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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Father David Kruse celebrated the weekend Masses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

them.

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

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No homily is available for December 3rd.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Homily Available for July 30th 

No Homily Available for July 30th 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No homily is available for Sunday, May 21st. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No homily is available for this Mass.

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

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

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

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

No homily is available for Sunday, January 8, 2023

No homily availalbe for Sunday, January 1, 2023

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

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

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