Homily for Sunday, January 6 - Epiphany

Readings for Sunday, January 6 / Epiphany of the Lord:  Isaiah 60:1-6  |  Psalm 72  |  Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6  |  Matthew 2:1-12

John 6: Decisions, decisions. - Homily for August 26

Readings for Sunday, August 26 / 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18  |  Psalm 34  | Ephesians 5:21-32  |  John 6:60-69

This weekends' readings bring us to the conclusion of the Bread of Life discourse by Our Lord. The invitation is for us to make a decision, and the readings show us how.

John 6: The Invitation - Homily for August 12

Readings for Sunday, August 12 / 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time: 1 Kings 19:4-8  |  Psalm 34  |  Ephesians 4:30-5:2  |  John 6:41-55

Come to Me.

John 6: Why Are You Here? - Homily for August 5

Readings for Sunday, August 5 / 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time:  Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15  |  Psalm 78  |  Ephesians 4:17, 20-24  |  John 6:24-35

Food from Heaven

The crowds followed Jesus not because of the signs but because their stomachs were filled. What
brings you to Mass today?

John 6: The Starting Point - Homily for July 29

Readings for Sunday, July 29 / 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time: 2 Kings 4:42-44  |  Psalm 145  |  Ephesians 4:1-6  |  John 6:1-15

The longing of the human heart can be filled only by Christ. When we stop trying to fill it with other things, then we can finally begin the journey to the fulness of life we desire.

Corpus Christi - Homily for June 3

Readings for Sunday, June 3 / Corpus Christi Sunday:  Exodus 24:3-8  |  Psalm 116  |  Hebrews 9:11-15  |  Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

The Miracle of Bolsena/Orvieto brings us to honor the great mystery we celebrate every Mass: the Body and Blood of Christ.

Life! - Homilies for the Sacred Paschal Triduum

Readings for Thursday, March 29 / Holy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14  |  Psalm 116  |  1 Corinthians 11:23-26  |  John 13:1-15


Readings for Friday, March 30 / Good Friday: Isaiah 52:13-53:12  |  Psalm 31  |  Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9  |  John 18:1-19:42


Readings for Sunday, April 1 / Easter Sunday: Acts 10:34, 37-43  |  Pslam 118  |  Colossians 3:1-4  |  John 20:1-9

Lent: Learning to Trust - Homily for February 25

Abraham and Isaac, c.1617 - Anthony van Dyck

Readings for Sunday, February 25 / 2nd Sunday of Lent:  Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18  |  Psalm 116  | Romans 8:31-34  |  Mark 9:2-10

Today we reflect on the faith of Abraham and the role of the Transfiguration in the faith of Peter, James, and John.

Holy Mass: Holy Communion - Homily for September 24

Readings for September 24 / 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Isaiah 55:6-9  |  Psalm 145  |  Philippians 1:20-24, 27  |  Matthew 20:1-16

The moment after we receive Holy Communion is the most intimate moment we can have with God this death of death. Don't miss the opportunity to speak to the Beloved and to love Him with all of your heart.

Holy Mass: The Canon - Homily for September 17

Readings for Sunday, September 17 / 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sirach 27:30-28:7  |  Psalm 103 |  Romans 14:7-9  |  Matthew 18:21-35

The Eucharistic Prayer is the core of the Mass, when the consecration of the gifts takes places and they are offered to the Father for our salvation. This week we reflect upon that mystery and why I use the Roman Canon almost exclusively on Sundays. 

The Lord Is With Me - Homily for June 25

Vesting Bishop Provost in preparation for Holy Mass

Readings for Sunday, June 25 / 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Jeremiah 20:10-13  |  Psalm 69  |  Romans 5:12-15  |  Matthew 10:26-33

This weekend the Scriptures call to mind the many things which we fear and wrestle with through our week - the attacks from others, the attack from sin, and the attacks of the evil one. In all of this, we need not fear because the Lord is with us. United to Him, He fights for us.

Corpus Christi: No Mere Symbol - Homily for June 18

Miraculous Host & Blood at Lanciano

Readings for Sunday, June 18 / Corpus Christi: Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16  |  Psalm 147  |  1 Corinthians 10:16-17  |  John 6:51-58

The Holy Eucharist is no mere sign or symbol, but is a the true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. As Catholics, we must approach this mystery with great attention, reverence, awe, and love. May the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus increase these virtues in us until the day He calls us home!

Easter: United to the Shepherd - Homily for May 7

Readings for Sunday, May 7 / 4th Sunday of Easter: Acts 2:14, 36-41  |  Psalm 23  |  1 Peter 2:20-25  |  John 10:1-10

The Good Shepherd calls us to follow after Him, but it is not enough simply to follow behind Him. We must be united to Him. The Church provides many paths to this union, but three hold particular importance: the Eucharist, the Scriptures, and daily prayer. Draw close to Him and He will draw close to you. 

Advent: With Us, With Him - Homily for December 18

Readings for Sunday, December 18 / 4th Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 7:10-14  |  Psalm 24  |  Romans 1:1-7  |  Matthew 1:18-24

As we begin this fourth Sunday of Advent. this fourth week, this last full week of the Advent season, as we look forward to the day of the coming of the Lord, we continue our reflection on reconciliation. The second Sunday of Advent I spoke on the way in which Christ came among us for the first time, of how the Infant Jesus taking on our flesh began that process of reconciling all of creation with the Lord God, and drawing humanity to Himself by His way of taking on our flesh, but also to join all of creation with us in the same. Last weekend we reflected on the way in which in Christ, creation was waiting for it's reconciliation in completion. And indeed we wait for the last day of the Lord Jesus, the day in which He will come in His glory. in which reconciliation will be completed and fully accomplished. This weekend, I want to reflect on the way in which we come to be with the Lord and prepare ourselves for that last day. Indeed, the entire time, from the day on which Christmas took flesh until the day He comes again in glory, it has one single purpose. We fill it with so many things, but it has one actual purpose: It's to give us an opportunity to encounter Jesus Christ. It's what St. Peter tells us in His letter as well. He says the Lord delays, so that many might come to know Christ Jesus and be saved. So the Lord, waits, for us, to come to know and love Him. Again, we fill it with a lot of things. Necessarily so in the sense, we get caught up with the things of this life; we get caught up with our homes, work, with the things of the world around us. We get caught up doing good and homily things - spending time with our family and our friends. In the Church, we also lose sight of things sometimes, and we get consumed with other things than what is the central reality of things we ought to focus on. So often we simplify our Catholic faith into a system of "do this, don't do that," rules and regulations. The reality is, our life is more than rules and regulations; our faith is more than rules and regulations. It's not about busying ourselves with many things, but about concerning ourselves with one thing just like St. Mary Magdalene - to know Jesus, to encounter Christ. 

In the end, when the Lord comes in His glory on the last day and we are all judged, or if He doesn't come before our death, at the hour of our death, we will stand before the judge, and our salvation for eternal life or eternal death will come basically in conjunction with one simple answer, our own answer. Remember that when Jesus was with His disciples, He was with the twelve after everyone had gone, and He asked them. "Who do people say that I am?". They began to think and respond with the things they had heard, "Some say you are John the Baptist come back again, some say Elijah another one of the great prophets." But then Jesus responds to that question which every single one of us must answer for ourselves, "Who do you say that I am?". Because the answer to that question determines everything, and it manifests to Christ what He already knows, but it manifests to us and to all of creation, something that can often be hidden to us. The answer to the question shows us how much we know God and how much we love Him. That's our entire life. We can have so many things, so many blessings, but if we never know God, we fall short of our purpose; fall short of the reason God created us in the first place. 

There are many ways in which we come to encounter God, to encounter Christ. In our own church, there are a whole variety of symbols and signs that speak to us of God. We can look to the Paschal candle near the Baptismal font, the Paschal candle which is light and consecrate on the Easter Vigil, and a hymn is sung to it, a hymn to Christ. We sing to the candle as Christ - the light come into the world to cast out darkness. The crucifix in the sanctuary that speaks to us of the love of God reminds us of what Christ did for us. In the celebration of the liturgy, the priest acts in the person of Christ. When the priests says, "This is my body ... this is my blood," he says it not himself, but as Christ. It's Christ who speaks these things. And you, the members of the faithful of God, members of the body of Christ, to see one another as Christ, to allow Christ who dwells within you to speak to others and to see Him. These and many others are ways in which we can encounter Jesus in this time, but there are two ways I think, and invite you to reflect upon and take some action on this week, two ways in which Christ is primarily with us: in the scriptures and in the Eucharist. They are the two main parts of the Mass: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. As it is typically described in liturgical books: the Word and the World made Flesh. 

In the first reading today, we hear from the prophet Isaiah and he comes and prophesied a gift from God that a virgin will conceive and bear a son and they will name Him Emanuel, God is with us. We heard the fulfillment of that passage in the Gospel reading as they come and the angel appears to Joseph, and Mary is that one spoken of from of old. Mary, his wife, is the one who is to conceive, though a virgin, and to bear a son - God with Us, Emmanuel. It's the name of Jesus because the name means "God Saves," and God has come to be with us, to save us. 

When Jesus was about to ascent to His heavenly Father at the end of His earthly life, one of the things He told His disciples was that, "I will be with you always." He told the disciples, I believe it was at the Last Supper, "I will not leave you orphans." I will not abandon you, I will be with you always. Again, Christ is with us in so many ways, but most especially and concretely in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist. 

What I invite each of you to do is to spend some time with the Lord this week in those two ways. Again we know it's the Christmas season, some of you may still have some Christmas shopping left to do, some of you may have some decorating to do, some of us have parties and these types of things going on. But we hear all the time that Jesus is the reason for the season, right? Except it's the thing that seems to happen the least, is the time we spend with Jesus. We get consumed with so many other things. So my invitation for you is to come and rest with the Lord, to come and place yourself in the presence of the Eucharist in the church, and to sit with Christ - to know that He is with you and to be with Him. The church of St. Ann is open all day each day, the church here is open various times throughout the week. The church at St. Mary's in New Roads has the adoration chapel where you can go and adore the Lord face to face in the Blessed Sacrament. Whichever of those options works best for you, I encourage you to take one, and to really speak some time. If the best you can do is five minutes, good, it's enough. If you can do more, good because it is about the encounter with Christ. It is about speaking to the Lord and allowing Him to speak to us. As you would go to the chapel or the church, I would invite you to bring along with you a Bible. The written word of God speaks to us; He comes to us and remains with us.

So often as we go before the Lord, we desire to hear the Lord to speak to us, and we desire to speak to Christ. At least we should. What we see in the Eucharist is not just a thing, it's a person - a person who loves us and desires to speak to us. It's Christ our God, Emmanuel. And so, we speak to Him and we look for Him to speak to us. Where is the way He speaks to us most concretely than in the scriptures? A lot of times we think the scriptures are hard to understand and I think more often than not we over-complicate them, we over think things a little bit it seems. But to be able to pick a place and simply read from the Word of God - start in the Gospels maybe and to hear Jesus speak to you. If you want some other place, go to the letter of St. Paul, St. Peter or St. John; those letters written to other communities like us and to hear them speak. Go to the Psalms - St. Augustine said that the Psalms capture every single human emotion, and to come and allow our hearts to be lifted up to the Lord through a psalm that may speak something that we don't even have the words yet but which Christ does. To go and to speak to Him and to listen - to know Jesus. That's the entire purpose. 

On the last day, our judgement will not be a surprise to any of us. If we know Jesus, it shouldn't be a surprise that He knows us. And if we don't know Jesus, it shouldn't be a surprise that He doesn't know us. And so we come. We place ourselves in Him presence. We come to be with Him who is indeed with us. We pray for the grace to love Him more deeply and to seek His face as we go forth from here each day. Come, Lord Jesus. Come O Come, Emmanuel. 

*Check out the 10:45 mark of the audio to see what happens when parishioners think there's a fire in the church during the middle of the homily! 

The Foundation of the Christian Life - Homily for August 28

Readings for August 28, 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29  |  Psalm 68  |  Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24  |  Luke 14:1, 7-14

A few years ago a trilogy of books was put out and movies subsequently made about them titled Divergent. It was set as a future of America, more or less, where society had kind of crumbled and they were living a completely type of different state than what we would be used to. Rather than individuals being part of a complex social system, society was divided up into five specific groups. There were individuals who kind of represented five essential characteristics or virtues of the human person. But it was a taken to an extreme, and each of those individual groups were called to live out that extreme to the highest. There were the Dauntless who embodied the virtue of courage to an extreme of craziness, such that it was almost a rule for them to have tattoos and wild hair and had to jump off of trains as their mode of common transportation - it was kind of bizarre. There the Erudite whose entire life was consumed with knowledge and education. There were other groups as well, and then there was one group called the Abnegation. They were the extreme embodiment of selflessness or humility. They were required to wear drab gray clothing, rather than bright colors that might indicate something special. They were required to have a certain hairstyle, not to have fancy things, nice things or many things, but rather to be abundantly simple. You were unable to express your gifts and to use the good things that were part of your own natural life because you were Abnegation. You had to necessarily quench and reject all of those things. Whenever you were in the presence of members of the four other branches of the society, the Abnegations were always the ones who had to had to step back and defer to the other groups. 

I mention that because this weekend we hear the words of scripture inviting us to reflect upon humility, and often time when we hear "humility" we think the "abnegation" - we have to have the drab gray clothing, a sense of unable to be .......*TRAIN!!!*....... Anywho, when we think about humility, we often think of that extreme version. "O yea ... you know ... I'm not really good at that. I don't really have that gift." It's this false humility that basically is a lie. When St. Benedict - the founder of Western monasticism of the great Benedictine monasteries - was writing his rule on the monks and their gifts, he said it would be a shame, even more a sin against God if a monk who had a good voice intentionally neglected it because he didn't want it to stick out. It would be a sin for one to reject their gifts that were rightfully given to them by God. And unfortunately that's what we can think humility is - a rejection of the gift that is something that could lift us up, that could exalt us. 

St. Thomas Aquinas said to recognize truth and to live truth was humility; to be humble was to recognize that every single one of us was created in the image and likeness of God - that we are created for heavenly life. But at the same time, on account of our sins, we deserve hell. But on the other hand, Christ has saved us and redeemed us. And by the gift of Baptism we are heirs to the kingdom of God, but we have to work and labor for it. So it's recognizing the truth that I am a sinner who is called to be a saint. 

St. Theresa of Avila, when she was in her own convent with the Carmelites, she was struggling with how to live out humility herself as a religious sisters. One day she asked the Lord point blank in prayer, "Lord, what is humility?" and the Lord Jesus responded to her, "Knowing what you can do and knowing what I can do." Knowing what you can do - and the limits thereof - and knowing what I can do and the fact that there are no limits to it. That's humility. It's knowing that in our weakness, we have many great gifts that come from God, but they rely upon Him. Everything is reliant upon the Lord Jesus. That's humility - not this false humility that rejects all of the goodness in us, but a recognition of the good and where it comes from.

Humility is very important in the Christian life. It's not one of the virtues that's taken among all the virtues. It's the most important virtue of all. Today is the feast day of St. Augustine of Hippo, a great doctor of the Church. He was a man who lived a life of revelry, of partying, of debauchery. But he was converted. He became a great priest and bishop of the Church, one of the most profound bishops. He was a writer that was absolutely incredible at his writings. Sixteen hundred years later and we still haven't translated them all into English, so prolific was he. A profound writer. And as he was reflecting on the spiritual life, he came to the understanding in his prayer and said that if we don't have humility, every other virtue that we appear to have is a lie. Because every other virtue I appear to have, if I don't have humility, ultimately is just about me. It could look really good on the outside - it could look positively saintly on the outside - but without humility, it's really about me. 

That's humility - the call to us to be humble before the Lord. It's the foundation of the Christian life. It's our everything because it's the first place that Christ comes to redeem us. In the Fall, their first sin was a sin of pride, the sin of exalting themselves, and it's the Lord who came and humbled the Lord. But in response, the Lord Jesus comes to undo that same sin, and what is the remedy? Humility and obedience to the Father. He comes, empties himself and takes on our flesh, and saves us. Without humility, we are lost, and only with humility are we saved. So we must have it, but how do we get it? How do we grow in this virtue that's the foundation of everything that we do and are as Christians. 

St. Benedict has this nice little 12 step approach where you can climb the ladder of humility. I have a hard time remembering three points quite often, so I don't expect you to remember twelve points, so if you want to find them out, you can find it HERE. I'd like to bring what he says and that part of the rule, as well as other writings, and it's emphasized in three main points. 

The first point is to pray for humility. To pray for humility is immediately to recognize that I can't do it myself. If I'm pretty sure I can make myself humble by my own will and my own choosing, I am at the height of pride. It's only the Lord who gives us the grace to be humble; it's only He who allows us that virtue to be alive in our hearts. So the Lord Jesus comes and He gives us the graces as we ask them. Pray for humility, seek it out, ask for the gift - to seek, to ask, to knock - and to know that it will be given to us. If you want a specific prayer, I encourage you in praying the Litany of Humility (found HERE), a wonderful prayer composed by a cardinal about a hundred years ago. The Litany of Humility is a profound prayer; it strikes at the root and it hurts a little bit whenever you pray it. The first time I prayed it, I felt pretty rough afterward like "Lord, we got some work to do!" The priest who first introduced me to it said that when he was given the Litany of Humility, he read through it and was so afraid to pray it that he gave it to a religious sister and asked her to pray it on his behalf. He became a good and holy priest, so apparently her prayers were effective. But it's first and foremost to pray for humility. 

The second thing is to allow humility to come forth in our speech, to allow our conversation to be marked by humility. Archbishop Fulton Sheen was remarking that in a particular chapter of one of the letters of St. Paul the words "I," "me," and "my," were a litany, where it seemed like every fourth word, something to the effect of over 30 times in a single chapter. He said these words over and over again, and at the end of the chapter he paused to reflect upon the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and how that was His glory. Archbishop Sheen said it's interesting to note the next chapter of the letter doesn't mention "I," "me," or "my" once. How often in our conversation it can turn to "I," the focus upon myself. But as we turn to the Lord and allow Him to increase humility within us, as we allow Him to convert our hearts, it becomes more about the other than about myself. And that's what the Lord calls us to - to be conscience of our words and to focus on asking the other things - to focus on you rather than I. Simply that practice trains our mind, thoughts and speech to focus on the other, but not just in those types of things but even in the midst of conversation how easy it is for our conversations to be for a purpose of us gaining something for me, and not always in a positive sense. To gain knowledge, wisdom or spiritual insight is good, but to gossip for the gain of power and authority over someone else, because you know what they did or didn't do, is not good. So to gain for ourselves in a wicked sense, an evil sense, is not of God. So the Lord too invites us there too to seek humility, to humble ourselves and focus on others that they might be exalted.

The last thing is to do things that humble us. The Lord Jesus says explicitly in scripture to go take take the lowest seat so that whenever the host comes they can say to take the higher seat, rather than to take the higher seat and have the host come and say "Hey, you're not number one, sorry," and have you move down. What a tragedy that is, what shame is experienced, humiliation, embarrassment. And so the Lord invites us to be humble, ourselves. And here's the catch, no matter what, the Lord will always allow us to gain graces of humility; it’s just a matter of whether we gain them by choosing to humble ourselves or Him sending humiliations our way. Personally, I'd like to have a little say in how I get humbled - maybe that's my pride - so I can choose the situations rather than to be unexpectedly publicly embarrassed. So for us to take up those actions of humility, so that we grow in it ourselves by our own choosing and desire, rather than to wait for someone else to knock us off our horse. 

The Lord calls us to humility in a great way, but He also shows us here at Mass. That's something that I think we can reflect upon much more deeply - the humility the Lord expresses here in this offering. He does each of those things: the prayer of humility, the words of humility, the actions of humility. The Lord Jesus invites us to come here; it's incredible in itself. Our first readings says that you're not coming to something that you can simply touch and experience. You're coming to the dwelling place of God. You're coming to the Holy City - Zion. You're coming to meet our Lord. By the simple fact that we are here today should bring us to our knees in humility, and indeed it does in various parts of the Mass. To be humbled to come and to speak with our God - to love Him and to be loved by Him. 

The prayers in the Mass, as I spoke about last weekend, invite us to humility. Lord have mercy ... Lord I'm not worthy ... Thanks be to God ... these sorts of things are the words that we speak that the Lord gives to us. I think one of the things most often and easily overlooked because it's so normal to us, regretfully, is the humility of the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist. St. Peter Julian Eymard, in his reflections on the Eucharist, says the fact that Jesus comes among us in the Eucharist is the highest expression of His humility. It was incredible that He came among us as flesh, but in His own flesh and blood. He could walk away, He could go away, He could do all these things whenever people came to attack Him. He could've left. But in the Eucharist, anything that happens to Him, He humbly submits. He chooses obedience to the Father, and to us. We could take the Host and toss it in the yard, throw it in the street, use it for target practice, and the Lord would not once stop us. Not once. It would be a sacrilege and very serious sin, but He wouldn’t stop us. That's the humility of Christ Jesus who loves us, who came to sacrifice Himself for us. That's the humility of Christ, and it's that humility that he invites us to - to be able to draw near to Him, to allow Him to teach us by words and by deeds, what it is to be humble, what it is to know the truth and to live it. What we can do and what God can do.

Receiving in Faith

Babe Ruth and the Bread of Life

Readings for Sunday, May 29 (Corpus Christi Sunday):

Genesis 14:18-20

Psalm 110

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Luke 9:11-17

The year was 1962. Scotty Smalls had just moved to a new home in Los Angeles and was looking to make some friends. He found a group of neighborhood boys, but was unfamiliar with the game of the baseball that seemed to consume their free time. He soon began to be introduced to America’s favorite pastime as the boys played on a local field. One day the boys were playing when a hard hit knocked the cover right off the ball! They were amazed but also upset because it was their only ball. Scotty  said, ‘I have a ball!’ and ran home to grab the ball set upon his father’s shelf. He came back and, because of the gift of the ball to the team, was given first chance to bat. He hit the ball as far as he ever had; right over the fence into the neighbor’s yard that restrained a dog that consumed everything that went into it. Scotty began to get upset because he knew his father would be upset, especially because the ball has someone’s name on it… Babe… something. The boys around him began to freak out when they realized they had just played with and lost a Babe Ruth autographed baseball, explaining the importance of such an item to Scotty, who had until then never heard the name. Providence was on their side, as the boys soon made their way to the home of the neighbor who himself had a Babe Ruth autographed ball and was willing to give it to Scotty. In the end everything was resolved and Scotty fell in love with the game that he had previously known nothing about.

In case you haven’t caught on by now, that is the storyline of the movie The Sandlot. It came out in 1993, so I wasn’t worried about spoiler alerts because if you haven’t seen it by now, you probably won’t. This movie came to mind because Scotty held within his hand an item of great value and yet he was totally unaware of it until it was explained to him.

In the Gospel we just heard there is a little point that caught my attention this time that never had that emphasized the same point to me about this miracle. When I’ve preached on this passage in the past it is usually concerned with the clear connections to the Last Supper and the words that tie the two together; how Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to His disciples, and they then gave it to others afterward. The phrasing is rather obvious that it is a reference to what would later happen and that which we celebrate every Mass: the giving of the Eucharist to the Church. At times I have done a bit of pondering on the meaning of the twelve wicker baskets, a specific detail mentioned here. But I never for a moment gave consideration to the fact that the Lord had the disciples pick up the fragments themselves.

The Lord knew they were in a deserted place and that the people would still have to travel to find lodging or to return to their homes. It would have been logical for Him to say, ‘Okay, there is a bit of extra bread for each of you, so take it with you for the journey home.’ But He didn’t. He had the disciples gather it back up, for what reason we are unsure. (One parishioner this weekend suggested maybe it was for a nice bread pudding. I’ll leave that for your contemplation.) What intrigued me was that even if the Lord had explicitly given the bread to the people, it would have been okay to leave it for the birds and beasts to consume. And yet, it was intentionally gathered again. The bread pointed toward the Eucharist that would eventually be given, and so important was that reality that even the SYMBOL of it deserved respect. And so the bread was gathered and carried away for the Lord’s future plan.

This weekend we celebrate Corpus Christi Sunday, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord. The Church reminds us on this feast that what we receive is not a symbol, reminder, representation, or remembrance of what Jesus did. It is making present again the one sacrifice Jesus made of Himself on the Cross; it is the Lord Himself that is present in the Host and Chalice, not merely signs of Him. This is an essential point of the Catholic faith and something that distinguishes us from the numerous protestant denominations found throughout the world. For the rest of this homily I would like to move from the normal homily style to a more catechetical approach, addressing a number of questions and important points on the Eucharist that I’ve been asked and encountered at times through my ministry. So if you get bored listening to me, just talk to Him.

The first section is etiquette. When we come into church we genuflect. We all know that. At our church and chapel the tabernacle with the Hosts is in the center, so it’s normal to genuflect toward the center. If, however, the tabernacle is off to the side, it is proper to genuflect in the direction of the Blessed Sacrament and not simply toward the middle. If the Blessed Sacrament is not reserved at the church or chapel, then one simply bows to the altar. And because details are important, we genuflect by bringing our right knee to the floor because we want to be on the right hand of the Father in heaven and so everything we do is the right – right knee, right hand for sign of the cross, etc.

What about Adoration? If you come into or exit a church or chapel and Eucharistic Adoration is taking place, the traditional posture is a ‘double genuflection’ in which you kneel down on both knees and bow slightly toward the Blessed Sacrament. These two points are, of course, acknowledge that some of us don’t have two good knees, and sometimes not even one. So we do the best we can in the situation.

Why do we call a Host a Host? This was something I hadn’t ever wondered about, but the answer really lifted up my heart. At the beginning of Adoration/Benediction we sing the chant ‘O salutaris hostia’ which means ‘O saving victim’. The word ‘host’ references the fact that what we receive is not bread nor some symbol, but the Victim Himself, Jesus Christ the Lamb of God slain for our salvation!

What happens if a Host is dropped? This has happened at some point  to nearly every person who receives Holy Communion in the hand; the handoff is poor and Our Lord falls to the floor. At that point, we have two options. First, we can eat the Host off the floor (by picking it up, not by getting down on all fours like a dog!) or we can get the Host and give it to the minister and they will give another Host and care for the Host that was dropped. The Church also prescribes that the place where the Host fell be purified by a special process of cleansing with water and liturgical linens. It’s hard to do on carpet, but we do the best we can.

What happens if a Host is found in the pew, on the floor, in the missalette, or somewhere else? You look at me like I’m crazy, but this has happened in other places and it is something to be aware of. If this is the case, I would ask you to bring it to me immediately and indicate where you found it. If I am not around and nobody else is in the office, I ask you to place it on the altar in front of the tabernacle and let us know by phone call or email what happened.

Which brings me to the next point: if you see someone receive the Host in their hand and not consume it, it is okay to approach them about it. You can simply ask “Are you going to consume that?” and if not, then I ask you to get it from them and bring it to the altar. If you don’t feel comfortable, I do, so please don’t hesitate if you know for a fact a Host has been taken but not consumed.

Can a non-Catholic receive Holy Communion and can we receive communion in their services? The answer to both is ‘No.’ As Catholics, we profess that receiving Holy Communion is not simply a sign of our union with Jesus but also being in Communion with the Catholic Church and her teachings. This is why those who  object to the essential teachings of the Church are asked to refrain from the Sacrament. For someone to come to our Church and receive Holy Communion is to speak a lie that they are in Communion, when in fact they are not. And the same for us in attending other places. It is good for us to be present at other communities from time to time for celebrations such as weddings, funerals, and the like. But being there does not mean we ought to receive Communion, since in doing so the Catholic Church would understand it as being in union of belief with that particular community, which I pray would not be the case. It’s not a matter of the Church not wanting others to receive Holy Communion, but a case of the Church wanting to honor the Blessed Sacrament and to highlight the disunity in the Body of Christ that calls us to continue to work toward greater union.

Can we do intinction? Intinction is a proper term for when a Host is taken and dipped into the chalice of the Precious Blood and both received at once. This is not permitted for the laity to do for themselves and I’m not permitted to do it for others under normal circumstances either. In fact, the only time I’ve done it is when I was concelebrating Mass when sick and wanted to refrain from spreading my illness by receiving directly from the chalice (a priest is required to receive both species when offering Mass). It is contrary to law and can be a cause of profanation of the Blessed Sacrament if the Host dipped were to drip some of the Precious Blood onto shoes, shirts, dresses, the floor, etc.

Do I have to receive both the Host and the Precious Blood? No. The Church has given us the term ‘concomitance’ as a way of explaining that when we receive on species, either the Host or the Blood, we receive the fullness of Jesus – body, blood, soul, and divinity. We don’t receive half and half, but the fullness of Christ. The reception of both is not obligatory, but doing so is a ‘fuller sign’ of the gift that Christ gave at the Last Supper. This means that one who has issues with gluten or alcohol may receive under one form and not be deprived of even the smallest bit of grace.

Should I receive on the tongue or in the hand? Both are permitted, but either way I ask that you really focus on reverence in receiving. If you receive on the tongue, it is good to make sure to stick out your tongue and open your mouth far enough to permit easy distribution. A good general rule is to touch the tip of your tongue to the bottom of your bottom lip. If you receive in the hand, it is good to be attentive to the particles that may come from the Host and remain on your hand. Remember that even the smallest particle is still the fullness of Christ. So be sure to check your hand and fingers used to receive Communion – you’ll be surprised sometimes to find the little pieces still present.

The last ones are the questions that can be a bit contentious. The Church requires that those who receive Holy Communion do so in a state of grace. This means that we have not committed any mortal sin since our last sacramental confession. Often I’ve heard it said that skipping Sunday Mass is no longer a serious matter, but that is wrong. To intentionally skip Sunday Mass is to tell the Lord that we have something better to do than worship Him, which is a serious thing. There are exceptions such as illness, inability to get to church safely, some types of work, and other sensible occasions. But as the norm, we ought to be here every Sunday. If you find yourself in a state of mortal sin rather than grace, get to confession as quickly as possible! Please do not receive Holy Communion for fear of what others may think – it is far better to have people talk about us than for us to receive Holy Communion poorly. Make use of confession as often as needed and receive Communion well.

The Church requires an hour of fasting before receiving Holy Communion. This is simply for us to have a period of time for our body to prepare to receive the Blessed Sacrament. Exceptions can be made for diabetics, those with medical issues, and various other issues that might require one to eat within that timeframe, but under normal circumstances we ought to wait an hour after eating. If you haven’t fasted, it is okay to make a ‘spiritual communion’ to ask for the grace that you would have gained from the Eucharist. The Lord honors our desire for Him!

Can a divorced person receive Holy Communion? If a person is simply divorced, they can and should received Holy Communion. There is no excommunication or restriction for one who has been divorced. The problem comes when one who is divorced remarries without an annulment; then those parties would be expected to refrain from receiving Holy Communion until an annulment would be investigated and (hopefully) granted. This is not a matter of the Church being cruel to people but rather it is that hard side of the Church honoring the Sacrament of Matrimony. We always presume that the profession of legitimate marital vows is valid until explicitly shown to be otherwise. This means that when one marries after being divorced, it is a question that must be resolved because the Church sees the party (or parties) as married to one person, but living as spouse to another person. It’s not a matter of cruelty but of clarity and ensuring that bonds created by God are respected.

Some of these things can be quit sensitive and painful to discuss, but I invite anyone who is struggling or concerned in any manner to come talk with me. In the end, while some of these things can seem a bit picky, they are important. Too many people come forward to Holy Communion like Scotty Smalls, unaware of the incredible value of the reality before us. All the money in the world would not be enough to purchase this great gift, and yet the Lord longs to give it to us freely and frequently. May the good Lord increase our faith, our piety, and our love for the Blessed Sacrament.  And may we come to know the richness of the gift we receive.

Preparing by Receiving

Readings for Sunday, December 20/ 4th Sunday of Advent:
Micah 5:1-4
Psalm 80
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45

In the past three weeks we’ve looked at preparing for the Lord’s coming by singing and lifting up our hearts, seeking reconciliation with God and others, and by giving of the gifts we’ve received. As we celebrate this last weekend of Advent, the way of preparation I invite you to join me in is reflecting on how we respond when He comes to us here at Mass. It’s been said that each Mass is like a mini-Christmas, with the Christ coming in flesh and blood her on the altar, surrounded by swaddling altar cloths and receiving the song of the angels as on the night of His birth.

The Gospel is the continuation of the story of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her the plan of God and her place in it. Some have said that Mary goes out in haste to Elizabeth’s house because she’s afraid of what Gabriel revealed to her, but that doesn’t sound like the Blessed Mother who joins her Son in crushing the head of Satan. Instead of hastening in fear, she does so filled with a heart of charity. Having given her ‘yes’ to the Lord through the angel, she conceived the Lord God in her womb and having contact with Christ, she is compelled by charity to reach out to her cousin Elizabeth, who will most certainly be in need of assistance. Upon her arrival, St. John the Baptist leaps in the womb of Elizabeth and the proclamation of the Savior begins. St. Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Spirit, cries out in a loud voice praising God and acknowledging Mary as the mother of her Lord. What strikes me is that each of these three people encounters Christ and responds immediately with some physical response – hastening to the countryside, leaping in the womb, crying out in praise. So how do we respond?

Before we look at how we respond, let’s look at how we prepare. The Church invites us to prepare for Holy Communion in specific ways. First is to be able to fast for one hour before receiving Holy Communion (this includes gum!). Some of you may remember a time when you were prohibited from eating or drinking anything other than water after midnight. The point of that was to have a little bit of hunger in the stomach to remind us that we ought to hunger for Christ above all things and that he alone is the one who can satisfy the longings of our hearts. The current practice of a one hour fast doesn’t give us the hunger pangs in our stomach, but it can provide us the chance to simply be mindful about preparing ourselves to receive Our Lord. A second thing the Church invites us to do in preparing for Holy Communion is ensuring that we’re in a state of grace. If we are in a state of mortal sin (from having intentionally skipped Sunday Mass or some other serious sin), then the Church advises us not to receive Holy Communion because we have separated ourselves from the Lord by sin and so what is done in our body (Communion) is not the reality in our soul (separation). Being in these two states, the Church further advises (but doesn’t mandate) that we spend some time actually preparing our mind and heart for the encounter with Jesus Christ by observing silence, spending some moments in prayer, and entering into the prayer of the Mass.

The preparation leads to the encounter itself: the joy of receiving Holy Communion. Prior to the 1970’s Holy Communion was received kneeling and on the tongue exclusively. Since then the practice has become rather widespread to receive standing and in the hand. Interestingly, the Church never said we should change the posture of receiving Holy Communion and still sees reception standing and in the hand as a permission in certain conditions, but not a universal norm. The reason is because the Most Blessed Sacrament is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ our God and we are invited to acknowledge such in our actions, much like Mary, John & Elizabeth. Kneeling to receive Holy Communion forces one to be humbled before the Lord and experience it as a unique moment. When else do we kneel down in the course of our daily life to celebrate the arrival of a particular person? Never. Not only that, but the reception on the tongue also has spiritual and practical implications. The spiritual aspect is that in simply opening our mouth to receive the Host, we acknowledge that it is the Lord who feeds us our daily bread – including the Eucharist – and increases our trust in Him. We can call to mind the words of Psalm 81 when the Lord says to us “Open your mouth and I will feed you.” Practically, it helps to reverence the Blessed Sacrament. Some of you may have noticed that after consecrating the Sacred Host I keep my thumb and forefinger together for the rest of the prayers until the vessels are purified. This is because I know that the bread for the hosts isn’t entirely crumb-free, but that there are small pieces of the Blessed Sacrament on my hands and I don’t want them to be lost in the book, on the altar, the floor, my microphone or any other place. My invitation to you is that if you do choose to receive Holy Communion in the hand, then be mindful of what you’re doing. Bow before you come forward to receive, but then after receiving, look at your hand to see if any small pieces remain. The Council of Trent in the 1500’s clearly stated that if a particle of the Consecrated Host can be seen, it contains the fullness of Divine Life. So…please, look at your hands. Notice if there is even the smallest of pieces and consume it rather than letting it fall to who-knows-where. If we held the Infant Lord in our hands, we would reverence Him with great care and love. Why not honor the Eucharist the same?

And after encountering our Lord…we ask ourselves ‘what should we do?’ like the people last weekend. We should pause for a moment and speak the Lord. In the silence of our heart we respond to the fact that our Lord is not an impersonal Lord but a person who desires to speak and be spoken to. In the encounter we speak the desires and needs of our hearts, we lift up praise like Elizabeth for the good things He’s done. Then having conversed with Our Lord we then go out and share the good news of the God who love us.

So how do we prepare for the coming of the Lord? Celebrate Him well each week and draw nearer to Him each day. What better way to honor ‘God with us’.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Source of Eternal Life. Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

The Invitation (John 6 - Part 5)

Readings for Sunday, August 23 / 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18
Psalm 34
Ephesians 5:21-32
John 6:60-69

“Wives should be subordinate to their husbands.”

I laughed a bit to myself as I was praying with the readings this week, as having this feather-ruffling reading from St. Paul alongside the conclusion of the 5-week series on John 6 makes for a easy ‘out’ for all the priests who ‘would love to address St. Paul’s words’ but ‘really need to focus on this last week about the Eucharist’. But my thought is why not do both?

The words of St. Paul that we just heard a moment ago are incredibly beautiful and powerful message to husbands and wives. It should be the joy of two hearts to hear them on their wedding day, and yet how rarely they are heard. Why? Because our culture doesn’t understand them. When the world today hears the words “wives should be subordinate to their husbands” walls immediately go up against them on account of their supposed misogynistic viewpoint that presumes that St. Paul has as his goal the suppression of women, particularly in their marital relationships. But let’s look at it for a moment. If you look at the meaning of the word ‘subordinate’ that is used here the Latin root translates as ‘put under’ or ‘to plunge into’. St. Paul is inviting wives to places themselves under the care of their husbands as to the Lord, with complete trust. But why place themselves under their husband? Why not alongside? To understand we simply look to the call of St. Paul to husbands in regards to their wives: ‘love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her.’ What is interesting here is that the call of a women is to place herself under the direction or order of her husband, while the call of a husband is to be able to lay down his life in service of his bride, as Christ did for the Church, to make her beauty and holy. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing at all to me! Recognizing the beauty of it is easy; living it is not. To live this mutual submission to one another requires an immense amount of trust. Trust on the part of the wife that her husband will not abuse the role of husband and become an oppressor. And trust on the part of the husband that his self-gift will be received by his wife for her own good and not simply disregarded. It’s all about trust.

And this is exactly where the Lord brings us with this last of the five weeks’ reflections on John 6. In recent weeks Jesus has said and done some really incredible things. We saw his authority-claiming actions of climbing the mountain, sitting, and performing the miracle of feeding 5000+ people with a few loaves and fish. He spoke to us of manna & quail that failed to satisfy and a True Bread that would satisfy not only a small nation but the entire world. He took it a step further and announced that the True Bread would be His very own flesh and by eating it we could attain heavenly life. And then He capped it all off by saying that it was not only His flesh that we would have to eat, repulsive enough an idea as it was, but that we would also have to drink His blood to have that heavenly life. After hearing this litany of absurd claims, we could easily place in this context the command of Joshua to the Israelites: Decide today whom you will serve!

Again, we know the difficulty of accepting so many of the things that the Lord has spoken to us because they are outside of our understanding, contradict so much of what seems common sense, and makes a claim that is absolutely incredibly. Really, after hearing this speech you have to believe either Jesus is the real deal and He can give everything He says OR He’s a raving lunatic who needs to be cast aside and ignored as one who has no grasp on reality. Many of his disciples, we hear, left that day. His disciples. Not just the people who followed Him to get some food, but the disciples who had been walking with Him for days, weeks, maybe months by this point. It was too much for them to take; they couldn’t trust in the words He spoke. What I find fascinating is that Jesus doesn’t go groveling, trying to get them to come back to Him. He simply turns to the disciples and says, ‘Do you also want to leave?’

I love Peter’s response because it’s honest. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the worlds of eternal life.” Notice that he doesn’t say ‘No, Lord, I don’t want to leave.’ You can almost read the confusion in his response. It’s as if he is saying ‘Lord, I don’t understand what you mean entirely and I don’t know how you’re going to make it happen, and it causes me discomfort to hear it, but I’m going to trust you and keep going. You have the words of eternal life. I’m gonna trust you.’ I may be interpreting it wrongly, but it sounds as if Peter doesn’t completely understand everything himself just yet but that he’s willing to keep on the journey.

And the invitation is extended to us the same. Can we every fully understand the Eucharist? No. Will we ever really be able to wrap our minds around the mystical words that Jesus says and the miraculous things that He does? No. Are we ever going to reach a point when the Eucharist doesn’t require of us a radical act of faith? I don’t think so. Because that’s the whole point. Jesus invites every human person to an encounter with Him, particularly in the Eucharist. The question is whether we are able to trust Him enough to believe and follow despite our lack of understanding?

Decide today whom you will serve? As for me an my house, we will serve the Lord.