Homilies
Transcript of the Sunday Homily
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 27, 2025
In the way of praying, we all pray asking God to give us different things. We may be asking God to give us healing. We may be asking God to send employment our way. We might be asking God to give us protection from fire or good test results, or for peace in our family, or consolation in time of grief and loss. We might be asking God to help us in a situation of material need. But also, non-material needs. We ask for wisdom. We ask God to give us courage, patience; we ask God to give us forgiveness, and so many other things.
Perhaps this dynamic deepens and develops a little bit when we find ourselves asking God to give others things more than we ask for ourselves. “Lord, bring peace to those nations that are at war. Give protection and safety to persecuted Christians. Help those who are alone, or in hospitals or nursing homes, those who are homebound, those who are suffering. We pray that God will grant to others what they need.”
But then the dynamic of prayer also deepens when we realize prayer is not just about getting something, but that we go to prayer with the intention of giving something to God. We pray in order to give God praise or to give adoration, to give God glory, to give God thanks. We offer to God in our prayer, our devotion, our actions, offering of love. We offer obedience. We offer our works, our joys, our sufferings each day. We offer with our whole heart and sometimes we pray, and we do not ask for a single thing, but simply go to offer to God our heart, to present ourselves to God as a gift. A gift in response to what God has already given to us in an expression of our love to Him and in our gratitude.
The Lord God has a desire for us in prayer that is deeper even than that of forgiving. At the end of today's Gospel, Jesus says, “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" So, you say, well, you can say, I am not asking to get the Holy Spirit. But the gift of the Holy Spirit is orientated toward something that is right up on par with God’s desire for us and that is union. God is the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit works within us to draw us into deeper and deeper union with God. Closeness to God, conformity to the Lord Jesus in thoughts, in word and deed. The Lord draws us into prayer, not just to give us something or to receive something from us, He draws us into prayer to bind us to Himself, to conform our minds and our hearts to Him, to His mind, to His heart, to His will.
So, the more we pray, the less the getting and the giving matters and the more and more what matters is our conformity to Him. Our desire for God’s will for our life and the whole world – the lives of all people. So, we can ask the question, why pray in an abstract kind of way and sort of get an abstract answer but it also has to come home to us in a vision, where we ask the question of ourselves, why do we pray, why do I pray? Why am I praying right now when I go and sit in the chapel or when I am out walking and praying. Why am I praying? Am I stuck on just asking God for things? I am always asking if I can get this or that. You know, it’s not a bad thing, but my idea is that Lord wants something more.
If I find that when I am always praying asking God for something, might I begin to turn toward offering God something in my heart even more than I ask to receive something? And even beyond those dynamics of asking for and offering, in the hungry reality of my prayer, I realize that God really desires for me union through prayer. The conformity of my will to His.
Some years ago in a homily, I mentioned that the purpose of prayer is not to change God's mind so that He will give us what we need or want, usually ‘want.’ But rather that our hearts would be changed through prayer in order to be able to accept joyfully and gratefully whatever it is that God wills for us. How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit? How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? We want the gift of the Holy Spirit. We want the transformation of our hearts according to the heart of Christ. We want greater and greater conformity to the Lord Jesus, greater and greater conformity to the will of God.
Today in the celebration of Baptism, the majority of you who are here were baptized remember that when we were baptized in our Masses, we receive this gift of the Holy Spirit and it is the beginning of transformation according to the image of Christ. And as we momentarily move into baptism of Silas, we pray for that outpouring of the Holy Spirit on him. Recognizing that what God is doing in him, bringing him new life, drawing him to Himself, God is also doing in each one of us. He wants to do to each one of us. Very much through our prayers each day.
May we have the grace to pray, not just for the things that we need, and not just even to offer ourselves to God but to also to recognize that the Lord is goodness and love is really drawing us into union with Himself.
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 20, 2025
This well-known Gospel passage is not primarily about choosing how you spend your time, whether in prayer or work or some other activity. Jesus is not pitting prayer against work. Sometimes this message has been used to argue that Jesus is promoting the contemplative life over a life of action. But then the Martha’s in this room always object. They say, “If we just sat around praying all day, nothing would ever get done.’ And okay, they have a point. And although prayer and contemplation are certainly essential to the Christian life, Jesus did indeed send His disciples out into the world to work, to work for the building of the kingdom of God, and Jesus Himself worked. So, prayer and work or action do not mean to be considered as enemies.
Maybe the question is not about how we spend our time exactly. Maybe ‘choosing the better part’ is not necessarily choosing contemplation over action or choosing action over contemplation. Maybe that better part is available to us no matter whether we are working or praying or doing some other activity. And actually, I think we know this intuitively. If we're in the midst of a time of prayer, we know that we can choose to go along with moments of daydreaming or distraction, or we can choose the better part and bring ourselves back to focusing on the Lord. We know that if we're in the midst of a time of work or activity, we can choose to be present and mindful of God, which is the better part, or we can choose in some way to set it aside and say, ‘God, I'm going to do this my own way.’ Kind of like taking the Lord and putting Him on a shelf for a little bit. ‘I love you, Lord, but right now I have to take care of this other thing. So, you just be over there. And if you would be quiet, I wouldn't mind.”
Jesus says in John 15, "Abide in me, and I in you.” Abide in me, and I in you. Choosing the better part means that no matter what we're doing, whether praying or working or doing some other activity, we abide in Jesus. We remain in Him. We live from that place of the union with Him. It means we don't set Jesus aside in any way, but remain in Him, abide in Him, and be present to Him.
In the Gospel, Mary is fully present to Jesus. And I think the fact that she is not working in that moment is not really the point. It is not a critical part of this account. She is present. She is sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him. Her sister, Martha, is busy with the serving but apparently, while she is working, she's not focusing on serving out of love - love for Jesus and love for her sister. She seems to be focused on herself, and she is focused on the unfairness of having to do all the work herself without having any help from her sister.
How might the conversation have gone differently had Martha remained present to Jesus in her heart even while she was working? She was mindful that she was doing this work out of love. I suspect things may have gone differently. To abide in Jesus, to remain in Jesus, is to choose the better part. And it requires a lot of practice because we know, I think, the temptation, when we have other things to do is to set Jesus aside and we create this division between our spiritual life and the rest of life. But Jesus actually wants us to remain in Him no matter what we are doing. And there are many ways we can work on that. We can take up maybe different devotions that can be prayed while we're working or doing other things. We can have sacred music playing in the background or something while we're doing other things. We can just simply try to remind ourselves more and more frequently that the Lord is with us, the unseen guest in every conversation, or at every meal, in every place we go, that He is there, He is present. Even just remembering that He is present helps us to be present to Him. And of course, this Sacraments are a tremendous gift in helping us to abide in Jesus to remain in Him. The sacrament of Reconciliation, Confession, helps us to return to Him perhaps after we have wandered a bit. After we recognize we haven't always been abiding in Him. Of course, the gift of the Holy Eucharist is Jesus' gift of abiding with us in which He invites us also to abide in Him in a special way. Even spending time with Him in Adoration, whether the host is exposed on the altar or reposed in the Tabernacle or receiving Jesus in the Eucharist, there is that beautiful intimate invitation: “Abide in me, and I abide in you.”
It is good to reflect on how in the living of our mission of life, we abide in the Lord. For where are those places in life where we tend towards setting Jesus aside? Have we created somehow a dichotomy in our mind or in our living between spiritual life and the rest of life? Can we bring those together and abiding in Jesus, choose the better part.
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 13, 2025
There are a lot of people who move to this area with the explicit intention of getting away from having neighbors. There's nothing wrong with enjoying solitude. Peace and quiet is “A-okay.” You know we don't have to always be caught up in a flurry of activity with a bunch of other people. But if the attitude is “I just don't want to have to deal with other people,” it is not very compatible with being a Christian. And we have to guard against that kind of movement of the heart. For the Commandment is to love our neighbor, not despise or avoid them, and love of neighbor is non-negotiable. It is not ‘take or leave it,’ or ‘if you can, fit it in and that's great.’ Love of neighbor is an indispensable part of the Christian life. Like the scholar of the Law in today’s Gospel, Christian’s today are still asking themselves the question: "Who is my neighbor? For whom am I responsible? For whom am I supposed to care?”
We tend, I think, sometimes to sort of draw a circle in the ground around us, and properly speaking, keep the neighbors on the inside of that circle because everyone outside of the circle is not my problem. Or not my concern. So, I will take care of the people that are inside my circle, but the others, they are not welcome. It is interesting because people take a different approach to this separation. Some will say, “Well, inside of that circle of course are my family, my children, my brothers and sisters, my grandchildren, my parents, perhaps. Of course, I have the responsibility to take care of them; they are certainly my neighbor – I will associate with them and I don’t mind associating with them. But I am not going to talk to that person banging on the street or who has the cardboard sign. I am not going to go out and associate with people that aren't close to me or who I don't know, a stranger. I am not responsible, I can't be responsible for everyone, after all. You can't be expected to care for everyone in the world.” And then there are others who approach it this way. They say: “Well, I will be happy to send the check to Zimbabwe, send the check to Feed the Hungry. I will be happy to donate to a mission that is providing healthcare for those in can't afford it in Third World countries and all of that. But I am not going to talk to my brother-in-law! That guy, he crossed me one too many times. Or the woman across the street, or someone whose politics oppose mine. Or ‘fill in’ the blank.”
We tend to think of ‘neighbor’ as someone we have a particular affiliation with - family, coworker, a physical neighbor, someone who has common interests, even if we don't know them, they are ‘on our team’, so to speak. Maybe we think of the neighbor as someone who's easy to be around, someone we are comfortable with, someone who doesn't ask too much of us. But the parable in the Gospel today does not indicate that there was any prior connection for affiliation between the Samaritan and the robber’s victim. They were strangers. They were strangers. And yet, the Samaritan cared. So, the Lord Jesus invites us to expand our circle. Maybe not to draw that circle quite so solidly or firmly in the ground around us. It has something to do with the way that we perceive other people.
Look at the way the Samaritan perceived the robber's victim. By the way, the robber's victim represents us. The robber's victim does not principally represent that someone we are called to serve. We are the robbers' victim. We are the ones who are broken, and wounded, and sinful, and poor, and weak, lying on the side of the road. And the good Samaritan is Jesus who comes to our help. Not because of our deserving it or earning it, but out of complete compassion and love for us. Jesus comes. He is the Samaritan. He yields and strengthens and saves us. So, He must look at us as being worth saving. And that's how we're invited to look at others.
The Commandment is: Love your neighbor as yourself. That does not mean love your neighbor the same amount, so to speak, as you love yourself. It is something deeper than that. It speaks of a certain kind of union that we have with other people. Certainly, we are united in the body of Christ – we are all baptized, we have a certain connection to one another. We belong to one another; we belong to the same body. But even beyond that, we belong to the human family. So, I look upon every other person then, as somehow, even if in a small way, I look upon every other person as an extension of myself. And so, when I encounter a neighbor, when I encounter another human being, I care for them as I would care for myself. We belong to each other. Even if we are total strangers, we belong to each other. We have responsibility for each other. That's a new way of looking at things, perhaps. But it seems to be the way that the Samaritan looks upon the robber's victim. The priest and the Levite see the robber's victim and cross to the other side: “Not my problem. I do not know that person. I better not get involved here.” But the Samaritan sees the wounded man and perhaps part of all of this is the recognition that we're not just supposed to look out and see who is my neighbor, but realize that other people are also looking to us and asking the question, “Is that my neighbor?” “Is that person going to treat me the way the good Samaritan treated the robber's victim?”
So today, we might ask for the grace to see everyone who crosses our path as a neighbor that we might have a greater sense of care and responsibility for each other, not pushing others away, ignoring others, but ask that God with soften the hardness of our hearts that we might follow the example of Jesus the Good Samaritan, and lay down our life for others, so that they may live.
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 6, 2025
I find myself as time goes on loving the Church more and more. It's not because of all of the beautiful structures, the beautiful churches I've seen, or because of the beautiful music, liturgy, and the tradition of the Church, but for the love of God that inspires all of those, and so much else. And also, just coming to know the people of God, not only in their gratefulness, but in every, in all of the moments of life - their devotion, their faithfulness, their perseverance, also their dreams and struggles and the weaknesses, all that goes together to make a Christian life. I have a priest friend who jokingly says, "I love the faith. It's the faithful I can't stand."
And sometimes people do want to just have that relationship with God with no regard for the Church. There are many who regard the Church with sort of an attitude of tolerance at best. They put up with these other people, but the main thing is just that they have their own relationship with God. There are some who despise the Church, perhaps out of misunderstanding, perhaps out of a sense of self-righteousness. A judgment that everyone else in the Church is somehow off base. Some despise the structures or the hierarchy of the Church and the leaders. Some despise their fellow lay people. They don't like this or that thing about the Church. Sometimes people stand in judgment of the Church or reject Her for the imperfections of Her members.
But we have got to love the Church. We've got to love the Church. Because we cannot despise what Jesus loves so dearly. Jesus has taken the Church to Himself, united the Church to Himself. The Church is His Body; the Church is his Bride. The Church is His Beloved. So, we must love the Church - warts and all. We must love the Church.
I mentioned a couple of Sundays ago when we see Jerusalem mentioned in Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, Jerusalem is a prefigurement of the Church. So, what if we read again todays first reading with that in mind?
“Rejoice with the Church and be glad because of her, all you who love her; exalt, exalt, with her, all you who were mourning over her!” What if I regard the Church really as a beloved mother who nourishes us like a mother nourishes her child? Comforts her child. As nurslings, you shall be carried her arms and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; in the Church, you shall find your comfort.”
Do we rejoice in the Church? How do we love the Church? Do we regard the Church truly as our mother? The trouble, I think, with standing judgment of the Church or despising the Church, or just tolerating the church, or we being leery of the Church - I'm not saying we should be uncritical - but if we have this attitude toward the Church, it's very easy then to stay at the margin of the Church. To stay at the edge, kind of looking in and saying “Well, I really don’t want to be fully associated with those sinners.” No. Or if I don't want to be associated with those who don't think the same way and so forth and so on. We can easily put ourselves at the edge of the Church instead of making us the heart of the Church. And we want to be in the heart of the Church and to share the mission of the Church.
In the Gospel we hear about these seventy-two whom Jesus sends in ahead of Him to prepare His way to announce His coming. They must have something more than a personal relationship to Jesus to be able to go at out and to announce Jesus, and to get people, to help them to prepare their hearts, to receive Him, that they would love them too. They came back rejoicing. They're participating in the mission of Jesus to save the world. If we are not in the heart of the Church, if we find ourselves on the periphery of the margin of the Church, we are not very likely to participate in that mission. Going out and preparing the way for the Lord and preaching the Gospel and making Him known.
We have to love the Church. We have to love the Church and be in the heart of the Church. What is our attitude today toward the Church, to Her structures, Her traditions, Her members, Her leaders? Do we struggle with the temptation to be at the edge or the margin or are we ready to really be in the heart of the Church to recognize that we each have some sort of role in the announcement of the Gospel. Jesus says, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.” The harvest truly is abundant today - right now in our neighborhood, in our towns, in our county. The harvest is rich, the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.
God give us the grace today to love the Church more and more; loving Christ and His Church, His body, and may we have the grace to recognize that we, like the seventy-two, are sent into the world to bring all people to Christ.
Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June 30, 2025
Summary:
We hear different things about the weaknesses of these saints, and that's fine. It is good to mention that, too, I guess, but it seems like the message that is communicated then is: “Well, if these great Saints have a past as sinners, then there is hope for all of us, too. Maybe we are not disqualified from Heaven because we are still broken and weak and sinful.”
But that isn’t the question. There is no question of whether we qualified to be disciples of Jesus. Everyone is qualified to be a disciple of Jesus. The question is are we open to God? Are we open? Before God there are only two ways we can be. There are only two ways – open or closed. So, you see in the lives of Saint Peter and Saint Paul perhaps not just a onetime changing from closed to open. Even though Saint Paul’s conversion was a profoundly transformative event, we also see in it an ongoing journey of conversion. Saint Peter didn’t just get it right one time and keep on getting it right. As we all do, these things stumble – they have to struggle to become more and more open to God and less and less closed.
This is the journey of conversion. This is the description of pretty much all the Saints. They are open to God. Open to God. And for those who underwent conversion over the course of their lives, it was a journey of becoming more and more open. I think in our own human experience it is fairly easy for us to identify these certain moments whether we are open to God or are closed. For example, even in our thought life. How do I think of my neighbor? Am I open to God in that, or am I closed to God in that? How do I think of my family? Maybe some of the members of my family that I am in a struggle with? How do I think of public figures? How do I think of the Church? How do I think of myself even? Am I open to God in the way I think of myself? How do I think of God?
In our words, how do we speak of our neighbor? How do we speak of our family members? How do we speak of public figures? What is our conversation like? It doesn't mean we are always explicitly speaking about God, we need to have conversations about other things as well, obviously. But in any conversations, are we open God? Is the conversation open to God or is it closed? In our deeds, again, are we open to God? We know whether we are serving God or serving ourselves. We know whether we are open or closed.
I think this is actually something of a useful tool for us to stow in our spiritual toolbox. Just a simple question. Am I open or closed? What if in the course of a conversation that little question flickered through our mind? Do I come open to God in this? Even in the privacy of our home, in the quiet of prayer, perhaps, or thinking about different things, the thought comes mind - am I open to God right now, or am I closed. Could I be more open?
Honestly, we all have to answer the question about openness and or being closed. I am saying that sometimes we are open and sometimes we're closed. None of us is perfectly open all the time. I don't think any of us is all the way closed all the time, either. Here you are, celebrating Mass – that is an example of openness. It is one thing to have a life of prayer, to do good works and to love your families and serve God the way that you love those around you. So, there's clearly openness. But we want to become more and more open to praying each day:
Jesus, I open my heart to you. Help me to open my heart, teach me to open my heart. Give me the grace to open my heart. Help me to receive whatever it is that you wish to pour out to me. Help me not to be closed, help me not to be stuck inside my own thoughts and reasoning, my own understanding. Help me not to be closed in on myself and what I want and my agendas. But help me to be open to you O God.
Just this simple question: Am I open or am I closed can help us so much in our spiritual life. And through the intersession of Saints.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, June 22, 2025
Summary:
I am sure I have shared before about what a central role the Eucharist played in my vocation to priesthood, but also just in my own spiritual development as a young person. Jesus in the Eucharist captured my heart from the time I was just a little boy. The truth of Jesus' real presence in this Holy Sacrament entrusted itself on my soul in such a way that I simply accepted it as an undeniable fact. And I can’t really think of a time that ever fully doubted the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and by God's grace, I hope to remain faithful all the days of my life.
But also, I found that through the Eucharist, God is always with me. You know, God is present everywhere, we know that by faith. But He is present in a very specific and special way in the Sacrament of Eucharist. And when I encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, I experience His abiding presence. He has made a promise to never abandon us. His promise “I am with you always.” And there's a sense there that He is always available to me. I can run to Him whenever I need him for whatever I want.
People ask me, don't you get lowly as a priest? I very seldom feel alone. I have the capacity for solitude, but I very seldom feel lonely. And even if those feelings creep up, I go straight to the Lord and I know that He is present, and He is there to give me His company and much consolation. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the Sacrament of Divine love. In the Eucharist we have the very love of God Incarnate and meditating on that Mystery, receiving that Mystery in Holy Communion, reminds me of what I am called to as well. What we are all called to do - imitate the very love of Jesus Christ Himself, and in that Sacrament always pouring out the love of His heart for me, for all of us.
I can say there's a lot of different effects that the Eucharist has had on my life. One of them is that is ongoing is that I find I have a deeper desire to receive the Sacrament worthily. So, one of my greatest anxieties as a priest has been surrounding my participation in unworthy Holy Communions. Obviously, I distribute a lot of hosts. I mean, if I celebrated 10,000 Masses, I don't know how many Holy Communions I have given. And I worry sometimes, what will be my burden and responsibility for other people to receive Holy Communion worthily or not. Aside from situations where grave public scandal would result from my giving Communion to someone, I sort of settled on the reality or truth that the responsibility for ascertaining one’s worthiness to receive Holy Communion lies with the recipient, and not with me. I am not Padre Pio – I don’t read your soul. I learned recently that in the Coptic tradition, the priest, after washing his hands before the Eucharistic prayer, shakes his fingers out in front of the people to signify that he is not responsible for any unworthy Communions. The responsibility is yours to receive Holy Communion worthily. This is not to say, you just open up the flood gates and give Communion out willy nilly. No. The Sacrament is celebrated and received on God's terms, not on ours so we all have to have the humility to submit ourselves to what God has revealed concerning the Sacrament – through the Scriptures and through Tradition. We are supposed to conform ourselves to Christ, not expect Him to conform Himself to our plans.
In this sacred life, today, with a special feast, perhaps we can simply ask the Lord to help us place Him more and more at the center, especially to place His Eucharistic presence more solidly, more totally, at the center of our life so that when we receive the Eucharistic it is folded into the fabric of our being, and we couldn't imagine living without that. Lord Jesus, help us to open our hearts to You and to receive You with total love and to allow You to accomplish Your purposes in our life.
List of Services
-
Holy Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2025
Summary:
All these years, priests, including me, have been approaching the pulpit on Trinity Sunday to take a swing and giving some explanation of the mystery of the Trinity. We swing and we swing, and we swing, and we always strike out. And no, three strikes and one out is not another analogy for the Trinity. But it's kind of a project that's doomed from the start. The Church does not provide Trinity Sunday for us so that the clergy can bring the faithful one step closer to figuring out the mystery of the Trinity. The clergy themselves don't have it figured out. So not much help in that process or attaining that goal. There is certainly much we can say about God, but we're deluding ourselves if we think that we're getting God figured out. God is God. God is not to be figured out. And that's what I want to talk about today. No shamrocks for you.
God is dynamic. God is living. God is constantly wanting to reveal more of Himself to us and to bring us into friendship with Him, into relationship with Him. As I said, the written word only goes so far. But in the person of Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to know God fully. The more we grow in our relationship with Jesus, the more He reveals to us of the face and the heart of the Father. St. Paul writes, "No one knows what lies at the depths of God, but the Spirit of God.” We don't know what lies at the depths of God, but the Spirit will show us by bringing us into ever growing relationship with the Son, Jesus Christ.
So, Trinity Sunday is a great opportunity, I mean, we can continue to use our minds to try to understand more and more, but it's a good opportunity for us to be reminded. We have not grasped completely the mystery of God, but the Spirit urges us to keep seeking God's face. We want to know as we are fully known in heaven, as St. Paul says. So, we renew our resolve to seek the face of God in prayer, and in our growing relationship with Him, always being opened to allowing God to reveal to us His mystery, His heart.
-
Pentecost Sunday, June 8 2025
Summary:
There's kind of a three-legged stool that could describe the Christian life where there are the foundational elements of the Christian life, especially as Catholics. The first leg is receiving the Sacraments - especially Holy Eucharist - and going to Confession also on a regular basis. The second leg of that is personal prayer. Daily, personal prayer. And the third leg of the stool is a life of virtue putting the above God into practice in our interactions with our families, our neighbors, and everyone we meet. The Sacraments, personal prayer, and virtue or charity. And I think if we are doing those three things, if those for three items or aspects are strong in our life, we have a strong foundation of life in the Spirit. We are going to Mass, participating in the worship of God. We are going to Confession on a regular basis, receiving that grace of God's mercy and forgiveness of our sins, and strengthening against future sins or what we must overcome - sinful habits. We are doing that.
So, on Pentecost, maybe something we can do then is pray “Come Holy Spirit, help me. Help me when I am doing these things. When I go to Mass; when I go to Confession; when I am in personal prayer, when I am doing good deeds for others. Help me to have my heart in the right place so that I am opening that heart to a new outpouring of Divine Love.”
The Holy Spirit has all kinds of fruits in our lives. All kinds of fruits. In some, it brings the fruit of courage and boldness to go on when things seem impossible. The Holy Spirit bears the fruit of humility in our life. The Holy Spirit bears the fruit of peace in our life. The Holy Spirit brings a healing. The Holy Spirit brings patience; the Holy Spirit brings all kinds of different gifts and bears all kinds of different fruits. It is like rain that falls on all kinds of different fruit trees. That same rain produces more oranges, apples, pomegranates, and almonds. That same rain produces zucchinis, the pumpkins, and all kinds of different foods but it is the same rain. The same Holy Spirit falls into our hearts which produces all kinds of different fruits in us but not if we are closed.
So, every day, not just on Pentecost Sunday, we ask God to open our hearts so that we can receive a gift of the Holy Spirit and bear the fruits of the Spirit in great abundance for our sanctification and for the sanctification of the Church and our world.
-
Ascension Sunday, June 1, 2025
Summary:
The Ascension of Jesus seems very much like a departure. A going away. It is where it looks like Jesus is receding into this distant background and in a way becoming absent. The first thing I would like to say is that the good Lord can never be absent. He can never be absent. Look to Psalm 139, for example, that says, "If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down among the dead, you are there; If I take the wings of dawn and dwell beyond the sea, even there your hand guides me, your right hand holds me fast.” There is no place where God is not. So, objectively speaking, there is no time or place where God can be absent. And secondly, I want to point out that the Ascension is always connected with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It is kind of an interesting, mysterious thing how we can be absolutely convinced intellectually that God is with us, that God is present, that God is never, ever, ever absent. And yet at the same time, subjectively feel, that He is not present at all, that he has withdrawn, or at least that He is silent. But God certainly is not the one at fault in that dynamic, is He? So, then if the Ascension is not about absence, but presence, my question is, how can we, as disciples of Jesus Christ, more continuously have the experience that God is with us, and that God is present to us and near to us?
There may be a variety of answers to that question - I just want to propose one and that is that by entering into worship more continuously, by entering into worship, we open ourselves to a more consistent experience of God with us.
-
Sixth Sunday in Easter, May 25, 2025
Summary:
When I teach, I often say that Jesus parting gift to the world was not the Bible. He didn't go to His apostles before His ascension and hand them each copy of a bible and say, "Read this, this is going to guide you from here on out.” No, Jesus’ parting gift to the world was the Church. The Church. And the New Testament would later be a gift to the Church. But there was a time when the Church existed, and the New Testament did not. In the early days of the Church, there were no Gospels to read. There were no letters of St. Paul. There was no Book of Revelation or any letters of John or Peter, or any of the others that make up the New Testament today. There was a time when the Church lived, but there were no New Testament writings. They had the Old Testament still, of course, but their teachings of Jesus had not been committed to writing yet. So, when the question arose about how to live the Christian life, what could they do? They couldn't consult a New Testament that didn't exist.
But we have an example of this very situation in the first reading in the Acts of the Apostles, where some people went down to Antioch from Judea, and they were teaching that basically, if you wanted to be a disciple of Jesus, you have to accept and live by all of the Mosaic law as well. And this was a big dispute in the early Church. Basically, to become a disciple of Jesus, could you go straight from being a Gentile, or did you have to become a Jew first and then a Christian? And so, Paul and Barnabas go up to Jerusalem, to consult the apostles and the elders about this question. And of course, then the apostles and the elders send this letter back to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, and they read it in the community. Amazingly, we have the text of this letter in which the bottom line is, as they say, ‘No, you don't have to accept all of the Mosaic Law.” Just follow these four principles with regard to that: abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, abstain from blood, abstain from meats of strangled animals, and abstain from unlawful marriage, and that will be fine.’ All of the Mosaic Law kind of condensed into these four little principles.
Again, our efforts as a parish at evangelization rest very much on our ability to articulate what makes our Church unique, special. All of this, all of that study, all that learning, all that understanding, helps us to keep His Word, to remain in His Word, to receive the Father's love, and to receive the gift of their Holy Spirit, making their dwelling Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within us. Pray that God give us an ever-deeper gratitude for the gift of our Church, the gift of that Word, that helps us to be effective in proclaiming that Word to the world.
-
Fifth Sunday in Easter, May 18, 2025
Summary:
Wouldn't it be glorious if we as Catholics were known once again in today's world as we were in the early years for our love? If I overheard someone in the store talking about our parish, and they said, “How those Catholics love one another,” I would be absolutely elated! Ah, yes, we are on the right track. “How they love one another.” I do believe that in our parish we do more than just tolerate one another. Although, I think some parishioners do have this attitude toward other parishioners just sort of putting up with them. But I sincerely hope that by the grace of God, we can overcome whatever it is that would keep us at the level of mere coexistence. There are definitely people in our parish who model Christian lov3 very well, but I wonder if overall, our parish might be better described as friendly and loving. Friendly is good, of course. It is certainly a step up from tolerating each other or merely coexistence. But it's not yet where the Lord calls us to be - we need to move that needle away from just coexistence, beyond friendship to true Christian love.
What is that love like? The love of spouses? The love of spouses is a love that entails mutual self-gift. It is a man and a woman who give themselves completely to each other. And in that Sacrament, we have in a very powerful way, a visible manifestation of the love of Christ for the Church. But that's how He commands us to love, not just married people, but all people, whatever their vocation and whatever their circumstances in life. He calls us to love. He calls us to make us gift of self, a sincere and total gift of self, and in that giving of self, we find our deepest satisfaction and deepest happiness and deepest peace. That is how Jesus loves the Church. In a total, unrestricted, unreserved gift of self. “As I have loved you, as I have loved you,” my bride would say, "So you also should love one another in giving of yourselves for one another, laying down their lives in service, in humility, and in generosity.”
What is it that keeps the community merely at the level of friendly instead of going to the level of to the truly embodying Christian love? It is the failure to give the complete gift of self. It is the keeping of one’s heart closed to some degree. Perhaps we close our hearts because we are afraid. Maybe we have opened our hearts in the past, and we got burned, we got stung, we got betrayed. So, we don't want to open our heart anymore. We don't want to suffer that anymore. Maybe it's a general distrust of people. I mean it could be a lot of different things. Maybe it's just an overconcern for our own agenda and the things that we want, and we fear that opening hearts to others might bring too many demands on us that are significant. But Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” Is Jesus' heart in any way closed to us? Does He pull back anything of Himself from us? No. Not one bit.
In the sacred Sacrament of the Eucharist, we have a sublime opportunity to contemplate the love of God. And we will never plume the depths of that reality, that mystery. If we are contemplating the love of God, we will always find something new. If we say, “Oh, the love of God, I already thought about that. I already understand that.” No, we keep coming, especially in the Eucharist, this mystery of divine love, that we might believe, but also that we might, in imitation of that mystery of divine gift, of divine love, be better equipped to fulfill the Lord's command.
-
Good Shepard Sunday, May 11, 2025
Summary:
- My greatest desire is that we as a community would glorify God; that we would glorify God in the manner of our life and in the way that we worship.
• I want to see the quality of our liturgical celebrations, especially the Mass, always improve. Always improve. This means that not only lectors and musicians, and altar servers, and priests, and sacristans and everyone who plays a particular role like that prepares diligently for the Mass, but that all of us, all of us together, enter really wholeheartedly, not partially or with any degree of apathy or anything like that, not half heartedly, that we would all enter wholeheartedly into each celebration of the sacred mysteries.
• But all of us ought to be saints in the making. Saints in the making in dealing and addressing the areas of sin in our life that need conversion and certainly availing ourselves of this sacrament of Reconciliation, Confession to purify our hearts so that we can glorify God and the Holy Spirit can truly flourish in our community.
• I dream of having a parish where everyone’s heart is on fire for the Lord, and that we're growing in purity of heart.
• My desire that we share life as a community and that our sense of family and mutual belonging is grounded in the lived experience of being loved by God, and being in real relationship with him; a real experiential relationship with God through the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
• I desire that our parish would be a place of healing. Ultimately that healing is what allows us to receive God’s love more fully, more deeply more fruitfully.
• My desire is that our parish be a place where vulnerability is reverenced and where sharing from the heart is normal, actually even comfortable.
• And we are not scared or afraid to open our heart to share what is going on in our life with someone else, because we know that it we will be received with charity, respected. We will not be betrayed or rejected.
• I desire that no one ever goes home from Mass wondering if anyone here actually cares about them.
• I desire that you, even as we are a community, would also become an agent for healing in the broader community around us.
• I would love to see our outreach increase.
• I would love to see that the Catholic Church be a major, major player in the improvement of conditions in our homes and surrounding area.
• I desire that we would proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ as the apostles and the disciples boldly proclaimed it in the early Church as we heard it in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
• I desire that we would proclaim the Gospel with joy as witnesses of their resurrection; that we would demonstrate by our manner of living what it means to be transformed in the grace of God, especially in the Sacraments.
• I envision a vibrant dynamic Catholic community that doesn't limp along for lack of numbers, or lack of involvement, but one that bursting at the seams because not only Catholics want to come back, but more and more individuals who have never experienced life in the Church, see and witness life in the Church and want to be one of participated in it; want to share in it.
• I would love to see our particular parish right here be an agent for that [expansion of the Church] Being out there in the community, being that instrument that the Lord uses to bring more and more people to himself in His church.
• I desire that the same Spirit that animated the early Church would animate all of us. A Spirit that can compel us to go out and proclaim the Gospel, to announce Jesus risen from the dead, to continue celebrating the sacred mysteries, gathering together on the first day of the week, every first week, celebrating the breaking of the bread, receiving Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
• I desire that that the same Spirit will animate all of us. And if it does, we will continue to see our parish grow.
-
Third Sunday in Easter, May 4 2025
Summary: Father Kruse
Why are you here? You know, it's a question that I think we need to remind ourselves of often. Why do we do what we do? Why do we pray? Why do we come Church? Why involve our lives in all of this? Is it that we can have a social circle? That's part of it. Or is it more? What is the goal, in other words, friends, of the spiritual life? What is the goal of engaging in spiritual exercises? And, of course, coming to Church to being the most important. The goal is simply this, to repair what we once had, and what we all once had in our very first parents, which was a relationship that was in perfect communion with God, in union with God. He created us to share His love and His life with us. And we experience that as a human race only at the very beginning of our history.
And so now, we do what we do, we come to Church, we pray at home. We try to live a good life according to the way God wants us to live so that we can grow in that union with God, in that relationship with God. Friends, that is the key to a happy life. Are we going to be perfectly happy in this life? Of course not. Can we be reasonably happy in this life? Yes, of course. Can we experience joy and even peace while we suffer? Can we experience disappointment? Can we experience the brokenness of life? Yes, we can. Anchored in a great hope that one day, when we cross from this life to the next, we will experience perfect happiness. This is why we do what we do. We've got to have that underlying motivation and reason. Otherwise, it's really easy just to stop coming to Church, or to stop praying, like what's the point of it all?
What did winning a soccer game lead to change your life? Nothing. What did winning a basketball game do to improve the world? Nothing. What did the resurrection of Jesus Christ do to change your life and prove the world? Everything, friends!
So, my suggestion to you this week is to help you with this. So last Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, we read from John Chapter 20, and that was the reading that described the very first time Jesus appeared to the disciples on Easter Sunday. So, remember, in the upper room, they're hiding from fear of the Jews, and then Jesus appears to them. This is on Sunday after Good Friday. And He appears to them, He says, "Peace be with you." My recommendation is you take that passage of scripture and use it for your prayer time some this week.
-
Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2025
Summary:
But Divine Mercy Sunday which we celebrate today, announces to us and the Church and to the whole world that God does not treat us the way we treat other people. Divine Mercy Sunday announces to us that when God sees us in our human misery, whatever that is whatever that is – our addiction, our illness, our doubt, our confusion, our fear, our shame, our discouragement, our depression, our hopelessness, our feelings of abandonment - when God looks at us in our human misery, He suffers with us. He enters into our suffering with us. He doesn’t turn His back. His heart is moved for us. The very Latin word ‘misericordia’ meaning ‘mercy’ joins two words, ‘mercy’ and ‘heart.’ God opens His heart in our misery. He doesn’t reject or turn away from us or abandon us. He suffers with us. God very easily distinguishes between the person we are and the words and deeds and thoughts. He always loves the person. Yes, God hates sin. He doesn't want there to be sin in our life. He loves us. He loves us unconditionally and no matter what. He delights in us because we are His beloved children.
Everything changes in our life when we accept this truth. The deep truth of God’s mercy – the acceptance of us as we are. When He sees us even in our sin, He recognizes our suffering because of it. People come to confession because they are suffering, right? Sin brings suffering. God has mercy on us in our suffering. He will not reject us. He certainly does not withdraw from us in our time of suffering and in our misery that we experience in this life.
So, if there is one thing that we take from Divine Mercy Sunday celebration, I hope it is this: a deeper understanding of how God regards us. A deep appreciation of God’s infinite mercy for us. A deeper understanding of what that means in practical ways as we continue to struggle in this Valley of Tears. But if there is a second thing we can take away, I hope it would be this: that the Lord in His goodness invites us to regard others with mercy just as He regards us with mercy. That the Lord invites us to put on a new perspective when we look at our brothers and sisters. Not just to see their fault, their failing, their weakness, their brokenness, their sinfulness, but to see beyond it, deeper than that – to the person who is suffering and is in need of love. That might bring about a great revolution in our life. If we could look at that person who offends us with compassion.
When we celebrate the Eucharist, we are invited into a deep communion with our Lord, and he may just give us the grace to put on new eyes to receive that new perspective to see the outpouring of mercy from God and share it then with our neighbor.
-
Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
Summary:
Happy Easter! Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly risen. Risen from the dead. He has conquered sin and death and brought us new life. We must rejoice. We must rejoice! ‘Alleluia’ wells up from the deep belly of the Church on this day. So, rejoice. Alleluia.
Easter reminds us that Christ has conquered the grave so there is hope for each and every one of us. So, I encourage you in this Jubilee Easter to set aside these little bits of doubt, big bits of doubts, set aside everything that encumbers or hinders your relationship with God.
Jesus transformed the Cross however so that as it is no longer merely a symbol of death or failure or defeat, but it has become the very path for us to new life. It is a Jubilee. Get ready because the Lord, if you're willing, will come into your heart in a new way. He is going to stir things up in a new way.
We celebrated four baptisms last night. Four people, new to our community, just entering the Church, forgiven of their sins, born to new life. That grace of Baptism is stirred up in each one of us who are Baptized when we receive the body and blood of the Lord. The same life we receive in Baptism, we receive from the altar because it's the very life of Christ Himself. We may need to work on purifying our hearts to receive Him more and more worthily. Maybe if it has been a long time since we went to Confession, it would be good to go to Confession before receiving Holy Communion. For those who receive Holy Communion regularly, let the Lord purify our hearts through this beautiful sacrament of forgiveness. But receiving Holy Communion worthily in a new and divine light, the Easter spirit stirred when you receive Holy Communion. That mystery of the Cross and the resurrection comes into our very body, into our soul, into our life.