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 And yet at the same time, subjectively feel, that He is not present at all, that he has withdrawn, or at least that He is silent.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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ compels us into silence. In silence, the full weight of these events can sink into our souls. In silence, we can ponder all that Our Lord suffered out of love for you and for me. In silence, we can be more present to the Lord. In silence, we can hear the Lord inviting us very gently, tenderly to walk with him. To walk with him to Jerusalem and to Golgotha and to the tomb. In silence we hope. In silence, we wait for new life. 

Summary:

I was in my mid 30s and stationed at the parish in Wilbur when I got my first speeding ticket. And I certainly deserved it. It is pretty good to make it to your mid-30s, right from seventeen.  But I remember sitting there in my car while the officer prepared the citation, and you know what the first thing that came to my mind was? Not the size of the fine I thought that I would pay; not that my insurance premium would go up; not that I would be late getting to the meeting that I was speeding to get to. The first thing I thought was my parishioners are going to read about this in the local newspaper next week. I imagined an article in the “Who’s been Naughty” section – they didn't call it that, but that's basically what it was. The item would read: “Kenneth St. Hillaire, Wilbur, cited for driving X + Y miles per hour in an x mile per hour zone.”  I'll leave the actual numbers to your imagination.  But when I got home after the meeting, I didn't waste any time sending my payment in hoping against hope that my transgression would not be printed, and my pride would be saved.

But why is there a section like that in the newspaper anyway? I suppose you could argue that it functions as a deterrent, but I think the real reason is that people take a strange pleasure in knowing what wrongs, especially big wrongs other people have done. Or perhaps we simply delight in seeing justice served. Or it makes us feel superior because even though we're not perfect, we haven't done ‘that’. It has become an industry. 

Why do we look at people that way? It puts us right in league with the Scribes and Pharisees. With their self-righteous attitude they dragged this woman out in public and made her sin known to everyone. The also see it as a chance to catch Jesus in wrongdoing. They fully expect Him to contradict the law of Moses. So, they put Him to the test.

Jesus doesn't answer right at first. But they press, they press in. They insist on an answer, and He straightens up and says to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And the next time He looks up, they are all gone. He introduces a new way of looking at people. He shows how to look at someone with mercy, not with the eyes of judgment or condemnation. Instead of focusing on sins and failures and all that has gone wrong, He sees a higher way. Even in the forgiveness He offers the woman, there is already a foreshadowing of His sacrifice on the cross because it's through His self-offering, through the infinite magnitude of that love that this woman's sin will be forgiven.

Summary:

There's an awful lot to be gleaned from this very rich parable. We often compare ourselves with the prodigal son recognizing how much we demand from God and then we turn and go off away from God, doing our own thing, come to our senses, and make the return and discover the mercy of the Father. 

Jesus Christ gave to His Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in that Sacrament, He is inviting us precisely into the experience of the younger son being embraced by the father and being clothed in that robe and having them being put on the finger and sandals on the feet. That is what we are invited into. That moment is so touching, so touching, so beautiful and in the Sacrament that's what we're invited into.

Summary: 

God's self-revelation to Moses and the burning bush reminds me very much of an analogy that was used by Saint John of the Cross in his very famous work, The Dark Night of the Soul in which he does not exactly depict God as this fire on a bush but rather he uses the example of a burning log to describe how God's grace transforms us in the course of our Christian life. And as the burning bush on Mount Horeb was not consumed, we learned that the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns in each of us does not annihilate us. It does not destroy us as some might fear that the fire of God would do but rather it transforms us. In St. John's example, in his analogy, he speaks about different things that happen to the log of wood as it is brought into the fire, or the fire is applied to it so to speak.

He says the first thing it does is it drives out all the moisture. He says very much the same thing happens as God works on us. The first thing He does before really transforming us into Himself, He has to drive out from us all that is contrary to Him. So, all that is diametrically opposed to God, grave sins, you know wherever sin is deeply seated in our life, the divine purifying fire of God comes and drives that out. Secondly, he says, “The fire gradually turns the wood black, makes it dark and ugly and even causes it to emit a bad odor.”  He says, “In the soul, this is the stage where the soul’s ugliness, or the effects of sin on the soul, all that is dark in the soul, is brought to the fore.” So, it's not necessarily that this person is still struggling with grave sins, they have rounded that corner if you will, but now they see the ugliness of sin. He says, “Thus what seems worse than before and unsightly and abominable, in any case, the Lord is bringing to the surface all in the soul that still needs to be surrendered and transformed.” And then of course the third stage is where the fire transforms the log of wood into itself. Although the wood is still wood, we know, but it takes on all of the characteristics of the fire. “It is dry, and it dries. It is hot, and it gives off heat. It is brilliant, and it illumines.” So, in a sense what he is saying is that as the fire transforms the wood, the wood becomes more and more like fire. And so it is in our journey of transformation in God's grace that not only are things that are diametrically opposed to God in our life, not only are those driven out and then not only the littler things, the finer details, morals and such, those are transformed but then we are made more and more like in love, in charity, in goodness and in joy.

Summary: 

The Old Testament is a very important part of the overall story. You cannot leave it, you cannot set it aside, you cannot treat it like ‘Oh, that was the old days, but it doesn't mean anything anymore’. It would not make very much sense to tell the story of Jesus without explaining the problem He came to solve - the rift between God and humanity that He came to heal. Pope Benedict the Sixteenth wrote in Jesus of Nazareth: “Jesus must recapitulate the whole of history from its beginnings. From Adam on. He must go through suffer through the whole of it in order to transform it.” 

In the beginning, there is an exposition of the themes, right? God creates everything. He makes it good. He intends eternal life for mankind, right. These are the main themes are revealed at the beginning of the Scriptures. But then there's ‘development.’ Things changed. Sin entered the picture and then Book after Book after Book in the Old Testament tells of how things went awry but how God was still present, and God was at work in all of these different situations. What Pope Benedict is saying in this quotation here that I read a moment ago, is that Jesus comes in as the recapitulation of all of that! He takes up those original themes, right? He takes up that theme of eternal life, the goodness of creation and He brings all of it to its climactic conclusion. Christ Himself actually relives, if you will, many of the events that are told of in the Old Testament.

So, Christ is referred to, for example, as the new Adam. As Adam in Genesis was the Father of Mankind, so Jesus is the Father of Restored Mankind. He is the head of the Church. We see in an image of Jesus in Melchizedek - that mysterious figure who took bread and wine and offered them. Jesus takes bread and wine at the Last Supper. He says, “This is my body; this is my blood.” We see an image of Christ in Noah. Noah, bringing through the waters of death and destruction, creation, basically, and bringing it to salvation. We see Christ reliving the experience of Isaac. Remember Abraham took Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him. Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice. Jesus carried the wood of the sacrifice up Mount Calvary. We see Jesus experiencing what Joseph experienced. Not Joseph His foster father, but Joseph in the Old Testament. Sold into slavery; betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.  We see Jesus’ reliving Jonah’s experience - three days in the belly of the great fish before that moment of Resurrection. We see Samson in Jesus. Consecrated to God, humiliated but triumphant in the end. Strength. We see Jesus in King David - a shepherd and also a king. We see Jesus in the figure of Susanna - a righteous person unjustly condemned; arrested in a garden; convicted through false testimony. 

But what does it mean for all of us? I mean it is great for us to sit here as scholars and say, “Wow, look at the scriptures and see that Jesus really does fulfill all of this that was laid out through centuries in the Old Testament. Jesus really does come and fulfill all of those expectations and prophecies and He, you know, He is the fulfillment of all those foreshadows, those ‘types’.” But what does that have to do with us? It is not just for our entertainment. It is not just for us to be amazed at how God puts all these pieces together. The story of the Old Testament is our story. 

Summary: 

Satan does not love you. Satan does not want you. Satan is not trying to win your affection. Ultimately, he cares nothing about you or where you spend eternity. He doesn’t want your company. His sights are not set on you. His sights are set on God. Specifically, offending God, rejecting God, displeasing God, and robbing God of glory in any way he possibly can. And he knows that one of the best ways that he can do all of those things is by driving a wedge between you and God.

When we are truly flourishing in our human life and living as fully in communion with God as we possibly can, God is in His glory. So, the thing that Satan busies himself most with is trying to introduce division between God and us. That is what temptation is about. He is trying to turn the beloved away from the lover. And that is what sin is at its heart, isn’t it? It is the turning away from God whether in big ways or small ways. It is the weaking or destroying of our friendship with God.

So, when Jesus quotes Scripture in response to Satan’s temptations, He is not just sort of giving the right answers or siting proof texts to dispel the devil’s arguments. He is remembering what His Father has said. He is remembering the very word the Father has spoken. That word which he is - incarnate’ - He is the word incarnate. But He is remembering exactly what his Father said. He is remembering the Father’s faithfulness. In the moment of temptation, He is not just combing through the scriptures to find the right verse to come up with. He says, “You are saying that to me? Here is what my Father says. And my Father’s love for me will never fail. You are trying to get me to do something that my Father does not want me to do? Here’s what my Father says and I love my Father and my Father loves me, infinitely and perfectly.” 

So, let’s resolve this Lent not just to be faithful to our Lenten observances of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, but truly to be intentional about them and that our intention in doing all of those things that our relationship with the Lord is truly strengthened and deepened. That is the aim of this season. That is what we are made for to grow in that relationship. That is what delights the Father’s heart - to see us advancing and maturing in our relationship with Him. What a beautiful gift Lent can be then, a time that is set aside to really work on what matters most. 

Summary:

“But why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” What is really the message here? What's the lesson?

How do we recognize, how do we discover that wooden beam in our eye? How do we discover it? After all, that is somewhat blinding by nature. We don't tend to notice it. The first suggestion is simply to ask God to show us. “Lord please reveal to me these areas in my life where I just don't even see my own fault.” And we have to ask God to do that in a spirit of humility and with the resolve actually to remove that wooden beam when would it be find it or when it's shown to us. So, that's the first thing, is to pray. We should ask God probably to show us our own faults. 

Secondly, the practice of making a Daily Examine is very helpful.  Saint Ignatius of Loyola recommended it heartedly.  He had his Society of Jesus that he founded, the members of the society, to do the Examine twice a day – midday and at the end of day. And it's simply a matter of taking a moment to pause and ask ourselves, “How are we doing today? Where are the moments when I have grown closer to God and where are the moments when I have turned from God.” Not only does this help us to identify moments of grace and also identify our faults, it helps actually to foster a spirit of awareness, self-awareness, so that we're not just sort of floating through life wandering through without any sense of who we are and what our characteristics and faults are. But instead, we become much more self-aware and are more easily able to identify those wooden beams. So, that's what we've done now of making at least a Daily Examine not just looking for sins but really examining our spiritual life, our relationship with God each day.

The third thing, which may be the most difficult and this is really to engage in vulnerable conversation with someone we trust. Someone to whom we can go and say, again with humility, “Would you share with me the faults that you see in me?” Obviously, this has to be someone who is very trusted, someone who loves you, someone who wants your good and who has the freedom to be honest with you. You can't ask the question and then hold it against them when they tell you the truth, right? Humbly approach and say, “Would you help me? I desire to identify faults in my life so that by the grace of God I can be freed from them and I can improve in those areas.” That can be a wonderful help because a lot of times others have insight about us, they have perspectives that we don't have. 

So, asking God to show us our faults, making a Daily Examine and then having courageously those vulnerable conversations where we humbly receive what others have to tell us. Remember, the aim in being delivered from the wooden beam in our own eye is that we might seek clearly.  Jesus says, “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”

Summary: 

Is the Gospel about mercy? I think you could reasonably answer, yes. However, I think there is another theme that is present in these readings. It is not explicitly mentioned but it's illustrated very well, and that theme is ‘freedom’. Freedom. David has the freedom even though Saul is seeking his life,  David has the freedom to turn and walk away. And that is extraordinary. 

We are able to extend mercy to others because and only because we have received it. Jesus doesn't say to us, “Be merciful and you figure out. You have to figure out how this works.” No, He shows us His mercy. So, if we want to grow in our extension of mercy to other people, we first grow by receiving the mercy of God more and more to have more life.  That’s the first thing.

.Jesus’ exhortation to be merciful is an exhortation to live in interior freedom because extending mercy, this kind of mercy to people, has to come from a place of interior freedom.  It flows from a place of freedom. 

There is some sort of burden that comes into our heart when someone is against us, when someone is hurting us, or offending us – whatever – something happens very deep within us. There is a disturbance of the peace of Christ there and the temptation is to take matters into our own hands to try to make that right. To take those courses of action is to act without real freedom in Christ. 

To live in freedom means that in these situations where some conflict or whatever it is arises, we don’t take that burden into our heart. Someone is saying something to us that is offensive, don’t take it in.  Jesus is with us; He will take that. If we live in true freedom, none of that disturbs our peace because we are in Christ and He shoulders those burdens for us. 

When we live in freedom, I should say, when we have placed ourselves in God’s hands, we have found real freedom. We don’t have to be thrown off when someone speaks ill of us, or someone hates us or mistreats us. That’s the kind of freedom I want. I don’t know about you, but I want the freedom to be able to say, “I lend you money, you don’t pay me back, God will provide.”  “You are saying evil things about me, behind my back? That is on you, not on me.” Have the freedom to stand tall and walk through this life unburdened by the evils and things that others will do. 

The Lord wants us to have that kind of freedom and out of freedom, deep freedom, mercy works. Mercy for those who hate us, curse us, who mistreat us. Lord, give us that spirit of true freedom and from that heart of freedom, let your mercy flow out. 

Summary: 

We've probably all heard children ask, maybe not just children, but we have all heard children ask the question, “Why do we have to go to church?” Sometimes, well, not that often, once in a while I will hear a little voice out there saying, “Is it over yet? How many more songs?” My favorite is when I was told that when Father Darren was the pastor here, there was once in the silence after Communion, a little guy piped up and said, “I had it! Let's get out of here.” [Laughter] That must be what people are thinking when they leave before Mass is over.

But of course, there are objective reasons to go to Mass as well. God deserves to be worshipped. God deserves to be worshipped and to be worshipped in the way that He told us to worship Him by offering Him the Body and Blood of His Son, the sacrifice acceptable to Him which brings salvation to the whole world as we hear in the Eucharistic prayer. God himself said in the person of Jesus, “Do this in memory of me.” So, this morning we are doing this in memory of Him and in obedience to His command. Offering God worship that is His due. And of the course for those who participate in Holy Communion, that is another good reason to come to Mass, to receive the grace of that Sacrament. But we also come to Mass because we need instruction about how concretely we ought to live our Christian life. We come to hear the word of God proclaimed to us. We come to hear God's speaking to us directly in the real context of our lived life today.

The first is to practice. Practice. So, in the first half of the beatitudes in Luke’s Gospel, we hear Jesus saying that that the poor, the hungry, those who are weeping and grieving; those who are persecuted and hated are blessed. So, when we are in situations where we experience our own poverty, when we are hungry, when find that we can't satisfy what our own those deepest longings of our souls; when we are weeping, when we are grieving, when are struggling, when people hate us and exclude us and insult us and denounce us because we are disciples of Jesus, when we're experiencing all of these things concretely in our lives, we can practice trusting in God.

The second thing is to make a good examination of our life and try to identify things other than God in which we place our trust. So, in the second half of the beatitudes there is a warning, there are several warnings, that we ought not to be attached to riches or satisfaction, a sense of satisfaction in life in terms of like providing for all of our needs. We should beware of attaching our hearts to pleasures and enjoyment and ease and comforts. We should be careful of seeking always a good reputation. Not that a good reputation is a bad thing to have, but if we care more about what other people think of us than how we are in God’s eyes, then we are not on the right path there.  We are not trusting fully in God. So, the more we be aware of these different kinds of attachments in our lives, the more we have the opportunity to turn to God. 

And then thirdly, it occurred to me recently when we think about trusting God more, we often turn and look at ourselves and we think I’ve just got to try harder with this, or it's mainly just a matter of getting better on my own. But truly trust in God is a response to God's trustworthiness. We can trust God because he's trustworthy. If we ponder, reflect, and meditate on the trustworthiness of God, that will help us to trust Him more. God does not fail us. God never turns His back on us. God never forsakes us. He is always prominent. He is always trustworthy so pondering God's trustworthiness helps us to respond in trust.

So, just those three things: practicing trusting in God when we find ourselves poor and hungry and grieving or despised. Being aware of those things in our lives, those areas where we need to trust God more. In other words, identifying our attachments in life and then thirdly, just really pondering, meditating on the goodness and trustworthiness of God. All of these will help us to trust Him and to really place our life in God's hands. 

Summary: 

In today's Gospel, at the beginning, the disciples, perhaps not yet disciples, are standing on the solid ground on the shore. They are doing what is familiar to them. They're doing what they know how to do - this is their comfort zone, right? This is their day-to-day life. They're washing their nets - apparently not taking any fish out of the nets - but washing the nets and Jesus comes along and gets into Simon’s boat and He says: “Put out a short distance from the shore.”  Okay, well at a short distance from the shore, the water is deep - it's not really a place of great danger for a fisherman - but it's not the solid ground on the shore. So, perhaps this symbolizes Jesus inviting us to step off of that solid ground of self-reliance. You know, relying on our own resources, our own strength, stepping into the board with Him and taking a step toward trusting Him more. “Don’t be content standing there on the shore, I have something else in mind for you.”

And after a while, Jesus finishes His teaching from the boat, and He offers another invitation to Simon. “Put out into deep water.” Well, deep water is certainly a place where Simon had been before, but deep water is in place of greater danger, greater uncertainty. Throughout the sea of Galilee storms could rise in a matter of minutes and they could be in great danger, but Jesus invites to go out into that place - taking yet another step toward fuller trust and belonging to Him.

I think this is a good model for us in this battle against mediocrity because maybe we want to stay on the shore, maybe we want to stay in shallow water. Maybe even once we get out into deep water, we want to stay there instead of going into deeper water or wherever the Lord wants to lead. The point is we don't want to be content with belonging anything less than ‘complete’ to God. 

Sometimes this evokes fear in people. “Oh, where is the Lord going to call me to go?” Oh really? Is He going to be asking me to do something that would be quite uncomfortable? Or sometimes we have these ideas that He's going to send us to a faraway land to be a missionary or send us to the street corner to start talking to people about our faith or something that maybe we find repulsive that we just shy away from. But again, it's not necessarily about ‘doing’ more.

You can't say that putting that into the deep means doing something dramatic things. It just means belonging more and more completely to God and being willing to abide and let God direct our life. That's the common thread among Saints. We focus on all these wonderful things they did - the working of wonders and converting hordes of people, but that is not the essence of sanctity. The essence of sanctity is being completely available to God. Saying ‘yes’ in all things.

Unfortunately, the Mass of the Presentation recording failed. No homily is available. 

The Homily below is from the Feast of the Presentation, Friday, February 2nd, 20204

This feast looks at the dynamic of encountering the Lord from a couple of different angles. The introductory greeting says that when Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple, they are fulfilling the Law, but in reality, Jesus is coming to meeting His believing people. 

So, He is coming to meet them and then it says, “So, let us also proceed to the House of God to encounter Christ.” So, Jesus comes to encounter us. We come to encounter Him. And then we process into the Church carrying candles symbolizing that we also bring the light of Christ just as Our Lady and Saint Joseph brought the ‘light’ into the temple.

So, there's at least a double, maybe a triple encounter that is celebrated in today’s feast. It mimics or mirrors our whole Christian life, that is, the first aspect the Lord comes to meet us. So, do we see Him, do we recognize Him drawing near to us each day?  Secondly, we go to meet Him. We come into His house. We draw near to the sacraments. We are seeking Him; we are going out to find Him wherever He may be found. And then thirdly, we bring Him so that others can encounter Him in and through us.

So, the bottom line is, it's all about encountering the Lord. That is why we are here. Not just why we are here this morning, but why humanity is in this world - to encounter the Lord. He draws near; we go in search of Him and we help others also to find Him.

Summary:

The 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time was recently designated Sunday of the Word of God. We look at the Word of God - why exactly does God speak? It seems when you look to the Scriptures that usually God speaks for one of two main reasons. There may be others, but it seems that there are a couple of main reasons that God speaks. The first is that he wants to reveal to us who he is. So, God speaks in order to reveal his identity, but God also speaks in order to tell us what he wants. In other words, he speaks to us to reveal his will.

In today's readings, especially the first reading and the Gospel, it seems that God is speaking more to reveal his will than to reveal his identity.

It can be hard sometimes for us to find a good answer to the question “Am I doing what God wants me to do? Am I doing what God wants me to do?” We each ask ourselves that question. I don't think we find our name and Social Security number in the Scriptures telling us exactly what we are supposed to be doing with our life in great detail. But I would like to just reflect for a moment a few moments on how about answering that question: “Am I doing what God wants me to do?”  I think sometimes it's asked in the big picture like am I living my life as I'm supposed to be living it but also in the in the more minute details of day-to-day living. 

What about this decision? What about that decision? Is this what God wants in this situation? Am I doing this or did I make the right choice? And so forth.

I think we can start at kind of the broadest level and ask ourselves: Do I keep the commandments? 

Maybe one level deeper: How do I spend my time? What do I do day after day? For whom do I spend most of my time? Is it for myself? For my boss? For my neighbor? For my family? For whom do I spend most of my time? Am I genuinely working on my relationship with God? In a certain sense, any observer of our life could answer these questions. 

But when we are asking the question am I doing what God wants me to do, the full answer to that cannot be given by someone else who observes the way we live. We have to go inside. 

I would just say there are three things. The first is that we renew our resolve to do God's will - to do what God wants us to do with our life. Secondly, that we ask God that we would be able to hear what it is that he is speaking to us in the intimacy and silence of our heart; that we would be able to notice, to perceive, to understand those promptings of the spirit. To resolve to do God's will asking God to help us to hear and thirdly, asking God to give us the grace not just to hear, but to do. 

Summary:  Maybe what we're asking for would lead us to a place where we need God less 

But God’s design for our life is not that we would eventually graduate and not need Him anymore. I am not very good at remembering scenes from movies so I can't remember exactly what movie or movies this type of scene occurred in. But picture mom and dad kind of waving as the child goes off in a car or the train or something. He is going off to school or going off and starting his own life and you know from the son or daughter’s perspective mom and dad are receding off into the background. That is not how it is supposed to be with God!  God is not sending us off and when we can finally stand on our own two feet God says, “Ah, at last! There is my success story! Right there. My beloved son or daughter no longer needs me!” 

The truth is exactly the contrary. Exactly the contrary. The Lord wants us to grow in such a way that we realize more and more how much we need Him and perhaps to even need Him more! Not just say to God, “I'll turn to you when I really can't do something on my own. For now, I'm doing my own thing by my own strength”.  The Lord is not looking for us to say that at all. The Lord desires that in every situation and in every circumstance in life we would recognize our dire need for Him. And as I said, it is not that we should not ask for good health or ask for, you know, enough material resources to keep a roof over our head and food on the table. We are not asking God to lead us into destitution, but there is a higher value that we ought to be seeking. A value that is higher than having all the things that we think we need and having a situation in life that's comfortable that doesn't stress us out too much. There is something more valuable than that, than having the material resources we need, the good health, the team of other people and so forth and so on.

That higher value is that whatever our situation in life, we would know the nearness, the closeness of the Lord, and know His Providence so that whatever the material situation might be or relational situation with other people - whatever happens - we are not panicking. We are not falling into despair. We are not falling into fear that the Lord is abandoning us or not going to provide, but even in those situations that are really difficult, we stand on solid ground that the Lord's love is sustaining us and that His Providence will carry us through.

Summary: Baptism as a foundational Experience

Living in the present moment, we find ourselves referring back to past experiences all the time. Our past experience informs how we deal with present situations. And it's not only pertaining to instruction that we've received or experiences that we've lived through but also commitments that we've made. 

Even in the scriptures where it's not explicitly stated, I think we can safely infer that this happened in biblical times. I think, for example, of the blessed Virgin Mary, how often she must have thought back to the experience of the Annunciation especially as she was pregnant with Jesus. How she must have thought back to the words of the Angel Gabriel. Maybe sometimes she thought, “What's going on here” and then she thought back to that experience. Who knows. Or thinking about Joseph, remembering what he heard Simeon say at the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. Or when they found the youth Jesus, the twelve year old Jesus, in the temple sitting among the scholars and doctors of the Law asking them questions and answering the questions. They were amazed at His learning, right? These kinds of experiences must have stuck with them, and I imagine that they very frequently returned to those experiences. 

I propose that Jesus Himself also thought back to key moments in His own experience. Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, a pivotal moment or what I would call a ‘touchstone moment’ in His life. Something that He kept going back to as He began His public ministry.

I want to propose that His example of returning to that experience of Baptism is a model for us. And I want to propose that among all of the different past experiences that we have, that we go back to, that we refer to all the time, our Baptism should be a really important one.We were made a new creation; we were freed from sin. Forgiven original sin and all personal sin up to that point. We were made members of the Church, the body of Christ. We were given a new identity as a son or daughter of the Father. We were given the gifts of faith and hope and love. We were given the gifts of wisdom and understanding and knowledge, piety, fortitude, counsel and fear of the Lord. All seven. We received those in our Baptism. We were called to holiness. We were sent on Mission. We were deputed toward worship of God. We were given a responsibility in our Baptism to glorify God in our life so why wouldn't returning to that experience of Baptism be a powerful practice for our day-to-day living as disciples of Jesus.

I encourage you to make or allow your Baptism to be truly a foundational experience in life. Keep going back to it on a regular basis renewing the promises of your Baptism. Renewing your resolve to live as a faithful disciple and reaping the fruits continually day after day of that tremendous gift that was given. 

Summary:  Seek, Encounter, Change, Announce

So, it begins with ‘seeking.’ Seeking of Jesus; trying to find where He is so that we might draw near. This in a sense is characteristic of the everyone's Christian journey. We come from a place perhaps where we have not known Him and we're turning into knowledge of Him and relationship with His friendship with Him and everyone's journey is unique and different but there is there is this ‘seeking’. The Magi are clearly “seeking” to meet the Christ child and then of course comes a real encounter with Him.

There is no Christian life without a real encounter with Jesus Christ. There is no Christian life without a real encounter Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ. Not an imagined or pretend or an intellectual thing - there has to be a real personal encounter with the Lord.  And clearly the Magi enter into this. We don't have a lot of details about what happened there. They enter the house; they see the child with Mary, His mother; they prostrate themselves and do homage. Wow! There must have been something that really happened in their encounter with Jesus there. Keep in mind you know it's not like they came to hear Jesus preach. They didn't come to see Him working miracles. He is just the baby, an infant in the house.

But there's still something profound that happens in this encounter: they meet perfect, infinite, divine, love Incarnate, and something has to change in them. They don't just go off and kind of file this away and say well that was interesting and that's the next step, that's the next way in which their visit is symbolic of the Christian life. Because we ‘seek;’ we encounter the Lord; we are changed by that encounter and then we go, and we are different than when we came. When we first encountered it before we encountered the Lord, but we go forth and we have to share it. 

Perhaps today is good day to ask for the grace to live out this whole dynamic of Christian life similar in some ways to the way that the Magi demonstrate. Seeking the Lord, encountering Him, being transformed by Him, going forth and proclaiming Him but also always remembering that happens most effectively in the context of the family of witnesses.

Summary:

I've had a couple of questions on my mind the last few days ever since Christmas and I've been giving my homilies surrounding these questions because I think they're very important for us. And the questions have to do with the most basic questions of life. 

So, the first one is this and they have to do with Christmas and today the Feast of the Holy Family. First question: What is it that you really want? In your heart of hearts, what is it that you really want? 

And here's the answer friends: Why is it that nothing satisfies our hearts because what we really want, what we really want is to go home. To be in a place of infinite love, perfect happiness, never ending peace and love, forever. That's what we want because that's the reason our hearts are made the way they are. We are not meant for this life; we are on a journey in this life of a few short years. 

You want to know how to get to Heaven? Be holy. The Holy Family is holy as well – that is why we call them the Holy Family - Jesus Mary and Joseph. What is it that they do to be holy? What is it that we need to do to be holy? And this is the answer in response to our first question - what is it that we want? We want to go home. We want to have perfect happiness but to get that we need to strive to be holy. To be holy is to do God's will. That’s it. And to do God's will is to strive to love. The will of God is always the will to love. And to love means doing what is best for the other. In other words, to give of ourselves, to live a life as a gift back to God and to those around us. 

Summary:

Today, on the 4th Sunday in Advent, we are presented with this beautiful picture of the Visitation. Mary visiting her kinswoman Elizabeth and if you've seen this depicted in iconography or other Christian art, usually the Visitation is an embrace between Mary and Elizabeth. It is as if Mary has knocked, Elizabeth has opened, they see each other and they embrace. And this is a beautiful image of hospitality. .But hospitality teaches us something important about making ourselves receptive and the element that I want to focus on for just a moment today is that it is actually in giving of ourselves that we receive, that we are able to receive others. 

The more we spend ourselves the more receptive we become. So, my simple message today is that maybe each one of us can find some way in these last days of Advent and in the beginning days of Christmas to stretch ourselves even just a little bit in the way that we give of ourselves. Not with the specific intention that we will receive more because of that but that we will be better disposed to receive the Lord. The more we give of ourselves to the Lord, the more fruitfully He can come into our life.

What are some different ways that we could stretch ourselves these days? Perhaps devoting ourselves a little bit more to our Advent prayers. Perhaps looking around us a little bit more closely to see who might be in need. Maybe drawing even closer to our family members - finding out how we can serve them, how we can lay our lives down for them a little bit more. There might be, like I mean, I think the Holy Spirit can lead you into all kinds of different ideas and realizations of how to be stretched a little bit more. 

May God give us the grace to do just that - to really focus in these days on the true meaning of the season - preparing our hearts to receive by giving a little bit more of ourselves to God and to our neighbor.

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. .