Watch Your Mouth - Homily for March 3

Readings for Sunday, March 3 / 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time:  Sirach 27:4-7  |  Psalm 92  |  1 Corinthians 15:54-58  |  Luke 6:39-45

The Word of God speaks and it tells us to watch our own speech. What does your speech say about you?

Love is... - Homily for February 3

Readings for Sunday, February 3: Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19  |  Psalms 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17  |  1 Corinthians 12:31--13:13  |  Luke 4:21-30

The Gift of Touch - Homily for September 9

St. Peter Claver

Readings for Sunday, September 9 / 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time:  Isaiah 35:4-7  |  Psalm 146  |  James 2:1-5  |  Mark 7:31-37

Even though words have power, Christ still uses the gift of touch to heal us.

Better Than You Found It - Homily for November 19

Readings for Sunday, November 19 / 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31  |  Psalm 128  |  1 Thessalonians 5:1-6  |  Matthew 25:14-30

When God entrusts something to us, He expects us to make use of it. What blessings have been given to you? How can you use them to make the world a better place?

Indulgences and the Faithful Departed

All Saints Day and All Souls Day are upon us and it is good to think about the many graces that are available for those who have gone before us and are undergoing their spiritual purification in purgatory. They may be our loved ones, members of our community, or souls we don't know from all places of the world and history. To pray for them is to help them in their journey to Heaven. And once they attain their heavenly reward, they'll be praying for us before the Throne of God! So let us take up this great act of charity for souls in helping them along their way.

A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, is granted to the faithful who fulfill the following conditions:

     • Visit a Church on November 2, All Souls' Day

     • Offer an Our Father and Hail Mary for the Pope's Intentions

     • Offer an Our Father and the Creed for the Faithful Departed

     • Make a good confession within a week and be free from all attachment to sin

     • Receive Holy Communion that day (or ASAP following if unable that day)

A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, is also granted to the faithful who fulfill the following conditions:

     • on any and each day from November 1 to 8, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally,                               for the departed (the 'Eternal rest grant unto them...' suffices)

     • Offer an Our Father and Hail Mary for the Pope's Intentions

     • Make a good confession within a week and be free from all attachment to sin

     • Receive Holy Communion that day (or ASAP following if unable that day)

Gifts for your Priest - Homily for July 2

Readings for Sunday, July 2 / 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16  |  Psalm 89  |  Romans 6:3-4, 8-11  |  Matthew 10:37-42

Generosity shown to a prophet, righteous man, or disciple is repaid by the Lord. Today a great person

to give a gift to is a priest. Check out my top 10 (in no particular order) list of great gifts for your priest.

Pre-Lent: Almsgiving - Homily for February 26

Readings for Sunday, February 26 / 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Isaiah 49:14-15  |  Psalm 62  |  1 Corinthians 4:1-5  |  Matthew 6:24-34

Ash Wednesday, just a few days away, we come to the end of the Lenten homily series, the pre-Lent. And so we have reflected in recent weeks on the aspect of fasting, reflected on prayer, and today we come to that invitation the Lord God gives to us of alms-giving, to continue to correct our hearts to show to show generosity, but even more so to instill within us trust in our God. 

At the college seminary, things were pretty easy as far as a life of discernment and prayer, relatively speaking, it wasn't too stressful because priesthood was still somewhere else, it was still far in the distance, it was a good at-least four years away at most. And so there was not a lot of pressure, but when I moved to the theology seminary in New Orleans, there was a whole different ball game. You would walk out the door and the guy next to you is already wearing a Roman collar and you referred to him as deacon. It is a different reality as it puts a whole lot more stress on the actual discernment of one's possible vocation to the priesthood. There was a lot more focus on the life of prayer and trying to trust in the Lord that He would in fact give me everything that I needed. And one of the things that helped me more times than I can even count was the statue of Our Lady over the entry way of the seminary itself. As you came in the front door through the parking lot, there was a statue of Our Lady, and at her feet a simple phrase, two words, "Deus Providebit", "God will provide." And over and over again as I walked into the seminary so many times, to look up and read those words, it was a consolation to me "God will provide." It was a reminder that my God loves me and if I actually believe the things that are said about Him, I ought to trust that He will provide for my needs, and not to be consumed with worrying about so many things, but rather simply to trust and do my best each day to follow after Him. Deus Providebit, God will provide." 

It's that sense that the Lord invites us to give alms. Really ultimately to trust in Him, that He will provide for us. Alms-giving comes in a variety of ways, but ultimately it's a recognition that it's something given to us that we are called to give to others. In our seminary course, we had a course on the spiritual life, and there was one reality that they described, the way of God's grace that comes to us, that has continued to resonate within my heart. And it's something that comes in very practical days through the course of the days, and grace was described in two separate ways. The Latin phrasing for one, gratia gratum faciens, which is grace that makes one graced, so it is grace that does something in the individual. And gratia gratis data, grace which is to be freely given. And so it was this recognition that God's grace that comes to us has one of two purposes: either it changes me or it's given to me to help change someone else. On a practical level, it comes out as things such as in the midst of my day when I am struggling with being impatient over something or I want something to happen faster, or I'm stuck in traffic, frustrated with any number of things, I can pray one of those little "arrow prayers" as they say it, those prayers that pierce the heavens and go to the heart of God, and I can simply say, "Lord, help me." And in that moment, God can hear my prayer and grant me the race to be patient in the particular moment, and if I am open to receiving the grace, it can change my heart. And in that particular place, I can become more patient - grace that makes me graced - something that changes my heart. But as we know, there are a number of gifts that are given to us not for me, but for others. Before my ordination to the diaconate, I spend a number of days praying various novenas to different saints and I was praying for certain spiritual gifts that I knew I would need if I was to be able to perform my ministry as a deacon and as a priest in any way, shape or form. I noticed a lot of deficiencies in myself and one of those was in public speaking and in preaching. And so, I prayed for the grace to preach. I don't know if you believe that I have the gift of preaching or not, but I think I do simply on account of the fact that when I was leading community prayer, I knew every single guy, we lived all in the same house, there weren't knew faces or anything else, and all I had to do was simply read out of a book and my hands would be shaking the whole time because I was so nervous. At my first Mass, I forgot the words of the sign of the Cross because my human nature was so freaked out about being in front of people. And so I knew if I was to do anything other than be a mumbling fool in the pulpit, that I would need God's grace. And so I prayed, and I believe it was received. 

But it's not for me. I don't stand up here and preach for myself. I preach to myself quite often, but I don't preach for myself. Rather, I preach that others might be able to hear, that the Gospel might be able to be spread and have some actual transforming power in the midst of our world. It's a grace that comes and is given to me simply, and only, to be given away, that others might be able to receive freely of the gift of God. And that's almsgiving - it's the way in which God gives to us some special gift, He makes us stewards as our second reading refers to today, and He invites us to be generous stewards of our gifts. Every single one of us has received a whole variety of gifts from the Lord our God. They come in different ways. They kind of break out into the three general categories of generosity with our time, generosity with our treasure/finances/world means, and generosity with our talents - the things we are good with essential. So God invites us to make use of these things to whatever extent we are able, to be able to continue to build up the Body of Christ because they are given to us for others, not for ourselves. Again, certainly that doesn't mean that every penny that we take in we have to give away and we just have to trust that someone will pay our light bill and someone else will pay our house note and someone else will pay the car note and insurance - obviously that's not the way it works. But it's not to make the things of this world our God. That's what the Lord speaks of in the Gospel - you can't serve God and mammon; mammon being possessions, things. Rather, we have to trust in the providence of God for us, that our God loves us, He knows what we need, and He will grant it to us. And so He invites us, with the gifts He bestows, to be generous. It's easy for us to say no when asked to be generous with our time. Most of us are pretty busy these days, whether it's things at work, at home, things we are doing with the church, whether it's kids, grandkids or other family obligations that takes us here, there and everywhere and it seems like we don't have a minute to stop, and Father asks us to stay a few minutes after Mass, which I'm going to ask y'all today, to stay a few minutes after Mass. And it's easy for us to go, "I got so many things," and to not give our time. Or to know we have other opportunities to grow in our faith or opportunities to serve someone else, not just in the church but in a larger community, and sometimes we can become stingy with out time, which try to hoard it all to our self, not to be able to give it up. We try to store it up for ourselves - the gift of our time. 

The Lord also bestows upon us many treasures, the things of the world. He gives us many gifts and they can be use for incredibly good things, but sometimes we place our security in the things of the world. I think that if my checking account is big enough, I don't have to worry about anything because I don't have to take care of myself. And as soon as I think I can take care of myself, the Lord usually quickly, and boldly, such is not the case. Remember the man in the Gospel, who having an abundance harvest. He looks out and says, "My barn isn't big enough to hold all this, so I'm going to tear down my barn and build an even bigger one." It doesn't work out for him because he tries to hoard it for himself, take for himself, which was not rightly his. Rather the Lord bestow it upon him, to bestow it in generosity to others. So also our talents, the things that we are good at. A lot of times we think that when we can't do anything for the church because we think we can't read in front of people, we can't do whatever we think we are supposed to be doing to be good Christians. But every single one of us has gifts that can build up the Christian community. If there is something you're good at, I can almost guarantee there is a way the Church can utilize that for the good of the community..To be willing to put ourselves at the service of God and the Church, yes but also in our community. But sometimes we can shrink back and say, you know someone else is better than me in that particular aspect, so I'm not going to do that. But we can tie our talents with our time, and go you know I really could do that, but I just don't have time these days, and then we shrink back. Again, it's not to be able to give wholly even to the detriment of our self, but rather to give generosity when we are able to because it teaches us to trust. 

The temptation often times is to control things for ourselves. We get it from our first parents. Adam and Eve, when Eve looked upon the fruit in the garden, she noticed there was three things about it, and one of them was that it was pleasing to the eyes and it was good. She wanted it for herself, and rather than trusting the Lord God would give her what was good and holy, she took it and she tried to keep it for herself. A similar is what the Lord experienced when we was tempted after his 40 days of fasting in the desert; of how the devil came to Him and took Him up the mountain to show Him all the kingdoms of the world, and he says, "All these things, I can give to you. I can give you the souls that you have come to die for, Jesus. All you have to do is bow down before me." And Jesus has the opportunity to take every soul for Himself right on the spot, and the emphasis is to take it. To be able to take rather than to receive. By being obedient to the Father, He now reigns glorious as the King of all the heavens and the earth, and all those souls that could have rightly been taken, have now been given, and even more. Our Lord God provides for us in the same. To the extent that we desire to take something, we will fall short. The desire that we are generosity in our giving and allow the Lord to provide for us, we will always be surprised because our Lord is never outdone in generosity. If we give one, the Lord gives a hundredfold He says, in this world and in the next. What a gift, to know of the love of our God. 

And so when those fears come into our heart in the course of our days and whatever way the Lord is inviting us in generosity, in so many ways we can do exactly as is said in the Gospel. We worry, we worry about tomorrow, we worry about what our food, our drink clothes, what about this, what about that, what if what if what if .... And we worry ourselves, and there is so much concern, and at the root of it all, is because I'm trying to provide for me rather than to let the Lord provide. And so when those moments of fear, reservation and concern come into or hearts, we don't only listen to the words of the Lord spoken to us the prophet Isaiah today. The Lord God says, "Can a mother forget her infant? Be without tenderness for the child of her womb." As crazy as that would seem to us, as if a mother can simply bare a child and forgot that it every happened, she would bore a child in her womb for nine full months and gave birth with joy. As crazy as that seems, the Lord God continues, "Even should she forget, I will never forgot you." I will never forget you. The Lord God knows your needs, He knows your longings, He knows everything. It's simply an invitation to come and to trust. 

Deus Providebit, God will provide. 

A Prophetic Word - Homily for November 13

Readings for Sunday, November 13 / 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Malachi 3:19-20  |  Psalm 98  |  2 Thessalonians 3:7-12  |  Luke 21:5-19

The election is over ... thanks be to God! And I have to say, it was a bit disheartening to go and vote this past Tuesday, to go into the little poll booth and look down a rather lengthy list of presidential candidates and to see not one who really embodied a full Catholic approach. Not to find one, single person on the list that I could really put my trust into really leading our country in accordance with the ways that Christ teaches us through our faith. And thinking about that and praying with that throughout the course of the day and then sense, it continues to remind me that we're not made to be here, we're made to be elsewhere - in Heaven. It's the reminder that we try and make Earth what it's not supposed to be.

In response to so many of the political ads and such, it was interesting to see various people's responses as I was watching them on Facebook. Facebook is the wonderful thing to be able to see people's true opinions, quite often, and it was funny to see people's responses to the two primary candidates - Hillary and Donald - to be able to see the two of them and that nachos or tacos were more often preferred as an option to either the other presidential candidates on other fake ballots. But the one that caught me most of all, that got a chuckle out of me but also spoke to the same reality, is one of them had a fake political sign that said "Big meteor from the sky 2016!" They were essentially saying that it would be better for a meteor to fall from the sky and end it all, then to have our political candidates leading us, which is a rather dramatic statement. But it's something that actually jives really well with the scriptures this weekend because that statement, as well as what the Lord Jesus speaks to us, is essentially the same - that this world will end and we need to stop trying to make it what it isn't. 

In the Gospel, we have the disciples looking and marveling at the temple. The temple is said to be one of the most beautiful things that anyone had ever seen - it was one of the Great Wonders of the World. People would see it and just be in awe. The beautiful whitewashed stones and the jewels, adornments and decoration - that whenever you saw the temple far of, it glistened and radiated with sunlight. A beautiful thing to behold. And the disciples are marveling at it, and rightly so, rejoicing in the beauty of this building. And in the midst of that, the Lord Jesus says that all this you see, all this beauty, all this goodness, everything you are marveling at - there will come a day when not one stone will be on top of the other. It rattles, as so often Jesus does. It shakes them and they wonder, "Lord ... When? Why? What are the signs? How can we know?" And He gives a prophetic response. He tells them that there will be some who come and claim to be "myself" claim to be Jesus, that they will claim to be Christs, Saviors ... If you follow me I can make everything better; If you follow me, everything will be well. "Do not follow them," He says. He says there will be wars and insurrections, famines and plagues, earthquakes and sights in the sky - these will be signs that it will come soon. And then last, the temple will fall. But before all these things, they will persecute you. They will lead you before governors and kings, lead you into prisoners - your brothers and your sisters, fathers and mothers, your friends - they will lead you before them, they will renounce you because of My name and some of you will die. Frightening words. Quite a bit more to chew on then the disciples desired as they were simply marveling at the beauty of this building. And yet it is the word of Christ coming to them to warn them of what was coming - a prophetic message. And indeed it came to pass. 

Immediately following the death of Christ, we know the disciples began to endure much persecution. Ten of the eleven, other than Judas, were martyred for the faith. John died in exile. After the time of Jesus, there were some major events around the world; there were earthquakes and storms, events in the skies, wars and insurrections. And in the year 70 A.D., the Roman army came into Jerusalem and crushed the temple - destroyed it - pulled every stone off of the other one, just as Jesus had said. Everything He said came to pass, in exactly the manner He described it. But it would be wrong for us to think that the Lord Jesus was describing one particular event and it's already happened, so we don't need to worry anymore. Because what happens whenever the prophets speaks - and Jesus is a prophet, the greatest of the prophets - they prophesy almost in two ways: 1) an immediate manner and 2) something farther off in the distance that God alone knows, but they have a glimpse of. 

So often in the Old Testament, the Old Testament prophets would prophesy about one who would come and save the people, and so often it would be that there would be an immediate person - a new king would be raised up, a new prophet, new judge, would come and help the people of God. And they would be saved from their current crisis, but all of those ultimately pointed toward the coming of the Christ Himself, Jesus. In much the same way, Christ speaks to this temple. He says they will come and will destroy it, there will be persecutions of the people, there will be wars and insurrections, one who claim to be the Christ, there will be so many sights in the sky and then the temple will fall. 

We don't have to look around too far to find much of the same scenario is still taking place 2000 years later. There is still persecution of the Church, as I mentioned last weekend. Persecution of the members of Christ, abandoned by their brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, and friends. And some of them die. There is still some who come and say, "If you put your trust in me, I can make it all better." If you click the right button in the voting poll booth, all will be saved, all will be good again. Secular Christs who invite us to trust in them rather than our Lord. Ones who come and we recognize, point out, in the world around us that there are earthquakes and storms and sights in the sky. All of this is simply to point out the fact that we are still waiting for another temple to fall, and it's the temple of this world as we understand it. This world that we live in today, again, it will end, and the day of judgment will come. Malachi prophesied. So we listen to that call, and we have to respond the same way as the disciples did in those first days. Of course, we never know when the end will come. It could be ten minutes from now. It could be ten thousand years from now. Our response right now for every single one of us should be exactly the same regardless. How do we respond? How do we respond to the reality that the Lord will come again in glory at some point? 

The Lord Jesus gives us a hint at the answer. He says don't prepare your defense ahead of time, but trust Me that I will give you the words. A lot of times whenever we hear the end of the world is going to come soon, I am always intrigued by the ones who start gathering cans, as if gathering cans of green beans is going to save anything when the end of the world comes. A lot of times that is our approach, whether physically or spiritually speaking. We try to store up our goods, so that when the Lord comes, we already have everything planned out. I got it fixed Lord, don't worry! I've got my system down. Rather, He invites us to a radical trust. Not to pre-plan for the last day, but to trust that He will lead us whenever it comes - if it comes in our lifetime. 

I want to invite you to a few specific things - how to prepare: 

1) Go to confession! I've said it a thousand times, but so often I still sit in the confessional and pray. I pray my breviary, I pray my rosary, my Divine Mercy chaplet and various other prayers. And I pray, hoping that someday, I won't have time to pray in the confessional because I'll be hearing confessions. Go to confession. It is THE BEST way to prepare for the Lord. It cleanses all of our sins. What better way to prepare?

2) Charity - Love the person in front of you - whoever it is - love them. Love them as if they were Christ Jesus themselves. So many of the lives of the saints, they show us that we can love the other as Christ - they show us how to do it. There are various saint who would go and serve in the hospitals. There was one in particular, I forget his name, but he would go from bed to bed asking for forgiveness for his sins from the people he was serving. Some of them weren't even Christian and he was begging them as if they were Christ, to show him mercy, because he loved them so much, he treated them as Christ. So much the same for us. In the world where there is an opportunity every ten seconds, to find a lack of charity, impatience with others, judgmental-ism, and so much worse - to love the other as if they were Christ because indeed, in a sense, they are. Whatever you do to the least of these, You do to me. And who knows who the least among us is. 

3) Pray daily and to pray intensely. A lot of times we content ourselves to offer up just our road prayers, the memorized prayers - Our Fathers', Hail Mary's, Glory Be's, etc. - which are good and holy, and we should pray them. But we can't content ourselves to pray only them. We must have a living relationship with Christ, so that when He comes, He knows us and we know Him. He knows the sound of our voice and we know the sound of His. To spend that time regularly in prayer, certainly at Mass, but even in your own homes, places that you find yourself through the course of the day. To speak to the Lord - there. There doesn't have to happen exclusively in the chapel - to find ourselves with the Lord often and to know that He is with us. 

Confession. Charity. Prayer. It's the basic elements to prepare our hearts. 

As we come to reflect upon the end of times, and reflect upon the Lord Jesus coming again in glory, we know too that there is one who comes with an army who does not want us to draw close to Christ - Satan. He wants to pull us away from the Lord, wants to pull us even the smallest bits away from the grace of Christ. St. Peter describes in the scriptures as "prowling around like a roaring lion waiting for someone to devour." A roaring lion waiting to pounce upon us and consume our soul. And so we renounce him and rebuke him. Today we choose Christ. 

So I want to invite you to pray with me the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, a prayer composed by Pope Leo XIII a little over a century ago. It's a prayer that calls upon St. Michael whose name means "Who is Like God." It's a mockery of Satan. Satan who thinks himself like God, and St. Michael comes and says, "Who is like God? Not you." So we call upon St. Michael to be with us as we go forth in battle today. To be able to allow our hearts to be filled with the charity and love of Christ which comes forth from the Holy Eucharist. And to be able to go forth and to love Christ as He loves us.

Where is Lazarus - Homily for September 25

Readings for Sunday, September 25 / 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Amos 6:1, 4-7 | Psalm 146 | 1 Timothy 6:11-16 | Luke 16:19-31

This weekend we have the uncomfortable reminder that our salvation is not just based off of me and Jesus, but it's me, Jesus and every person I come in contact with through the course of my life - which again should be a little scary for us.

The reading from the prophet Amos and the psalm are a study of contrast to help us get primed for that reflection. The prophet Amos is the type of person that likes to point people out and call attention to the things they are doing and go about the litany of their hard heartedness. And we hear more of that today - how he looks at Israel as the whole entire people, and says "Look, you're sitting on your ivory beds, your nice linens and fancy couches, and you eat all the finest things. You're so self-concerned and complacent. There is nothing really in your heart, except that." It's a very strong rebuke he gives to them.

In contrast to that we have the example of God, who comes in Psalm 146 and describes ways that are entirely unselfish, ways that He pours Himself out simply for the love of others. How the Lord comes to set captives free and give sight to the blind, raise the lowly, protect strangers, help widows and orphans, and certainly we could add to the list. It's interesting - these two: to be self-concerned or to be selfless. That's what it is when it comes down to it.

A lot of time whenever we think about ourselves as sinners, whenever we think about our sins, it seems that we consider most the sins of commission - the words, deeds, thoughts, the actions that are actively done, we know they are bad, and yet we do them anyway. How many times have we said in the confessional, "I thought bad things.  I said something negative about someone. I gossiped. Cursed at the TV last night during the game. Cursed the coach. I drank or ate a little too much .." We think about the things that we do and we think that stuff is bad - and it is - but are we mindful of the things we failed to do that we should've done? That's what the Gospel calls us to reflect upon - the sins of omission, that we have omitted something we ought to have done out of love for Christ.

We see that the Lord gives us the example of, a presumably fictional account, a rich man and Lazarus with Abraham acting there in the midst. The rich in the end, much like that of Israel, has all the fine things: a purple robe, a sign of royalty and richness; his fancy linens; he dines sumptuously each day. It shows the extent to which he is taking care of himself. It's not bad to take care of oneself, but in the midst of it, we have to be concerned about others as well. The rich man passes Lazarus each day as Lazarus sits on his doorstep. As Jesus describes the story, He doesn't say that the rich man actually did anything sinful. He didn't walk outside the door and curse Lazarus. he didn't call him names, kick him or spit at him on the way out. He didn't even think bad thoughts about him necessarily. He didn't do anything - and that's exactly the problem. Lazarus was there, day by day, right outside his doorstep, and the man knows it. And he knows Lazarus - and that's the catch. Whenever he sees Abraham far off, he sees Lazarus and he asked Abraham to send Lazarus - not that guy at the doorstep - send Lazarus. He knows his name. And yet still the hardness of his heart was so much that he didn't do anything for him. A grievous sin of omission, and it is because he failed to do something he ought to have done and thus finds himself in the torments. Again, so often we focus on what we've actually done that was bad. But remember when we fail to do what is good, also bears great weight in the story of our salvation.

One wanted to come up with a little jingle for it, but I didn't because I wanted to get it stuck in your head and get frustrated that you wouldn't get it out. I want a question to roll around in your mind through the course of this week, and if anyone wants to make up a jingle and let me know afterward, by all means, I won't be upset. I want you to think of one question over and over, throughout the day and the course of this week; maybe put a sign in your house or in your car. The question I want you to think over and over again is: Where is Lazarus? As you go to work, to school, on the road, to the store, in your home ... All through the course of our week we encounter many Lazaruses. It doesn't have to be the extreme example of the Lazarus in the story where he is sick, wounded and hungry at our doorstep dying in a sense. It doesn't have to be to that extreme, but sometimes it is. More often that not it's some small needs - someone who is need in a little way - a little word of encouragement or a small deed of kindness, a simple act of love. Those little things, that unlike the rich man, we can crucify our hearts to be able to let Christ come forth from us and show love, to allow my self-concern be set aside, my comfort to be set aside so that Christ can come forth and love.

That's the main piece: Jesus calls us to love, which is a positive action. When asked what was the greatest commandment, He had the 10 Commandments which were all "Thou shalt not's" and He opted for something different that was more basic: love God and love neighbor - positive things. Not just to avoid something pad, but to choose to do something good because it's harder. It's harder to reach outside of ourselves and do good. It's easy to shrink back from doing bad - you just don't do it. But to go the extra step to do something good is a different story.

So we ask the Lord to be with us this week, the grace of this Mass, the grace of our time of prayer - that the Lord may give us new eyes, in a sense, to see as we go through the course of this week "Where is Lazarus?".

Welcoming the Slave - Homily for September 4

Readings for Sunday, September 4/ 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Wisdom 9:13-18  |  Psalm 90  |  Philemon 9-10, 12-17  |  Luke 14:25-33

Yesterday, September 3, was the feast day of Pope St. Gregory the Great - one of the few saints in the church that has that title "the Great," added on to his name on account of the number of gifts he brought to the church and the profound impact he's had on the life of the Church since his reign as the Holy Father. He himself was a man who knew his weaknesses. He was raised in the world, and then left to join the monastery became a Benedictine monk and enjoyed living a life of quiet prayer and simple labor until he was elected as the Holy Father. He was in the world, then removed from the world, and then thrust back into the world. In one of his reflections on the prophet Ezekiel, he lamented the fact that how so often he was easily caught up in prayer in the monastery, and yet when he was busy about the things of the world he often found it easier to sin than to be caught up in the things of prayer, to be consumed of the stuff of the world than the things of God. In that same reflection, he also mentioned the fact that every church, every community, has a watchkeeper, one who is supposed to be set on the heights and who is able to see the whole terrain so as to guide the flock most effectively. He said in proclaiming that I automatically condemn myself because I, the leader of the Catholic Church, myself fall short of being a good watchkeeper.

St. Gregory the Great is my patron saint. I took him as my confirmation saint when I was in eleventh grade because he is the patron saint of musicians and I wanted to be a rock-star, so I figured the patron saint of musicians could help me reach that end. Little did I know that I would take a different route in following him and become a watchkeeper myself, a watchman in the pulpits, and to be able to be called by Christ as a priest, to watch the terrain and see where it is that the flock is called to go. Much like St. Gregory I am condemning myself because I stand here every day and proclaim to you the things of God, knowing good and well that I don't fulfill them perfectly myself. So, if ever my homilies seem a little bit harsh and a little bit hard, you're in good company because I'm preaching to myself. And I said that especially in regards to the homily this weekend.

The Letter of St. Paul to Philemon is a beautiful and striking letter. If anyone has ever had a desire to read a whole book of the Bible, you should read Philemon - it's one single chapter. It'll make you feel good about things ... "I read a whole book of the Bible today!" I encourage you to go read it even though we have a good portion of it here and get the main part of it in what we just heard, how Paul is in prison writing a letter to Philemon. Philemon has sent one of his slaves, Onesimus, to Paul in his imprisonment to help him and to care for him for a short time. Maybe he brought him letters, correspondence, or something of that nature. Maybe he sent him some bread and wine so he could offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice in prison. We don't know. But Onesimus went to go serve Paul, and Paul says: I wish I could keep him here for myself, I wish I could keep him because he's like a son to me now, a brother, a friend. I love him with all my heart, and I wish I could keep him here with me, but I'm not, I'm sending him back to you Philemon, but I'm sending him back a little bit different. He gives Philemon a challenge. He says I want you to receive him back not as a slave but as a brother. He says if you regard us as friends, receive Onesimus your slave, as if he were me, your father in faith. It's quite a challenge - to receive a slave as if he was his father in faith, as if he was the one who gave us life.

Whenever I came here to our community, I was warmly welcomed. There was little signs at the rectory, little balloons and all kinds of things. We had the reception and cake, and more cake, and more cake ... the cake hasn't stopped in two years much to my frustration. But there is a very warm welcome I received, and was glad to receive. That's one of the trademarks of parish, also of our local community - being welcoming to others. Whenever people come from other places, they are warmly received and welcomed, and rightly so - they should be. But the question the Lord invites us to reflect upon, especially with Onesimus and Paul, is: How do we receive those not who are coming from far away, but those that are right here in our community but haven't been here in Church in a while? How do we welcome them? How do we welcome the ones who maybe have strayed from the faith for a little while, gone away for a few years and we haven't seen their face? What about the ones that have done or said something or committed some sin that we have deemed unforgivable and we hold it against them, and we know it, we know what they have done? What about those that simply are here, but not here, that are in and out at times, inconsistent? Maybe that them is me. Maybe it's that I hold myself to those things. How do we respond when people we know and love come to church when we don't expect them to?

A lot of times whenever we see it, it can that response of Onesimus; we have that response of either we can keep in slavery or we can unbind in freedom and welcome as a brother. Sometimes it's those things, it's other stuff, maybe it makes us uncomfortable, maybe it's someone who is a little bit different from us. How easy it can be for us to hold something against someone else and make them as a slave. Again, it can be the sins of the past, the absence from Mass, it can be characteristic flaws that we don't like in them. Whatever it may be, we allow it to be a binding force that separates us, that excludes them and doesn't welcome them. In fact, Christ calls us to freedom - all of us.

Whenever we welcome somebody in church we haven't seen in a while, there's a number of responses we can have. And one of the things that I think is natural in us, there's a difficulty sometimes in how to respond. What do we say? There's a sense in which we have to acknowledge that we are happy to see them, rightly so. I think we usually are. Most of us are not upset when people show up to church. So we are happy to see them. But I think sometimes there is that difficulty of how do I address the fact that I'm happy to see you and yet I haven't seen you in a while, where have you been. And when we say that, we try sometimes to break the ice a little bit with humor, but the humor sometimes comes with a little dagger in the back of it. "Wow I haven't seen you here in awhile! Who let you in this place? I hope the walls of the church don't fall in. Did the holy water sizzle when it touched your head?" We laugh, but these are the things I've heard from the lips of people as I've stood at the entrance of the door of the church, sometimes at our own parish. And I've known people who've told me that exact same thing - that they went to church for the first time in a long time, and they felt like the Lord was leading them back to church, and they were welcomed with one of those greetings, and they turned around, walked out the door and never came back. Never came back. How much are words can have an impact. I got an email this week from a young man I ministered to in a youth group, and I thought I was doing well, I thought I said the right thing, and he sent me an email this week saying, "Fr. Brent, I haven't been to church in several years on account of you." Something I said. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saying the right thing. He hadn't set a foot in the church because of me. Our words have great power - for ill, but also for good. When someone comes through the door that we haven't seen in a while, whats the proper response? "Good morning!" .... "Hey! How's the kids? How's the family? How about those Tigers ... the Saints" ... pick a more pleasant topic to talk about ... anything ... Anything. Be able to simply love the person who came in. It's a temptation sometimes because the tension in us wants to resolve, but everybody knows it's there. It's just to show love - to love the other person. Period.

This morning the Holy Father celebrated the canonization of now St. Teresa of Calcutta - Mother Teresa. St. Teresa is also someone who provides us with a little extra encouragement this weekend in that same regard - to welcome the other, to love the other, even when they may be entirely different from us, even entirely unlovable in a sense from a worldly view. She shows us how to love.

In the community of the Missionaries of Charity that Mother Teresa founded, each morning they would have a holy hour in community and then they would have Mass offered.So every day, they would spend an hour in prayer in their chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, and then they would have Mass, then go off and do their work serving whoever it was, whatever mission it was that they went to go out and serve that day. And on several accounts, various sisters came to forward to ask her different scenarios saying "Mother we spend so much time in the chapel. What if we cut that time in half - maybe to 30 mins in prayer, then did Mass and then went out, we would be able to serve that many more people. We would be able to be that much more effective in our community." Mother Teresa wisely responded, "It's only because we know the Lord Jesus here in our time of prayer, in our Mass - it's only that we know Him and love Him here  - that we can see Him out there and serve Him. If we lose Him here (the chapel), we can't find Him there." So the Lord invites us the same - that whenever we come to Mass, whenever we find ourselves with an opportunity to pray in church, to know that there we can find our Lord. We can come to know Jesus, to love Jesus, to be loved by Jesus. And only in doing those things can we go to the doors of the church and beyond and see Christ in other people. Until then, we will only be able to be bind up in chains. But in Christ Jesus we can bring freedom.

So we pray the grace of the Lord to be with us today through the intercession of St. Gregory the Great and St. Teresa of Calcutta, that we will be able to draw close to the Lord Jesus in this Mass, that we may be able to know Him a little bit more, to be able to love Him more deeply, to be able to go forth to see Him, to serve Him, and to bring freedom to our brother and sisters around us.

Papal Intentions for August 2016

Papal Intentions for August 2016

Universal Intention: That sports may be an opportunity for friendly encounters between peoples and may contribute to peace in the world.

Mission Intention: That Christians may live the Gospel, giving witness to faith, honesty, and love of neighbor.

Prayer for the Pope

V. Let us pray for Francis, our Pope.

R. May the Lord preserve him, give him life, 

and make him blessed upon the earth, 

and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

Our Father... Hail Mary...

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Francis, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. 

Through Christ our Lord. 

Amen.

Saving the World, One Monk at a Time

In the past I have posted information on young women seeking to enter religious life but who needed some financial assistance in order to do so. Today I'm doing the same about a young man I met last year while on retreat, Stephen Joseph Hill. He impressed me in the few days I was able to share meals  with him, as well as a lively game of Risk, offering to serving Low Mass for me while there and assuring me of his continued prayers for my priesthood. He recently announced that he has been accepted to Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, a Benedictine monastic community. In order to do so he needs to be free of his college loans and so he has opened a 'gofundme' page to attain this end. Please keep him in your prayers and, if you are able, consider making a donation. Thank you in advance.

https://gofundme.com/introibo

...the rest of the story.

Readings for Sunday, June 19/ 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1
Psalm 63
Galatians 3:26-29
Luke 9:18-24

Earlier this week I sat down and decided to look through our parish directory from the early 90’s. I looked through every page and every family, recognizing many faces and knowing that there are others not pictures and many who have gone to their eternal reward. It was neat to see everyone 20+ years ago – and not just because of the hairstyles! – because it helped me to remember that there is still much about you and this community that I don’t know.

When we get to know another person or place, we only know it from our first encounter onward and the past is but a story and not something we can experience firsthand. It can be easy to forget about all of the past things and simply see the person as the one we’ve come to know, but in doing so we necessarily miss some things. This is exactly what the Lord is helping the disciples to realize today in the Gospel passage we just heard. The disciples knew Jesus from His ministry and saw Him largely in that light. The people from His hometown, on the opposite end, would struggle to see the great wonder-worker because they only saw Him as the regular guy from their hometown. And the Lord has to provide to all of them the fuller picture. He asks who people say that He is and they respond with the answers of various great prophetic figures. Without even acknowledge the responses, He asks who the disciples say that He is. This is something every one of us must give thought to at points in our life, who is the Jesus we claim to know and serve? Peter’s response wins him a rebuke and in other Gospel accounts the note that he received this knowledge from the Father and not simply early wisdom. Not to stop there, the Lord continues with the rest of the story. The disciples would have no problem accepting the Lord as a miraculous person, a wonder-worker of the highest order who did things that none had ever seen before. They could accept Him as a great ruler, meant to save the Israelites from the opposing nations. But what they struggled to accept was the very truth of what followed: the necessity of the suffering to come. The proclamation that the Lord would soon be rejected by the rulers of the land, crucified, and be then raised from the dead was a hard pill to swallow. And what’s more, the Lord said they would have to pick up their cross daily to follow in His path.

No innocent man was meant to carry a cross. It was the condemned who carried the wood to their place of crucifixion and so the Lord invites us to see ourselves as already condemned, as already dead to this world. If we submit to this reality, then we can truly be raised up in a sense to a new life in this world that is marked by the virtues and life of Christ. And so we pick up our cross. Daily. Each day has it’s cross and the biggest of crosses that each of us has to bear is other people. And for those other people, the cross is you and me.

Last week’s tragic violence in Orlando has given our world one more opportunity among others to reject the cross and to seek shelter in our ‘safe places’. It’s a natural tendency of the human person to seek others with whom we find similarities – the people who have similar interests, similar histories, who speak the same, and believe the same things. We find what is comfortable in our circles, which is not bad in itself. The problem is that so often these differences are used to build walls around ourselves so that we become various groups of ‘us versus them’ and the difference are used to assert superiority. This is what St. Paul is writing about to the Galatians. They are beginning to squabble over groups – male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. These would traditionally be understood as one being superior and the other inferior. In response St. Paul writes to remind them that in Christ all are one and that there is not male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. He isn’t saying that those difference don’t exist, indeed they do, but that the differences don’t matter when it comes to equality and the charity toward others. And the same applies to us in our society today. There are so many groups that are different from one another, but we find ourselves on shaky ground when we begin to use those as indicators of superiority or as the limits of our charity. That because someone is in the group of ‘them’ regarding LGBT, muslims, guns, Trump, Hillary, or whatever that we have no obligation to love them or show kindness. And this is the cross – the obligation to love our neighbors even when we don’t agree, especially on very important things. In this we follow the example of Jesus that we heard recently as He at in the house of Simon the Pharisee – that the woman was weeping at His feet and Simon thought to himself “If he knew who and what sort of woman that this is, he wouldn’t let her do this!” ‘She’s one of the THEM!’ he thinks to himself and in doing so shows his lack of charity toward her, as well as toward the Lord. The Lord loved her, despite her sinfulness and ‘otherness’ and in doing so, drew her to Himself.

I came across a quote from St. John Bosco earlier this week that has resonated with me through these recent days: “This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalized and still others to hope for God’s mercy. And so He bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.”

The Lord loved everyone before Him from the sinful woman to the hard-hearted Simon and in doing so gave every person the chance to follow after Him. He acknowledged differences, but chose to love the other still. In doing so there is a great ease in ruffling feathers and causing controversy. He knew this and it was because of His humility that these things did not matter; He simply bore the daily cross, which culminated in the greatest of humiliations on Calvary. Are we willing to do the same? To recognize divisions, yet to see ‘them’ as worth loving and liking. To forgive when the other isn’t sorry. To accept harsh words and to bite our tongue instead of spouting harsh words back. When someone hurts us somehow the temptation can be to assume the worst, but it is the call of the Christian to go out of our way to make excuses for ‘them.’ “They know not what they do” the Lord pleaded to the Father in the midst of crucifixion. And so we have the joy daily of picking up our cross and following the Christ by showing love to each person before us, even to the point of death.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine.