaring, first He stills the storm and then his question is, “Why are you terrified? Why are you even afraid at all? Do you not yet have faith?” So, the lesson for the Church, the ‘boat’ of the Church is if you know that Jesus is in the boat with you, have faith, trust in the Lord. Lean on Him. Know that He's going to bring you to safe harbor. 

Now Saint Augustin saw in this passage not only the boat as a symbol of the Church but also as a symbol of each one of us on our journey across the stormy waters into eternal life and that Jesus is present. 

 So, how do we apply that to the Gospel - both the Church as the ship and seeing the ship as ourselves – we acknowledge the presence of Christ there doesn't mean everything is automatically ‘okay’. It certainly doesn't mean there aren't going to be storms. That’ s a good point to note in the Gospel as well. The fact that Jesus is in the boat with them doesn't mean there is no storm. But we have to also be mindful of the fact that Jesus is present. We have to turn to Him in our times of distress. We have to lean on Him. We have to cry out to Him: “Lord, I need you. Keep me grounded in this truth that you are with me and that as long as you are with me, I am assured of safety.” Jesus can be present, and He can be very content to stay asleep on a cushion. But as Saint Augustine would say, when these things arrive, go, and wake Him up! Turn to Him! Turn to Him, call to Him and receive strength through your faith. 

Summary:

The only answer to the world’s trouble and confusion is Jesus. There is no politician or there is no statesman or diplomat or economist, or entertainer or scientific genius who can truly bring the world what it needs. Only Jesus can give the world what it truly needs. Bishop Daly in his column in the most recent issue of diocesan magazine, the Inland Catholic, speaks of evangelization as the answer to our troubled world. Evangelization has to do with announcing the Kingdom of God, as Jesus did. He went about proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Announcing: God exists! God is God. God is the Lord; God holds all of creation in his hands and he is actively at work within his creation. He is doing something. He is moving. 

Look to the parable of the mustard seed. Jesus says, “When the mustard see is sown in the ground, it is the smallest of all seeds on the earth, but once it is sown, it grows up and becomes one of the largest plants.” It starts small, it starts small. With each one of us, that is where it begins. We don’t have to figure out everything. We don’t have to come up with some ‘master plan of evangelization’. It starts with each one of us acknowledging the Lord as Lord. It starts with each one of us allowing Christ to be absolutely central. Allowing the Lord to be the one who motivates and guides the decisions we make in day-to-day life. To what degree is Jesus the Lord of our life? That is a challenging question. We easily fall into allowing things to be our motivating factors in life. He wants to be our all, in all. The more that becomes the reality in our whole life, the more it begins to spread. 

I was visiting a parishioner with the greenhouse the other day and he was showing me this particular plant that he has. It is a  fairly tall plant - maybe four or five feet tall - and he mentioned that that particular plant by nature would grow to be about fifteen feet tall, but he said that he was not allowing it to grow that tall by keeping it in a smaller pot. I thought, hmm, that's a really interesting analogy for the life of the Spirit in us and our life of prayer. 

 How we can place limits on the fruitfulness of the Spirit in our life by perhaps placing limits on our prayer or not necessarily placing limits on our prayer, but not allowing our prayer to expand as the Lord would wish.  You know different kinds of prayer produce different kinds of fruit perhaps even to different extents. I think to spend an hour before Jesus in Blessed Sacrament is going to be more fruitful than just going for a walk and looking at nature and thanking God for the beauty of the earth. But what are the ways, what are the ways that we can each expand our capacity for the Spirit? What are the ways that we can cultivate that gift of divine life within us? If we explore those, we'll find that the Lord begins to increase his centrality in our life - his lordship. the Kingdom, if you will. The Kingdom of God will start to conquer us. It is going to take over our hearts if we allow it. And then once it takes over our hearts, it just keeps building and building and building and spreading from there. 

When you pour syrup on a pancake, it goes all over and spreads over the edges. When you pour syrup on a waffle you might not get syrup into every single square – well I make sure that syrup gets into every single square - but there's a division there. There isn't a movement of the syrup around the waffle. There are compartments so there could be syrup in this one and none in the in the compartment right next to it and I was sort of thinking, well, can’t our hearts kind of be like that? 

 When we have these areas of wounding - areas of shame -whether it's considering some sin that's been committed in the past or even something that's been done to us. Or you know just something that we're embarrassed or ashamed about, we can build walls around that part of our heart. And perhaps then we also relegate God to some other compartments so that there is no passing from where he is into that place of woundedness where his love is really needed for healing. Building up these barriers because of shame, we kind of say, “Lord, I want you in my heart, but you can't come over into this part. I don't know what you would think. You might reject me. You might abandon me because of this part of me, this experience that I had, this sin. But the reality is, it's precisely his love and his grace that's needed in that place that's all walled off. 

 And so if prayer is, as I've been saying the last couple of Sundays, the chief strategy together with the Sacraments that God uses to draw us into this daily experience of his love, then in prayer we need to embrace something of a spirit of vulnerability allowing those walls to come tumbling down! Not building them up taller but allowing the grace of God to bring them down. So that, if you will, that syrup can flow over the whole pancake. The grace of God can enter into every part, every dimension of our life and bring healing and integrity and wholeness.

So, the first thing is simply to be honest before God. To be honest about who we are and what we are dealing with and perhaps even about those deep places in our hearts where we experience shame and to invite the Lord in there. I know that that can be difficult, but it isn't as if the Lord doesn't know about those things already. We don't go into prayer to inform the Lord about something, rather, he wants us to invite him into these places, perhaps to the hardest and darkest moments of our lives. Raising a spirit of vulnerability, we allow those walls to come down and for the Lord to enter in and bring restoration and wholeness.

 Summary:

        The way we receive Holy Communion affects our daily personal prayer life. The way we receive Holy Communion instructs and informs our personal prayer. If prayer is the primary means in our day-to-day life through which God brings us into his divine love, then we want to learn receive Holy Communion well so that we pray well.

        The way we receive Holy Communion affects the way that we pray in our personal prayer life, our daily prayer. How then to receive Holy Communion well so that we pray better? 

 First, we must receive Holy Communion with humility. There is absolutely nothing that entitles any single one of us to receive Holy Communion. It is pure gift. The God of the Universe comes to dwell in us. Creatures, by God's grace made children and heirs, but we must never lose this disposition of humility when we are receiving the gift of Holy Communion. 

 Secondly attentiveness. I know as well as the next person how easy it is to be distracted. As we are receiving Holy Communion, we should do our best to set aside all distractions and to focus our complete attention on what we are doing. You have a few moments while you're waiting in your pew for others to come forward or if you're walking down the aisle, focus. Remind yourself of what is happening here. That this truly is the body and blood of Christ that you are about to receive and to have that same disposition each time not just once in a while but every time we receive Holy Communion to be as attentive as we can possibly be.

 Third with gratitude we receive this gift of the body and blood of Christ. It is pure gift and we are thankful when we receive Holy Communion not only for the gift of Holy Communion but we're bringing everything of our life into this encounter and we are thanking God for providing for us. We are thanking him for so many great blessings and graces. Our hearts really should overflow with gratitude when we receive Holy Communion.

 Fourth, an attitude of reverence. Standing in awe of this great mystery. It is truly a miracle each time we attend Mass and are given this gift of Holy Communion, but to actually really recognize the sacredness of this encounter is very, very important. We know the mechanics of receiving Holy Communion whether directly onto the tongue or in the hand. We know we have to be careful and reverent as we receive and even as we're walking back to our place or even really for the next fifteen or twenty minutes as the Lord is dwelling there. Reverence is very key in a worthy reception of Holy Communion.

 And finally, simply that attitude of receptivity; not grasping, not taking but standing before the Lord and saying, “I am here. I present myself. I earned nothing I. I am simply here Lord to receive that which you wish to give me which is your whole self, your body and your blood, your soul, your divinity. I simply receive Lord all that you wish to give.”

 Humility, attentiveness, gratitude, reference, receptivity, all of these and others characterize a good and holy reception of Holy Communion. And then back to the point, the original point, practicing receiving Holy Communion in this way helps us to pray because if prayer is a gift, if prayer is what God does in and through us; if prayer is God's way of drawing us to himself, then we want to receive it, receive that gift of prayer similarly as we receive Holy Communion. With humility, with attentiveness, with gratitude, with reverence and the disposition of receptivity.

Theologians use a lot of very technical language to describe the mystery of the most Holy Trinity, a special feast day we celebrate today. They speak of course of one supreme Godhead – one God. Two natures in Christ, the divine and the human. Two processions - the generation of the son, the spiration of the spirit. Three distinct persons - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Four relations – paternity, filiation, active spiration, passive spiration. That is just the beginning! There is a lot – it is a great mystery and sometimes I think it is too bad that so much is made of our inability to understand the Holy Trinity. 

 Of course, all of our analogies, all of our explanations, all of our language is going to fall short whether we're talking about a shamrock or water in three forms or fire with its light and its heat or how one person can have three different roles - for example, daughter, and mother and wife. All of those fall terribly short of the reality of God.

We can't fully grasp infinite divine love, but we can begin to grasp. God is a perfect and an unending exchange of love and not only in love, but he draws us into that exchange and by our incorporation into Christ through our Baptism, he scoops us right up into the middle of that inferno of divine love. 

 That is what we're made for. God created us to be full participants in that exchange of divine love. So, for me, how do I live in that? If that's what we are all called to, how do we spend our days swept up in the love of God, father, son and Holy Spirit. How does that become our reality? 

How is it that we live our whole life really being swept up into this love? The primary way that God gives us to enter into that love is prayer. Prayer. Because we pray each day and not just once or twice but of course you know that Saint Paul urges us to pray unceasingly. Pray unceasingly. The next question is then how to pray? 

Well, when we pray the first thing to do is simply to make ourselves available to God. Spiritual writers will say, “Prayer for the most part is showing up.” Showing up. So, we go before the Lord and we say, “Lord I'm here. I am open. I am ready. I place myself at your disposal. Give me the gift of your Spirit. Inspire words in me that are worthy of your hearing. Stir up in my heart what intentions you want me to pray for. You Lord, pray in me.  I simply make myself available.”

Summary: 

I want you bring to you the story if you haven't heard of this person before, pretty famous now, but the story of a young woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza from Africa. In 1994 Immaculate was a college student at the university from Rwanda and if you might remember your history that was the year that the Rwandan genocide broke out. At the start of the genocide, a friend of hers, a neighbor - because remember there were warring tribes of fighters going around from village to village and from town to town killing their opposition, killing the rival tribe members, it was an ethnic cleansing is what happened  - and so a friend of hers told her to come to his house and he hid her in a bathroom.  A room that was three feet by four feet and hidden behind a fake wall.  Immaculee, as a 24-year-old young woman, stayed in that room three feet by four feet for three months with six other women. Three months!  She heard the screams and the cries of the people that she knew including her family members who were butchered. When she came out of that room three months later, over a million Rwandans had been slaughtered and killed! An incredible tragedy and she survived.

 So, you would think that someone who went through that kind of experience, traumatic, horrific, experience would be bitter and angry and just tied up in knots in her heart. And yet when she tells her story, friends, this is a woman who has incredible joy and freedom and strength and peace of heart that just radiates from her. Why? And how did that happen? That is the difference that the Holy Spirit makes. That specifically in her prayer during that time she said, “I rediscovered God. I had grown up Catholic.” She was Catholic but as a young person and a teenager didn't really take her faith that seriously as many do and in that extreme experience cried out to God. She actually had a Bible with her, and her rosary and she said they prayed the rosary unceasingly those women that were in there.  She said during one of her times of prayer she just finally cried out and said, “God I just read that you're my Father. You are supposed to take care of me!  I am your responsibility. Take care of me! Take care of us.This is what you are supposed to do!”

 And in those prayers, she discovered, rediscovered, friends, and here's the key point: her identity! Her identity as a child of God, a beloved daughter of God the Father and she was indeed his responsibility, and he did not abandon her. So, friends remember in times of trial - this is so important for us to remember throughout life - God never promised that he would take away difficulties and sufferings from our life. That's really not the prayer that we should pray for. We can and, yes, it's okay and it's good. “Lord, remove this suffering from me.” But more importantly is, “Lord, I offer you this suffering. Please help me to persevere and get through it.” That is what the Lord promises! To be with us in the challenges of our lives and to help us get through it and to learn an important lesson of how dependent we are on God and that any suffering that we can go through has redemptive value. 

Summary: 

     Jesus makes sure that his disciples get the message that his body, his physical body, is important. Very important. You know things could have gone differently. He could have died at Calvary, been buried in the tomb, resurrected, appeared to the disciples and others for forty days and then died again, been buried and His soul could have gone to heaven. Right? Separation of body and soul. But that is not what happened. He ascended bodily into heaven. He could have ascended at night or when he was by himself; no one else was around to see. Instead, he chose to ascend in the presence of many witnesses who were careful to include this detail in their telling of the story of the life of Jesus and his early Church. So, it's important for us to know that Jesus ascended into heaven. Body and soul - the whole Jesus. Right? He had no intention whatsoever of leaving his body behind and just going into heaven as a disembodied spirit.

     There's a reason that God gave us a body and it's not just so that it would be easier for him to tell the difference between us and the angels. There's a reason he gave us a body and I think that the main reason is that it has something to do with our call to be loving. Our greatest calling, our greatest vocation in life, is to love with the very love of God. 

Summary:  

      The love of God is not principally something abstract; the love of God is something eminently practical for us. We are only here in very practical terms because God is loving us into existence. We are only here, we only exist because God loves us, but beyond that as I said Jesus’ commandment is to love. We don't love unless we are first loved; we can't give if we have not received.  

 So, love is as I said eminently practical, it's not just some dreamy thing that we become once in a while, or we need to remain in the abstract. No, it takes flesh in our life. It takes flesh in the decisions that we make, in the relationships that we have and what we do with our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

 Love is practical not only for the way that we live this life but then also ultimately for eternity. In the end, love is what counts. The empire that we build for ourselves does not matter. It is reduced to dust and ashes. We don't take it with us. But the love of God we have stored up, the love of God that we have given away, all of that is what counts in the final equation.

 So, today, a couple of things to ponder. First, when it comes to the love of God your thought is, “Ya, Ya, Ya. I know about that I've got that on the shelf.” I challenge you to rethink that. reevaluate the way you think about the love of God and realize that there is much, much more to get that you think. And secondly a renewed encouragement for you to commit yourselves without exception to a daily time of prayer. Whether that's fifteen minutes or thirty or sixty or however long. enter into that time, turn the coffee mug up and be ready to receive all that the Lord wants to give you. Because it's exactly what he wants to give you in that time that is going to make all the difference in the living out of your day-to-day life.

Summary: 

The main question that comes to my mind is how do I know; how do I know whether I am remaining in Christ like a branch on the vine? 

What I would like to propose is that if we look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we find that it has four pillars. It gives us a good basis for examining our relationship with God in Christ. You may know that the Catechism is in four main sections. 

The first is the Profession of Faith which deals with doctrine and what we believe; the second is called the Celebration of the Christian Mystery so it deals with liturgy and worship; the third is called Life in Christ which deals with morality; and the fourth is called Christian Prayer which, of course, is about our communication with the Lord. I think 

if we examine our life in these four areas, we will get a pretty good sense of how securely we are connected to that vine which is Christ.

These are the four pillars: belief, worship, morality, and prayer. So, when it comes to today’s Gospel when Jesus says, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,” We have a little bit more substantial now to ask ourselves, are we, as branches, well connected to the body? We do not reduce that to a question of “Am I a disciple” or “Have I committed a mortal sin.” But here life with Christ has many more facets than those very basic questions.  

 Now, if we find ourselves not having a perfect connection with the Lord, that is to be expected because none of us is perfect at this point in our life. But it doesn’t mean that such an examination as I have just led us through needs to lead to us heaping shame upon ourselves for not being as well connected to Christ the vine as we could. Rather, I hope that it leads to our being encouraged to seek him. To seek him more and more and to make concrete decisions today that will help us in a very real way to remain in him.  

Good Shepherd Sunday Summary:

What kind of flock is the Good Shepherd trying to cultivate or from the Good Shepherd’s perspective, what does a good flock look like?  

The Lord desires actually for his flock to be a dynamic reality. The Lord desires every member of his flock to be really fully engaged and active in the walk of discipleship in this life.

Secondly, Jesus didn't intend his Church to be merely a collection of individually holy people. If each one of us here is a perfect saint. but we have no sense of connection to the body of Christ, the Church, if it is just about our individual, private relationship with God and even if we're doing really well in that relationship, if the horizontal aspect is missing, then we are not perfect saints.

The Lord, of course, is ultimately the one who shapes his flock. We have to rely on God’s grace to become the kind of flock he desires us to be. But he also encourages us; he invites us; he asks us; maybe even demands of us that we do our part. That each member of the flock lives his or her vocation to the full; plays his or her role in the flock to the best of their ability. 

It should be normal for us to pray not only as a community during the liturgy, not only privately at home or privately before the Blessed Sacrament or where ever we are but also praying with one another one-on-one or in small groups. It should be normal for us to be offering to pray for other people and really if you think about it, prayer is the very privileged context within which we invite the Good Shepherd to shepherd us. When we pray, we're opening our hearts and minds to God. We are asking the Lord for guidance. We're asking for help. We are asking for grace. We are making ourselves available to receive the help that God wants to give us, and so prayer is really fundamental for any kind of change of culture within our parish community. Prayer is this special venue, if you will, in which we allow ourselves to the shaped into the kind of flock the Good Shepherd wants us to be.

Let us ask the Lord to help us, to shepherd us on this Good Shepherd Sunday and always that we might be faithful; that we might be the dynamic kind of engaged flock and disciples that he wants us to be.  

Summary:

How does the Church grow? We don't have control over other people. I mean there might be a certain amount of arm twisting that goes on to get your kids and grandkids to come to church or your neighbor or whoever. We don't have control over the decisions that other people make. We can't force anyone to have faith. That is not the way this works. We can have an influence on other people but chiefly our work is to change ourselves. There is a realm where we have control. We can undergo ongoing conversion and it’s not just an individual matter that if we each individually become saints, then our Church family grows. But it also has something to do with our life as a community. If our life as a community is more and more dynamic, if it is more and more joyful, it becomes more attractive to people. People hear about, “Oh, that parish down the street, the people come out of church looking so happy and they live their lives with joy and hope.” It  starts to draw people and, of course, we can make intellectual arguments for the faith that may be the way, that maybe the path for some people's conversion, but most people are going to be touched at the heart level and also some people with the mind but most people follow what looks attractive to them, what looks like what will make them happy, what will give them peace.

We are looking first at unceasing prayer. How can we be transformed as a community so that prayer is totally normal for us and not just the prayers that we pray when we come in individually or the liturgical prayer or the rosary that is prayed before Mass, but how does prayer work its way into all aspects of our lives individually and as a community. Last summer you may recall, again, if you have a super good memory, that I suggested we start engaging in these prayer conversations that simply consist of: “Would you pray for me for this intention? Here is something that's burning in my heart. Would you pray for me?” And then the other part of the conversation is: “Is there anything that you would like me to pray for?” 

I am going to challenge you this week to have that conversation at least once. Just, “Is there something I can pray for for you and would you pray for me for this intention.” Fair warning! I may ask for a show of hands next Sunday. There would be no shaming; there will be no shaming. But we actually want to do this, right? It is just one little step toward the transformation of our whole parish culture, and we have wonderful parishes in the area, but there is room for growth. We want to fill these gaps even the front pew. We want to be a beacon of light. We want to be able to joyfully share our faith. 

The wounds of Jesus are not merely signs of his triumph over sin and death; they are not nearly an identifying factor so that these disciples can believe that this is truly Jesus. His wounds teach us something about our own wounds and what it means to experience healing. His wounds didn't go away. They were healed but there was still the mark. There was still the mark in his palms, in his hands, and in his feet and in his side. So, if we're asking for our wounds just to go away and Jesus gently responds to that and says, “That is not how healing works.”

Model of a wound: tThe wound, which is in our heart, the layer of belief that is around that, whether it is identity lies, false beliefs about who we are or judgments about who other people are or groups of people; and then the vows that are formed based on those beliefs, those false beliefs.   

Summary: 

We see in the first reading today Saint Peter really announcing to the people he is speaking to that Jesus is the one that they were expecting. Jesus is the one that they hoped for. He is the promised Messiah. He, by his death and resurrection, has brought to affect this reconciliation of humanity with God. Jesus himself has bridged that gap. He has restored our friendship with God most High. 

But the question is how exactly do we today in 2024 obtain that benefit that he brought about so many years ago? What do we do?

Jesus established a Church that would remain upon the earth long after he ascended into heaven and the Church could be the instrument through which the Father would pour out his grace into humanity. 

But he gives us the Sacraments as a tremendous gift to the Church so that as we participate in this Sacraments we are made anew.

He is waiting for your “Yes,” not just once at the Baptismal font, not just a second time at your first Confession, or a third time at your First Communion. He is looking for a “Yes” everyday of our life and the Sacraments nourish us so well because in the Sacraments we are not just going through some symbolic ritual we are actually receiving the grace that these rituals signify. That is profound. That is a beautiful, beautiful truth of our Faith that God is offering, he is not forcing Salvation on anyone, he is offering and waiting for a ‘Yes” not just on Easter Sunday, but also on Easter Monday and on Easter Tuesday – everyday of the year he is looking for a ‘Yes.” 

There might be a number of different emotions stirred up in our hearts when we are presented with the passion of our Lord Jesus. Perhaps grief or sorrow, sadness, maybe even anger or indignation. Perhaps gratitude? There can be all kinds of emotional experiences. Most importantly, the Lord wishes to elicit a response of love. So, we might just take a moment and pay attention to what is going on in our hearts and ask the Lord to help us to respond with love. To allow love to be stirred up in our hearts. A love like the love which he has shown us. 

Summary

We hear Jesus say toward the end of today's Gospel, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” The careless reader might look at that and say, “Ah, he is talking about being lifted up from the earth. The Ascension. And then he'll gather all of his beloved disciples into the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven.” But look at the next line. It says, “He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.” He's talking about being lifted up on the Cross. 

He was speaking, however, of that event - of his self-donation, his suffering, his passion, his bearing the weight of the world's sin. He was speaking about the fact that he would invite all of humanity in their sufferings to come to him in that moment of their greatest suffering and to be with him and not just to accompany him at the Cross as if we would come to the Cross and stand there looking but his invitation is drawing everyone to himself. His uniting those who suffer with him on the Cross so that their sufferings and their trials actually participate in his redemption of the world. 

This moment is the fulfillment of what you said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”  We don't want to reject that invitation, brothers and sisters, we want to draw near the Lord especially in those most difficult moments and if we do that, we will experience what it means for the seed of the grain of wheat to fall to the ground and die but then to life again. 

Summary: 

 Jesus was not at face value cleansing the temple of something that was just literally wrong being done, he was cleansing the temple of the ‘attitude’ that was the misplaced.

I've said for the last couple of Sundays that Lent is like our whole spiritual life in miniature. First, I was talking about the it is an ongoing battle; last time I was talking about the Transfiguration; today we can apply that same principle. During Lent, how do we relate to all the precepts that the Church gives us? Well, the Church tells us about fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstaining from meat on all the Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday and then we should do some extra prayer, alms giving and fasting. We can look at all of that in a very legalistic way. As I said on Ash Wednesday, don't get to the end Lent and say, ‘I did it!’. We can look at it in a legalistic way and say I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do, or we can see all of these practices as truly transformative and not as I said last Sunday ‘transactional’. 

But see then when we get to the end of Lent, we can say. “Oh, yes, I have embraced all of these things and I've grown my love of God. I've grown in my relationship with him.” But remember that that is just a miniature of what our whole spiritual life ought to be. So, if we approach these teachings, these Laws and practices of Lent from a right perspective then that should help us to approach the Law and the precepts and teachings of the Church from the right perspective in the rest of our life - outside of this season of Lent so that all of the things that we do in obedience to God’s Law are seen as opportunities for true growth in holiness.

Summary:

Considering that we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration every year on August 6th it is kind of interesting that the Church would prescribe that this account should be proclaimed on another Sunday of the year. It is always on the 2nd Sunday of Lent every year, so it got me to thinking of all the times to present the Transfiguration, why Lent? What does the Transfiguration have to do with the season of Lent? I am going to give three shots at explaining it.

First, with Scripture in context, the account of the Transfiguration in Saint Mark's Gospel appears immediately after Jesus’ first prediction of the passion which he concludes by teaching his disciples that they, too, are going to have to take up their cross and deny themselves if they are really wanting to be his followers.

Second, the Transfiguration gave Peter, James and John a vision that they would be able to hold onto later especially in the times when they would suffer persecution, and rejection, and opposition because of their faith in Jesus. 

Third, it is understood that the Transfiguration happens in the context of prayer and that I think shows us why the Transfiguration is fittingly recalled. Prayer, one of the absolute fundamentals, is not about fulfilling an obligation so that we can say, “Ah, I said my prayers today” and feel satisfied with ourselves. No, when Jesus invites us to go up the mountain with him in prayer, he is actually calling us into a very relational and personal encounter in which he would like to help us to know him better and love him better. I have heard it said in different circles recently that prayer is not supposed to be transactional but transformational. Prayer is not the transaction that you check off of your list and say, “Okay, I did that today.” But actually, it is an invitation into this dynamic encounter with the person of Jesus Christ and through him in the Spirit with the Father. 

So, why the Transfiguration? Perhaps these three things: a reminder that the journey of Lent is not penance for its own sake but rather the transfigured Jesus shows us the image of what we shall be. We are on a journey into glory. Secondly, that just as the glory of the Transfiguration was a memory that the Apostles could hold onto for difficult times to come, so the joy of the Resurrection celebrated at Easter is something we need to carry with us throughout life especially in very difficult times. And third, that all of this unfolds in prayer. We are invited to discover the greater depths in prayer. We are invited to make our prayers more substantial and relational. You might find other reasons to look at the Transfiguration during Lent, I encourage you to ponder those, too. What does the Transfiguration mean to you? How does it relate? What is its relevance to you right now? Does the encounter with the risen Lord have a transformational effect?

Summary:

Lent, the season of Lent, is the spiritual life in miniature. It is forty days set aside during the year when we are really invited to go into the desert with Christ. You are invited to engage in these battles that go on within us. Lent is not the only time of year when prayer is called for, or fasting, self-denial. Lent is not the only time when self-restraint is appropriate or almsgiving. Sure, we focus on these things during Lent, but Lent is just our spiritual life in miniature. Perhaps the Church gives us the season of Lent as a great reminder to keep on fighting that fight. I am not saying that you must be in full on battle mode, or the devil is hiding under every rock. No, but we should always be engaged in some way in fighting the fight allowing the Spirit of God to be operative in the day-to-day struggles. 

So, engage this Lent. Don’t do some token little observance, some token penance to say, “Ah, I did something for Lent.” As I mentioned on Ash Wednesday, choose something that is truly transformation so that when you arrive at Easter you can say, “I have changed, I have grown, my life is new again.” We are not just preparing for the Celebration of the Resurrection; we are also preparing for the renewal of our Baptismal promises. Right? In Baptism we entered into a covenant greater than Noah. We entered into the covenant that is sealed in the blood of Christ; we were made a new creation so that when we stand there with our candles at Easter and renew the promises of our Baptism, we are inviting the Spirit of God, which we received in our Baptism, to be more and more victorious in our life. So Lent is practice for that. We are engaging in that battle, and we are trying to deny that fallenness in us, that inclination to sin, that when Easter comes it will be glorious and we will truly be made new. I assure you that the reward is well worth the effort. 

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One way that we are invited to connect with the lepers  or relate to them is that worship means something to us and to be deprived of the opportunity to worship because of the disease is a suffering. 

But what else? I think we can look at the leper and say that leprosy is symbolic of something else. Leprosy is symbolic of something else. Leprosy symbolizes that which gets in the way of our rightful worship of God. Just like for the leper, as I said, the worst part for him was that he could not go to the temple. He had to be apart from the worshipping community so then in that case the leprosy is not just a terrible disease that he has to suffer. It is the thing that gets in the way of worship. And so, that is the same case for us. Even though we don't have a physical leprosy we can consider that there are things that get in the way of are our worshipping God as we ought to worship God.

 Maybe it's sometimes it's just a feeling of feebleness or weakness in our faith. Sometimes it is distractions. Is there anyone here who's not busy? Everyone is busy – busy, busy, busy. So many things we are distracted with, day in and day out. Things that we've got to do, yes, but sometimes just distractions that divert our hearts’ attention.  Likewise, attachments to other things. Perhaps it is the pursuit of material wealth or the pursuit of a good reputation and the esteem of other people. Maybe it's the pursuit of our creature comforts. It’s not that having material possessions or having the esteem of other people or having creature comforts is wrong. 

The question is how strongly are we attached to those things and can they, in fact, get in the way of the worship that we offer to God each day? Sometimes it's fear. Fear that we would not have enough time for other things. Fear of what others might think of us as we get too “religious.” Maybe it is just our daily struggle with sin. It is good for us to take a moment and identify those things in our lives that just get in the way of our worshiping God with our whole heart and doing everything for the glory of God as Saint Paul says. 

The insight that we really gain here is that Satan does all of this to Job for no other reason than to try to drive a wedge between Job and God. Satan does not care a lick about Job; he is not trying to convert Job to satan worship or something like that. He is not interested in Job. All he wants is for Job to turn away from God therefore to deprive God of his beloved Job. That's all that Satan is interested in. That is a good lesson for all of us to learn as well because sometimes we are brought low. 

 It is not hard for any of us to think of that thing in life that we wish would just go away. A struggle with sin or a struggle economically; or a broken family relationship that you wish was healed; trouble in the workplace, in the neighborhood; fear about what might happen in the world and so forth and so on. It does not take us long to put our finger on something, some area of suffering or trial or difficulty in our life. The lesson of Job is that we don't need to ‘spend’ ourselves trying to figure out how to make that thing go away. How to make suffering go away. We are not going to make it go away by ‘understanding’ it, necessarily. Job is left not understanding why all of this happened. All he can say is, “God is greater than I.” 

God does not delight in our suffering. The scripture is clear about that. God does not delight in our suffering. But he sees in our suffering, nonetheless, a way to draw us closer to him. That if we would turn to him in that moment, you experience support for the moments of suffering every day. We would recognize that he is sustaining us and that we are not alone; that he's actually helping us to grow. 

Maybe one of the things we should do is zoom out and say what are the larger forces at work here and to make the decision: “I’m not going to allow this to drive me away from God. Rather, I am going to turn back to God with all my heart -  I'm going to cling to God in the moment of this suffering especially when it gets the worst, I will not let go of God, I will trust in him that he's going to use this trial that I'm going to bring me closer and closer to him. If we can do that, we will discover that God through our sufferings is inviting us into an encounter with Jesus his son who wants to put the broken pieces together and to restore wholeness.

So, the fact is brothers and sisters, we may live in a representative democracy but first and foremost we live in a Kingdom. We live in a kingdom. We have a king who is the authority to whom we turn. Christ the King whose teaching’s we embrace. But more than that our life of faith is not just to say, “Okay, I can accept all of that. I believe that.”  To be a Christian means we live as faithful citizens of that Kingdom. We allow Jesus to govern us. You see Jesus is not the kind of governor, he's not the kind of authoritative figure that we might be used to in the secular world. He is absolutely worthy of trust. He doesn't abuse the power that is his but always uses his power. His power is his love. His power is his mercy. His governing of us is directed not toward his own good or his own pleasure, exactly, but to our good by which he is glorified, yes, but ultimately his concern is not himself but you. 

 So, we are completely safe in placing ourselves in the Kingdom allowing this king of ours to govern us and rule us. We find in the end that in this miraculous and extraordinary way our freedom actually grows by being faithful subjects of this king. We don't lose our freedom. We don’t end up the losers we end up being, we end up being victorious with our Lord who wants us to flourish as human beings. He wants us to have the fullness of joy, the fullness of life and peace and satisfaction. 

 So, the question I guess for us is simply, what are the different voices that we listen to in our life? Whom do we consider to be authoritative for us? The Church is not teaching us today that we need not pay attention to anyone else but only Jesus. The Church would teach us that we pay attention to Jesus first and all the rest after that. Do we find ourselves as faithful subjects of the king always wanting to know what he has to say to us? Always walking, always living with open ears and an open heart to receive what he has to give us. That's the kind of life that he desires and again it's not a surrendering of our freedom, but the Lord is engaging our freedom. He doesn't want to squash our hearts, squash our will; he wants to make our heart and our will like his - which is a beautiful thing.

About four years ago in the September of 2019 our Holy Father Pope Francis decreed that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time each year should be observed as Word of God Sunday. And so, it's a special opportunity for us to reflect on the importance of the Word of God in our life. Certainly, the written Word, the scriptures, the importance of praying with the scriptures and being nourished by the scriptures each day in our walk of faith. But I think there's an invitation also to go a little bit deeper than that and say it's not just about text on the page. We are invited to reflect on what is the Word of God. We think about ‘word’ as something in print or the sound waves that hit our eardrums and we perceive that sound. But the word is actually that which is expressed by the printed text or what is expressed by the sound that is coming to us. The word is not just the sound or the print on the page, it is the content of that and so if you think about it, the ‘word’ is actually prior to the writing or the sound. There is something that exists before it's spoken.

Just these three things: hearing the call, growing in holiness, and sharing the good news. They summarize really our Christian life. 

These three things, hearing the call, growing in holiness, and sharing the good news - they happen together. They are simultaneous although there is a logical progression from one to the next. It is not that one has to be complete before the next begins. So, we're always in the process of for the call listening for what God wants to say to us. Working on growing and holiness deepening our friendship with Christ, and we have to share the good news.

I propose this three-part overview as something maybe to lend simplicity to your consideration of how you're living the Christian life. Perhaps it can be the basis of an examination at the end of each day. “Did  I listen? What was the Lord saying to me today? Did I grow in my Christian life today? What were the opportunities that I had to choose to follow Jesus today? Did I choose to do that, or did I say ‘no’? And thirdly, what opportunities did I have to share my faith? Was I indeed a bridge for someone else or was an obstacle? Did people see how I lived my life today and kind of think about God or something else? 

We simply ask for the grace today to be faithful to these three things: hearing the call, growing in holiness, and sharing the good news.

Our celebration of the Epiphany today is not merely the commemoration of the visit of the Magi to the newborn Christ in Bethlehem and sort of the conclusion of the Christmas narrative with the conclusion of the Christmas season. It also really points us to a dynamic in the spiritual life that is key for us to understand. It has to do with to God’s desire to communicate himself and his wondrous deeds to all the world.      

The manifestation, the Epiphany, is about the coming together of God's revelation and our perception so that they meet in this place of communication. It is not just that God has revealed himself and he goes unnoticed; nor is it that we are here waiting to perceive and there is nothing to perceive. Our seeking comes together with his revealing into this moment of discovery. 

Discovery is what our Christian life is about! Discovering God! Not once. Not twice. Not once a week. But continuously discovering God!

The only question is are our ears open? Are our eyes open to perceive what God is doing? Or God's revelation in each moment in our life sometimes go unnoticed and unheeded. 

Father David Kruse celebrated the weekend Masses.

The Lord brings us salvation and healing of the heart. The Lord loves you so much  there is nothing that you can do that is so bad as it might seem that will ever diminish God’s love for you by name. You are his beloved, no matter what. There is no good that you can do that will ever earn or increase more love for you from God. He loves you unconditionally, infinitely, and that will never change.

Friends, that is what gives us the anchor in our hearts and heals our wounds so that we know that no matter what happens in life, he has us in the palm of his hand, and he loves us no matter what. And that love brings healing, and peace, and salvation. The only thing that we have to do is be available. 

Well, we have gathered this day, this beautiful morning, to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, our King, our God, our all. And like any celebration of a birthday, we thank God for the gift of this life. We thank God for all that Jesus did in the course of his relatively short life here on earth. It is a great opportunity for us to turn to Jesus today and tell him how much his presence has meant in our life. But like the celebration of a birthday of a person who has passed away, even today the spirit of Jesus’ celebration of his birthday is more tangible. There is a spirit of joy that permeates Christmas, the spirit of his peace, his goodness. It is a beautiful thing. There is perhaps a little stirring up of this spirit at Christmas that we don't necessarily experience every other day of the year.  

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Many of the scriptures reveal to us is the importance of humility when it comes to serving God and doing his will. We see actually in the scriptures, contrast given between those who are humble in serving God and those who in their pride say, “I will not serve.” The coming Christmas season, which is practically upon us, gives us so many examples to observe a true humility. We see the example of Jesus himself being born in a stable and being laid in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. We see the example of Mary, but we also see the example of Saint Joseph humbly following the directives of the angels in his dream. We see the humility of the shepherds. We see the humility of Magi prostrating themselves before a baby in a trough. 

There are so many examples of humility in the coming season. Surely the Lord is inviting us to embrace humility. Sometime ago a friend was describing at length all the things going on in his life and I mean, at length. And finally, he paused and said, “Well enough about me. What do you think about me?” [Laughter]. Yes, he was joking but it is so easy for us sometimes to place ourselves at the center of the universe. Make ourselves the architect of our own universe, our own existence. There might be different reasons for that - maybe there is a woundedness where we were rejected at some point, and we then feel that we have to really assert ourselves in this world to prove that we are worthy of love. Or maybe it's just the age-old sin of pride and the unwillingness to lower ourselves. Whatever the reason the scriptures are show us clearly that pride is an obstacle to God's will being carried out effectively in our life and bearing abundant fruit. 

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But what we want ultimately to happen is for the actual needs in our life and our discovery of what God desires for us to transform our wants so that we go in pursuit of what it is that God wants for our life which is what we need. Then ultimately when we have what we need we find that we're at peace. We are content. There is a spirit of satisfaction in that. Now, this is just a natural plane, right? There is a kind of natural satisfaction that comes from having our needs met and our wants satisfied but we are not going to stop at just the natural plane. We want to elevate this to the supernatural plane to our relationship with God and all of these dynamics apply in that relationship. So, we want to look at how what we want of our relationship with God compares to what we need in our relationship with God.

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The Church, in the season of Advent for a long, long time has said that Advent is about all three comings. Right? It is acknowledging the coming of Christ in time as he did 2000 years ago. It is announcing, it is looking forward to his coming in glory at the end of the world but it is also about announcing and being able to recognize his coming now. As he does indeed come to us now. 

How to announce his presence, his present coming? I think it is mainly a matter of our living by the Holy Spirit because when we live by the Holy Spirit, we are the evidence, we are the announcement that he is here. When people encounter Christ in us by what they observe in us; when people meet Jesus because of the way that we speak to them, the compassion that we bear in our hearts for them, our patience with them, our generosity with them, our mercy. When they encounter him, they are really seeing that Jesus comes to them today and it's not in a real abstract way - it’s a very concrete way. As they concretely encounter us in our work, in our whatever we do - we go out shopping, shoveling snow for our neighbor -whatever it might be. They are concretely encountering Christ in us and if we are faithful in being the image of Christ then they truly can recognize his coming. And what a gift that is for

them.

That is the first thing. The second point for our reflection is how do we announce the future coming of Christ? I think the main way that we announce his return is with the urgency or the determination with which we live our Christian life. So, we're not casual about it.

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No homily is available for December 3rd.

And so, the lesson of this Gospel is not that we should do an occasional kind of deed for the street person we run into from time to time. Every single one of us is a poor beggar, hungry and suffering in some way. Jesus comes to us in every single person we encounter every day. If we have eyes to see, we can meet Jesus in all of them. 

Mother Teresa always would say, “This Jesus we adore in the Eucharist is the same Jesus we meet and serve in the poorest of the poor.” It is the same Jesus. So, every time we come to Mass, every time adore and love Jesus in the Eucharist, we are reminded not to allow this to be the isolated instance in our week when we meet the Lord but to go out from here and meet the same Jesus in the poor, whether they are on the street or in our home. Love, and honor and serve Him in them. 

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Just look at three simple points from the Gospel. The behavior of the master, the behavior of the first two servants and then of the third. 

Look at the father - the father trusts his servants. There is an echo of the father in Parable of the Prodigal Son when the father says, “My son, everything I have is yours.” The man entrusts himself to the servant. I encourage you to read the full version. It is not until the later when the father is cast in a negative light as harsh, demanding, master. He entrusts himself to them. He wants what is good for them. He wants them to flourish. He gives them all they need to do well.

In the verse with the second servants, they eagerly receive their gifts and immediately go out. They are industrious about putting that gift into practice. They don’t compare what they have received. The one with two talents doesn’t say, “Why didn’t I get five?” The one with five doesn’t say, “Look, I got five.” They were both happy to receive what they got based on their capacity. 

The third servant is afraid of failure. He knows that there is a potential he could come back to his master empty handed, so he does nothing. He has the wrong idea of who his master is. He accuses the master of reaping where he does not sow and gathering where he does not scatter.  But when they bring their talents back, the master is precisely gathering where he sows and reaping where he scattered. When he gave the talents, he was sowing the seed to be used in the fruit of his own harvest.

There are three lessons for us. First, know the master; know the heart of the one who entrusts us with such great gifts, especially the gifts of the Spirit. Secondly, be like the first and the second servants – industrious, eager to put into action the gift of the Spirit that we received. Third, avoid the pitfall of the third servant who had the wrong image of the master. He fell into fear and ended up empty handed. 

Live by the Sprit that has been given to us and allow God to speak to us and our journey with him to be very fruitful. 

But the disturbing part is that that when the foolish virgins asked the wise virgins for oil, the wise virgins would say ‘no.’ How Christian is that? How is that an example of generosity? How is that example of service?

Caring for those who are in need, even suffering with those who suffer. But the whole message of the Gospel is charity, isn’t it? So, here Jesus is presenting these virgins as wise who say ‘No, we are not giving you our oil.” What is behind that?

Well, clearly, he's not teaching that we should not have charity for our neighbor; that there's not charity and love and grace to be shared in the Church. But perhaps what he's saying here is if the oil represents the surrender that we have expressed to God in our own life, we cannot burn someone else's oil. When it comes to our final encounter with the Lord at the end of our life, we can't bring someone else in and say, “Well, this person's love will substitute for my own.”  I can't use someone else's voice to say, “I love you God”. I can't use someone else's voice to say, “I believe” or “Forgive me, Lord”.  I have to say that with my own voice. That surrender that I present at the end of my life has to come from my own heart and no one else’s surrender. And they suffer for that so the wise virgins say we can't no give you our oil.”  And even afterwards when the other virgins come back with the oil that they've got from someone else, they knock on the door and the bridegroom says, “I don't know you.” We are not going to pull one over on God. We are not going to trick Jesus into believing that someone else is supplying for us the love that has to come only from us. When we stand before the Lord, he wants to hear our voice say, “I love, I believe, I trust in you.” 

I want to propose the Eucharist - the worthy and fruitful celebration of the Eucharist - as the best remedy for any kind of disintegration that might try to come about in our hearts. I want to recommend the Eucharist as the very medicine of integrity and wholeness because in the Eucharist we receive the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we do not make Jesus part of us as is what happens when we eat any other kind of food. It becomes part of who we are. In the Eucharist we become the one we eat; we become the one we consume. We are transformed into Christ. The more deeply we engage in this mystery, the more we enter into it and the more we become like Christ, the less we are like the Pharisees and scribes. 

The definition of love as ‘willing the good of the other’ also helps us to make sense of today’s Gospel which you could say it is not all that hard to understand. But at the same time, it can be very easy to misunderstand, especially if we think of love in modern terms. If we think of love as a feeling or an experience that cannot really be chosen. Some people might say, “Yes, how can God actually command love?” When you think of falling in love with someone, well that can’t actually be chosen. You can’t set out to fall in love with that person. It just happens, right? Or we think of how love that naturally grows in our experience of knowing someone. You say, how can God command love if is not something that we can really control? That is where that definition comes in very handy. “To love is to will the good of another.”

In other words, when Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are “to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as our self,” he is aiming those directly at the place in us that makes decisions. He is not commanding that we stir up in our hearts some affection, some feeling, some devotion, although loving God in that way is good, too, and loving our neighbor in that way is good. But that is not what he is commanding. The commandment is aimed at our will. That center within us out of which we make concrete decisions and therefore love can certainly be commanded because we have control over our will.

How is Jesus saying, “Repay to Caesar what is due to Caesar and pay to God what is due to God,” a call to conversion? Well, every person Jesus was talking to in this scene would have known that God created man in His own image and likeness. They all would have known that. They would have known that all of us bear the image of God. The likeness to God has been lost through sin. The image of God is that we are rational beings. We are different than other beings in this world as God has given us not only in the body but also a rational soul. In the beginning God created us also in this likeness. God created human beings to shine with holiness, goodness, virtue, and that was lost through sin although the image was never destroyed. 

I want to suggest one simple thing today and that is if we participate more and more worthily and deeply and fully in the Mystery of the Eucharist, then the change that we want in our heart will happen. If we approach the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ with a desire to be able to surrender to him, he will give us that grace. If we come forward to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord eager to receive his invitation to follow and to give ourselves completely for him, he will make that change happen. He is going to break down those walls that are in our hearts and he will succeed in making us his own.

There is a Eucharistic revival going on in our nation with good reason. Not just because of statistics that show that so few Catholics even believe in the real presence of Christ. The reason is really that we need to discover the reality of this sacrament and its power! It’s power to bring us to the wedding feast!

There are all kinds of different ways that we perceive the Lord knocking at the door. We don't open it. We can be very inhospitable to the Lord as he's trying to break into our lives. He’s taking these initiatives to bring his grace and transformation into our hearts. And it's such a good thing for us to be able to recognize that and not just to walk along saying, “Oh, everything is just right, you know. Me and the Lord we're like this😊 We walk hand in hand every day and everything is perfect.” It is good for us to recognize our failures in that regard, but the point is not that we would then issue condemnation upon ourselves but rather that it would be the impetus for conversion and for making a change in that regard.

Our Lord  wants our ‘yes’ to his invitation to be backed up with our whole self. To be well thought out and solidly deliberate. That requires freedom; that requires reflection; that requires a good, solid decision. What the Lord is looking for is what you are going to say in this moment. Even in times when we have said “no”, recognize that the Lord is giving us a space. He is merciful. He is patient. He still gives us the opportunity to turn back to him and live. 

Reverand Msgr. Robert Pearson was the celebrant for Mass on September 24th. In his homily, Father Pearson spoke about the second reading where St. Paul is speaking to the Philippians and to us in these words: “I long to depart this life and be with Christ, for that is far better.” St. Paul is anxious for death because death means that he will be in Christ. How different that is than most of us feel. Why do we not have the same desire as St. Paul.  One reason maybe that we are not convinced that there is anything meaningful after death. Another reason maybe that we fear leaving our loved ones.  Father suggests that to put both these fears behind we need the virtue of hope – placing all our trust in Christ’s promises and not relying on our own strength but upon the Holy Spirit. 

Bishop Daly  was the celebrant for Mass on September 17th.  In his homily, he identified five steps for forgivenss. "On a retreat I attended while I was still a priest, I remember the retreat director gave five important steps in forgiveness.  I never forgotten them and I share these when I give a retreat. First, we must recognize that a wrong has been done to us and there is no point in pretending it didn’t happen. The second thing is related to this and is that we must recognize that we have feelings and those feelings are often anger and hurt. Those feelings are not sins, they are natural and healthy and we should not deny them. The third aspect of forgiveness is that we need to talk about it. Hopefully to the one who has hurt us, but if not then to someone else we trust, maybe even in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The fourth is that we have to make a decision to forgive. Forgiveness is an act of the will; it is not a feeling. It doesn’t mean that there still won’t be hurt or bitterness but healing takes time. Finally, we have to make a decision about the relationship of the person who hurt us. We have three choices: we continue it, we break it off for a while, or we just discontinue it all together. Jesus said ‘to forgive’, he never said ‘be reconciled’. Why? Because it takes two to be reconciled. Sometimes people just won’t forgive us or we find it very difficult to forgive but we have to try. And thus, we have to pray for grace which is a help from God. Unless we forgive, we won’t be able to let go of bitterness and resentment and thus we won’t be able to experience peace and healing. Forgiveness does not mean forget, it means remembering and letting go but it is a holy task and one that only God can make possible."

Jesus addresses the question of sin. What we do when someone in the Church sins against us? He says, “If your brother sins against you?” He is not talking about some random person out there. “If your brother sins against you.” If someone sitting next to you in the pew at Church sins against you, someone who is committed to living the Christian life, if that person sins against you, what should you do and he goes into a four-step progression of dealing with that situation. First, approach the person one-on-one. If that doesn’t work, bring one or two other people along as witnesses.  If that doesn’t work bring it to the Church. And if that does work, he basically says that that person basically excommunicated himself, extracted himself from the community of the Church. He says, “Treat him as you would a Gentile or tax collector.” Don’t reject that person but acknowledge that person through his sin has alienated himself from the community of the Church and God.

But let’s backup for a moment here. In saying all that Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he is also implying something not said. He is implying that there are ways of responding or reacting when a brother sins against us that are not appropriate.  For example, retaliating – not the Christian way. Or going first and discussing with some other people about what has happened before talking to the offender himself. Not the Christian way. Or sitting back and waiting for the sinner to come and ask for forgiveness, to apologize. That also is not the Christian way. Or simply cutting him off, saying, “You know what, you offended me we just can’t be in a friendly relationship anymore. I am done.” Not the Christian way because the Christian community is a community of love. And none of those responses are a response of love. 

I want to suggest three ways to begin to think as God thinks. The first is to really immerse ourselves in his Word. In the scriptures, he tells us how he thinks. He reveals to us his mind, his heart. All the scriptures are filled with God’s perspective and if become familiar with the Word of God, we too, will start to see things from God’s perspective. Secondly, we pray each day that the light and wisdom and understanding and knowledge that the Holy Spirit gives, might be ours so that we can take on this new perspective. It is not something that we generate, right? If we want God’s perspective on things, we have to receive that from him, not just make it on our own. So, in our prayers we ask, “Lord Jesus pour out the gift of the Holy Spirit from the heart of the Father to fill me.” Thirdly, worthy celebration of the sacraments, reception of the sacraments, especially Confession and the Holy Eucharist.  In Confession we can say, “Lord, clear out from my mind and heart those things that are opposed to your plan” and in Holy Communion we say, “Fill me Lord with all that is good, true and beautiful.” In Confession it is, “Lord, let me part ways with the things that are against you” and in Holy Communion, “Fill me Lord, truly transform me. Conform my heart to yours and my mind.”

The Christian life calls us out of a place of comfort and security and complacency. Jesus said very clearly in the Gospel, if you want to be my disciple, you have to take up your cross. He doesn’t say, “Sit in your easy chair and let’s talk about nice things” and pat each other on the back and say how great we are. He says, in fact, you can’t be my disciple unless you take up your cross. And, yet we find ways to compromise so that we can be disciples and still be comfortable. We are called ‘out’ of that. 

So, the instruction for us is to pray humbly, pray persevering, pray without an ounce of entitlement, pray trustingly, pray with great faith. God hears your prayers, and, in his time, we are assured that the answer will come. 

Peter has gone out from the boat and in this sort of impetuous motion at first, he fails, falls into doubt, is saved by the Lord, and brings Jesus into the boat. This can be our very dynamic of our experience of fear and reassurance. When we turn to Jesus, when we cry out to Jesus in whatever our fear might be, and we hear his voice reassuring us that we have no need to doubt, we can come back into the community and share that experience and encourage people by that to bring Jesus into their experience of fear so that they can have a greater faith in him. Where they can say with all those in the boat, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

You have to hear him saying these words to you: “You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.” And when you hear the Father saying those words to you and you can receive that outpouring of his love, then everything changes. 

Everything changes. Thoughts, words, deeds, you realize that your very being is a living God of the love of God being poured out. So, I know that each and every one of you have heard the Father saying those words to you, but I hope so. But if you haven’t, I urge you with all my heart, seek to hear those words. Pray every day and listen because I promise you, God the Father is saying those words to you. You don’t have to convince him to say those words to you, he is saying them. But it is not enough just to sit and say, “Okay, I accept that that is true”. We need to hear those words. And when those words penetrate the very depth of our being, when we believe them to be true, that we are the beloved children of God Almighty, when we believe that in our bones, then everything changes, and we can definitely climb that mountain. The more we make those words to take root, allow those words to take root, the more radiant we will become with the very holiness, the very light of God almighty. 

No Homily Available for July 30th 

So how do we approach this reality of the mixture of good and evil in the world, in the world around us? Do we get frustrated because things do not get fixed the way we want them to get fixed? In the world, in Church or closer to home? But then also what about the mixture of weeds and wheat in our own hearts? How do we approach that? Do we get frustrated that those weeds are still there maybe after a long, long time and struggle? Do we want to take the nuclear option and just say, “Ah! I wish I could just get rid of that thing.” Well, I think the Lord encourages us to work on eliminating any form of evil from our life. He wants us to be strengthened and to grow in holiness, but he also urges us to be patient with ourselves and to know that ultimately it is his work. Our conversion is his work with our cooperation. It is his grace with our saying, “Yes.” Maybe the parable in today’s Gospel gives us the opportunity to reflect on that. What is the reality of the mixture of good and evil in our own hearts? Not just in the world around us, but in our own hearts. So, we ask God this day to have mercy and patience not only with the world around us but even in ourselves on our own journey toward Heaven.

The primary thing for us as Christians is to live by the Holy Spirit and to follow his promptings. If it is truly the Holy Spirit who is guiding us and prompting us, we don’t have to worry about the outcome. If it is truly God who is asking us to do something, we don’t have to fear, we don’t have to worry, we just need to say ‘yes’.  And as Isaiah says in the first reading, on behalf of the Lord, “…my word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” If we allow the Word to take root in our hearts, and then we allow the Lord to send us out, his Word and his Spirit active in us will certainly achieve the end for which he sends it. 

But what if, as you are gathering before Mass or going out after Mass, or if you run into someone that you know and have a conversation in a public place - what if the conversation eventually makes it way to where you can say, “What is going on in your life that I can pray for?” You are not prying. You are not trying to get information about what is going on in this person’s private life so that you can go out and ‘whatever.’ No, you are just saying, “What is it that I can I pray for you? Are there any relatives that need prayers, or do you personally need prayer?” 

What if you were having that conversation each day? We would certainly get more comfortable about broaching that topic of spirituality with people. 

 Jesus is saying what he says today in the context of that Mission and what he is saying today doesn’t really say much about going out. He talks about the relationship with him that must absolutely be the foundation of any kind of Mission. So, if we shy away from that dynamic Mission, we probably need to drill down deeper and deeper into our union with Christ, our totality of love for him, the conformity of our life to his and our unity and identity with him. But see, we don’t have to achieve perfection in those things before he sends us. These things happen at the same time. The more we grow in our intimate communion with him, the more ready we are and the more he equips us to share with other people what that relationship is all about. The more ardently we love Jesus in the Eucharist, the more willing we are to invite others to come others to come and be part of the worshiping community. The more we experience this absolute unconditional love and acceptance for us in the depths of our souls, the more ready we are to go out and announce that because we want other people to experience that as well. 

What if this whole community, imagine, this whole community with the beauty and vastness of the gifts that we have been given, every person in the community simply stepped forward and said, “Here is what I can do. Here is my gift. I don’t know how you want to use it, but I know that God has given me this gift for the building up of the community. What do you have in mind.” I think we might see a reversal of the trend of declining Mass attendance. We have half the number of people that were here fifteen years ago. Half! Maybe that is a homily for another day. But still, what do we want for our life in the Church? What is getting in the way of a living a fuller life in the Church? What is the Mission on which the Lord will send us? How willing are we to participate boldly in that Mission? What are the fears that stand in the way? What are the gifts God has given me that I might give an increase in love – the kind of love that will overcome those fears. 

These are good questions. I encourage you to ponder them in the days ahead. See how the Lord may be calling you to acknowledge them. See how the Lord may be calling you to help. See how the Lord might be calling you for fuller participation in the Mission. 

I think the question to us is how we are going to participate. How fully are we going to participate in this work that is laid out for us in today’s Gospel. Are we looking at this and saying, “Oh, this is great. Jesus called those apostles back then.” No, this applies to us today. It applies to you and to me. Each one – how are we going to respond? What are we going to do? Surely, we can’t sit back and watch TV and say, “Someone else will take care of it.” That is not the life of the Christian disciple, is it? The life of a Christian disciple is not having someone else do – it is about listening. Listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit, urging us, prompting us, calling us. And giving us the courage and strength to respond to that call. Not to be afraid. To say, “Jesus I trust in you and if you are calling me and sending me then I know that you will give me exactly what I need.” 

The Gospel ends today with the words, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” Pray that we have the grace on this day to recognize what we have received. Not only the gifts that God has poured out into our lives, but ‘the call.’ That we might have the grace to recognize the call of Jesus today and that we might also have the grace to give what we have received. 

When we meditate on the whole life of Jesus, what happens is that we get a truer and truer notion of who God is and what he desires for our life. The Eucharist becomes something of this window, this keyhole if you will, through which we perceive something of God. This whole image of the keyhole - the way we look upon him and the way we look through him to the Father, it all draws us into participation. Participation in this mystery. And though participation in the mystery a sharing in the life of God. There is no better way in this world to be sanctified and to grow nearer to God than through growing our participation in the Eucharist.

What is your image of Heaven? What is your notion of eternal life? Does it have to do with this dynamic relationship that is God. The Father pouring out his love into the heart of his Son. The Son receiving from the Father that outpouring and pouring his love in return. And their love constituting a third person, the Spirit.  When I think about entering into that dynamic of love, there is something in my heart that stirs. It resonates. I know that is what God made me for and I know that is what God made you for. 

On this Pentecost Sunday, I urge you to invite the Holy Spirit to come into every dimension of your life. Welcome the Holy Spirit. Surrender to the Holy Spirit. Yield to the Holy Spirit. Have confidence in the Holy Spirit. Trust in the Holy Spirit. Love the Holy Spirit. What would it be like to just go off the deep end into the life of the Holy Spirit? It wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. It would be a good thing. 

No homily is available for Sunday, May 21st. 

Practicing being mindful of the presence of God (using Brother Lawrence as a guide); receiving the sacraments especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation mindfully; exercising the gifts and fruits of the Spirit; and asking for an outpouring of that gift. All of these can help us be more and more mindful that God is truly with us. He has not left us orphans. He comes to us. He abides within us and fills us with all we long for. 

Easter Joy is the result of recognizing all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ and is a two-part dynamic with giving/sharing.  We have an opportune moment here to reflect on this two-part dynamic of joy. How well do we receive from God? How well do we find joy in simply receiving the outpouring of God’s graces and gifts in our lives? If I asked you, could you right now write a list of fifty gifts that God has given you? Or a hundred? How aware are you of the pouring out of God’s life in your soul? And the second part is, how well are we giving of those gifts? How completely are we sharing? Are we truly imitating the generosity of Jesus Christ in giving of ourselves and sharing all that we have received? Whether that is material or spiritual or intellectual, how well are we doing in living for others? 

So, Easter, the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit, joy -all of these things are so intimately tied together and connected. But I think it is possible for us to have some Easter joy faithfully return to the Eucharist Sunday after Sunday, to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and merely to be content and just be in a sort of a holding pattern and be comfortable in our Christian life. But that is not what we were made for. We were not made for comfort, or just contentment, or complacency. At the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” More abundantly! If we are comfortable in our Christian life, we have to really ask ourselves, are we experiencing abundant life? Are we experiencing life ever more abundantly or are we just staying put? 

I hope that you do not get tired of me speaking about Easter joy. I still am convinced we have got to hold on, but I think it's very easy also for us to allow a bit of erroneous thinking to slip in when it comes to this notion of holding on to Easter joy as if Easter joy is merely a high point of emotion that we have to somehow hold on to. We all know we're not the manufacturers of our own emotions. Very often our emotions are experienced in response to something that happens outside of us or something you know that goes on in our life or something that we don't really have that much control over. So, holding on to Easter joy isn't some matter of trying to keep stirring up an emotion in our hearts. So, the question I want to ask today then is where does Easter joy come from? Why does Easter make us joyful?

What was the experience like for those apostles who had fled at the Garden of Gethsemane? Let’s not be so naïve as to think that they went home, kicked off their sandals, poured a night cap and slept like a baby. They agonized, I bet. They must have agonized over the reality that they had run from the Lord. They abandoned him in that Garden. The guards and soldiers showed up, apprehended Jesus and they turned. I bet they didn’t sleep at all. I bet all they could think about was what the Lord was suffering, what he had gone through in those days. Thomas likely knew what crucifixion was like. He knew that was what the crowds wanted for Jesus. So, he could easily imagine the wounds in Jesus hands and in his side. But it is interesting that he seemed stuck on thinking about all that went wrong. The things that he had done wrong. The way that he had abandoned the Lord after all the Lord had done for him and this new life that Jesus was leading him into through the course of the three years they spent together. He was just stuck in that way of thinking. But then when he encounters the Risen Lord, it seems that that thinking melts away. And he sees that wounds that he believes to be gory, and bleeding are not bleeding anymore. They are glorious, in fact. There is no longer blood and water pouring from the side of Jesus, but that hole is still there, and Thomas put his finger right there and, in that moment, he comes to believe. It is incredible how a new perspective on things can make such a difference.

We need to keep our eyes and ears attuned to the ways that the Lord is leading from this day forward. This may be the clashing of cymbals and culmination of the Lenten journey but at the same time it is a beginning. I know without a doubt that the Lord in his goodness is inviting each one of you to let today be the beginning of a new chapter. What’s to hold you back from just setting the baggage aside, giving into the Lord? What’s to hold you back from opening your heart, letting him heal the wounds? What’s to hold you back to really allow his grace to strengthen you in your struggle? Whatever you bring to the church today, why not let this be the very moment that you experience newness in your life? That is why Jesus rose from the dead. Not just for a ‘fact.’ He rose because he loves you so much and he wants you to share in his divine life – day in and day out, walking the path of your life with him. So, brothers and sisters, in just a moment when we stand to renew promises of our Baptism give, make a great gift of  yourself in that and then when his celebration culminates in his gift to us, open your heart wide to receive the healing, the peace, the joy that is going to make this building shake. 

I thank you, Jesus, for all you have done for me. I thank you for all you continue to do for me. Stay with me, Lord. Help me to stay with you. 

Resurrection is a present reality and Lent is a great season for us to recognize this truth by identifying the ways that we experience the tomb and with Lazarus to hear the Lord calling our name and commanding us to come out of that tomb. 

As I mentioned a couple of Sundays ago if we allowed God to tell us the truth of who we are instead of clinging to our understanding, how could our own life be different? If looking at other people and situations in the world, we were able to surrender our own judgment and allow God to show us the truth of those situations, or those people, those persons, how would our experience be different? Everything changes when we surrender our white knuckled grip on our own understanding and begin to invite God to reveal his truth more and more. It is a difficult journey, there is no doubt about it because we find such security and safety so often in our own understanding of things. But God offers us so much more in this life that our limited understanding can really even grasp. 

Lent is a wonderful time to recognize, to be reminded, that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit as the Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit, as the altar is the place where the perfect sacrifice is offered so is the altar of our hearts. We offer to God a sacrifice that we hope will be more and more pleasing. A sacrifice offered in love and humility and purity. So, on this holy day, we draw near the altar of the Lord. To come near the well that offers us living water. We draw near the pierced side of Christ from which flows blood and water washing us and giving us new life and we bring with us the empty vessel of our heart.  We bring our hurts, we bring our longing for the Lord knowing that only he can truly satisfy. 

As I said in my homily of Ash Wednesday,” Now is the time.”  We heard the word ‘now’ three times in the readings that day. This reading today, the Gospel today, is also about the ‘now’. It is not about “later”. It is not, “Maybe I will get to that some point in my life.” Now is the time that the grace of God is abundantly available to address these places in our lives where we have withheld ourselves. Those painful areas that we don’t want to look at. Maybe it is the sense of pain or guilt long ago. Now is the time, now is the time.

This is the great mystery of the Incarnation. Jesus isn’t just born; he takes on every aspect of our life. He experiences our birth; he experiences our growth and maturation; he experiences our toil; he experiences, he takes our sin upon him.  He even goes through the experience of our death and here in the scriptures we see that he takes on our experience of temptation as well. There isn’t any way in which he separates himself from our experience, from our life. And so, in our experience of temptations, again big or small, the key is to realize that our temptations are his and we stand by his side throughout those temptations because that is the path to victory.  Because he has already conquered the enemy. He has already conquered sin and death. This Lent we ask for the grace to invite him in, to recognize that the trials and temptations, and sufferings are his. By inviting him in, we experience the power of his victory. 

Lent is a tremendous season of grace. I invited you last Sunday to pray each day this past week about how the Holy Spirit might be inviting you to have a deep conversion of the heart. And I invite you to continue doing that these next few days as we look forward to the beginning of Lent. But also let today’s reflection be a part of that. Look specifically at relationships in your life and where it is that the Lord might be really desiring to bring about reconciliation. Aware of where he might be wanting to breathe and move and work his reconciling grace. 

What does it mean to be a practicing Catholic?  Observance vs conversion.  The  observance of Lent is aiming at the conversion of heart. So, the question is, where is the Lord calling me? Where is the Lord calling each one of us to undergo a change of heart? Where are the strongholds, where are the areas of resistance within us that need to come tumbling out. What is it in our heart, deep in our hearts that we need to surrender to God?  What are the trials that we are undergoing that trouble us interiorly that we need to entrust more and more completely to God? This is where you need to look in preparation for Lent. 

No homily is available for this Mass.

This  is the third part of a three-part homily series on vocations.  There are three questions:  Number one, how available am I, how willing am I to place myself at completely at the service of the Lord?  Second, what is it that God really wants to do in me beyond just normal being good? Obeying the law? Following the precepts of the Church? Can I allow my notion of that to stretch and blown up. What God wants to do in me. And the third question, what does God want me to do through me?  What is the mission field into which I am sent? What are the gifts that God has given me in equipping me for that mission?  

Father continues his discussion on the meaning of vocation - the call from God.  But he focuses this week's homily on God's side.  

We have to keep reflecting on our own availability to God – our own willingness to do what God wants us to do.  To live the life that God wants us to live but we also have to delve into this notion itself of what it means to live according to God’s call in our life.  

Examining our degree of availability to God.  Do we set conditions?  Do we see the challenges in our life to be fully 'availalbe' to God. 

No homily is available for Sunday, January 8, 2023

No homily availalbe for Sunday, January 1, 2023

Joseph’s perception of the event needs to be enlightened by the truth and God communicates this truth with him through the instrumentality of the angel in the dream.  God teaches Joseph, “This is not what you think it is.  This is not a situation of shame that has to be tucked away and hidden and kept from the public view.”  In fact, God desires Mary’s story to be known for all future generations.  He desires Mary’s situation to become a radiant example of God’s power and glory working in the life of a human being.  God takes this situation that is perceived as something so shameful and something that needs to be hidden and turns it into something beautiful.  And how many of generations, how many millions of people throughout the ages have been inspired by Mary’s faithfulness and by Joseph’s cooperation with God’s plan.

Today's homily gives three basic points and speaks about our quest for happiness.  Three simple little recommendations  that will help us find greater joy in life.  

Today's homily gives three basic points and speaks about our quest for happiness.  Three simple little recommendations  that will help us find greater joy in life.