The Priest - Homily for November 5

Readings for Sunday, November 5 / 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time: Malachi 1:14-2:2, 8-10  |  Psalm 131  |  1 Thessalonians 2:7-9, 13  |  Matthew 23:1-12

The priest exercises an office of great dignity, but if he forgets the dignity is not his own he is the greatest of fools. Let us pray for our priests to recognize the dignity of their vocation and exercise humility in carrying it out. Let us pray, too, for more young men to respond to this great call to give one's life for the good of the Church.

Papal Intentions for April 2017

Papal Intention for April 2017

Pope's Prayer Intention - Young People: That young people may respond generously to their vocations and seriously consider offering themselves to God in the priesthood or consecrated life.

Urgent Intention - Landslide Victims: Victims of the landslide in Colombia and peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Venezuela, and Paraguay.

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.

Papal Intentions for June 2015

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.

Papal Intentions for June 2015

Universal Intention: That immigrants and refugees may find welcome and respect in the countries to which they come.

Mission Intention: That the personal encounter with Jesus may arouse in many young people the desire to offer their own lives in priesthood or consecrated life.

The Most Important Sacrament

Readings for Sunday, February 15/ 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46
Psalm 32:1-1, 5, 11
1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1
Mark 1:40-45

One day in seminary our sacramental theology professor simply asked us the question, “Which sacrament is most important?” and off we went each debating the importance of the sacraments and essentially playing a highly theological game of paper-rock-scissors, as each point was able to be trumped by another. In the end the point of the exercise was to recognize that each sacrament of the Church really is ‘the most important sacrament’ in regards to some specific situation or theological truth.

A couple of weeks ago I preached about the priesthood and the weight that it can sometimes carry for those who exercise such a ministry. In practical terms, this often comes out as the community looking to the priest as having the more difficult vocation and ‘taking one for the team’ by not getting married and serving the Church. While this latter view is clearly a poor understanding of the priesthood, it seems to me in many respects that the former assertion is also false. Why so? Because while I may be obliged to a higher level of holiness because of my ordination, at the end of the day I return to a rectory wherein I can leave my stuff where I feel like it, I can wash the dishes or just leave them in the sink, I can squeeze the toothpaste tube wherever I want, etc. In short, priestly life is intense when in the community but in the rectory I am left to myself and able to maintain a life according to my preferences and not be concerned about others’ conflicting with mine. A married person does not have that luxury but necessary interacts with another person – and in a family, multiple people – who challenge some of those preferences and provides the raw material of growing in holiness, namely the opportunity to serve others rather than self.

When I asked several ladies at my previous parish assignment the secret to a good marriage they quickly responded ‘separate sinks, separate closets, and a lot of love’. This gets to that reality that marriage necessarily involves some challenges to the personal space and preferences, but even more, it confirmed what every single one of us knows about relationships: that love must necessarily be present for it to work.

In the scriptures we just heard proclaimed we hear about the life of lepers. To be a leper was bad enough just from the illness itself, but this was intensified by the isolation that accompanied the illness. In the Jewish context, to be a leper made one unclean. To be unclean wasn’t that one was a sinner, so much as they were unable to enter into worship at the Temple. To be unclean was also a restriction in interacting with others because if an ‘unclean person’ touched a ‘clean person’ then they were both unclean. For this reason, and for health reasons with the leprosy, the lepers were made to keep their bodies visible for others to see the illness and stay free from them. Additionally, they had to shout ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ as they walked around so that others might stay clear of them.  And if that weren’t bad enough, they were made to dwell outside the camp away from the community. Imagine the intense isolation that one felt in such  a situation; separated from family, friends, the larger community, and even your God! The human person simply cannot take such isolation. It’s written in our hearts to love and give love to others. Remember the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. What happens when he finds himself stranded alone on an island? He finds a volleyball, makes a face on it and give it a name all in an attempt to have an ‘other’ with which to interact. That’s why the leper in the gospel responds the way that he does. Some might be shocked that he disobeyed the command of Jesus not to tell anyone but, honestly, I would be shocked if he hadn’t gone to tell everyone. Imagine the joy of being able to go tell everyone what God had done when before he hadn’t even been able to interact with others.

Again, the need to be in relationship with others is written in our hearts and the God Who put it there knows that need and created the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony as a way to fulfill it for those called to the vocation. I say vocation because it is indeed a calling from God. Often when we hear ‘vocations’ we think only of priesthood and religious life, but the Church has always held marriage as a sacred vocation and the basic cell of the Church and the world. It is only by holy marriages that the faith is passed from generation to generation, as the family is the place in which faith is first learned, later deepened, and later personalized in the vocations of the youth. This all happens to the extent that the family resembles the Blessed Trinity. You thought the burden was heavy for me simply to try to live up to being Christ Jesus in the midst of a community, but the family is called to image in a similar way the Trinity itself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in your complete gift of self and outpouring of love for the other. The family, founded on a holy marriage, is a place in which the world should look and find the face of the Triune God. Married people: do you feel the weight of that?

All of that is the reason the Church calls people to marriage not on the beach, the mountains or the nice plantation home, but at the altar of God. It is recognizing that God joins the couple together and it is God alone who can sustain them. Just as the man in the Gospel was able to enter once more into relationship with the community by the healing of Jesus, so too Jesus works in a miraculous way to unite two souls together in Holy Matrimony and sustains them in His love and grace so as to be that image of love for the world despite the trials, temptations, and sufferings that come with the natural course of life. This weekend we honor those who are celebrating special anniversaries this year in recognition of their fidelity to each other and the Lord, to set them as models for younger couples to look to for encouragement and wisdom, and to honor the God who has held them in His embrace since their wedding day. May the Lord continue to watch over them and all married couples, strengthening their love for each other, blessing them in their families, and training them in holiness so as to spend eternity together beholding the face of our God.

...pray for us.

Readings for Sunday, February 1/ 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
1 Corinthians 7:32-35
Mark 1:21-28

What is a Priest?

(by Catherine Doherty)

A priest is a lover of God.

A priest is a lover of men.

A priest is a holy man.

A priest understands all things.

A priest forgives all things.

A priest encompasses all things.

The heart of a priest is pierced, like Christ's, with the lance of love.

The heart of a priest is open, like Christ's, for the whole world to walk through.

The heart of a priest is a vessel of compassion.

The heart of a priest is a chalice of love.

The heart of a priest is the trysting place of human and divine love.

A priest is a man whose goal is to be another Christ; a priest is a man who lives to serve.

A priest is a man who has crucified himself so that he too may be lifted up and draw all things to Christ.

A priest is a man in love with God.

A priest is the gift of God to man and of man to God.

A priest is the symbol of the Word made flesh.

A priest is the naked sword of God's justice.

A priest is the hand of God's mercy.

A priest is the reflection of God's love.

Nothing can be greater in this world than a priest, nothing but God himself.

*********

At Madonna House's Retreat House for Priests

I’ve always been hesitant to preach about the priesthood from the pulpit because I don’t want it to appear that I’m getting up here to blow my own horn and let everyone know how awesome priests are (implicitly highlighting myself in that).  But a couple of weeks back when I was on the March for Life one of my brother priests began his homily talking about priests and it gave me a bit of encouragement. Additionally, I recall the fact that priests are not special in themselves but only because they are in fact priests. In the same manner that a chalice is precious because of what it holds in Mass and a church is sacred because of the worship that takes place within it, in the same manner, a priest is sacred not because of himself but because of what God has worked in his soul.

In recent weeks I’ve experienced a number of things that have made me reflect much more on this question of ‘What is a priest?’ It began with the celebration of Christmas and my first experience of being the pastor of a parish in one of the most important feasts of the year. The ability to be part of so many lives and families was incredible and I can’t thank you all enough for the joy of this first of hopefully many Christmases here. Following that was Msgr. Berggreen’s 50^th Anniversary Mass over in New Roads. The Church was full of people representing 50 years of his priestly ministry, barely an empty spot to stand. The following weekend we regrettably celebrated Fr. Clarence Waguespack’s funeral Mass in Pierre Part and there too encountered a church full of people present to give thanks to God for Fr. Waguespacks’ 51 years of priestly ministry. And this Saturday we celebrated the funeral Mass of our own Vicar General, Fr. Than Vu, who, though only 56 years of age, had a profound impact upon many souls. Once again, it was a church full of people with not an extra spot to stand. These events drove home to me the meaning and truth of the words of Catherine Doherty: “The heart of a priest is open, like Christ’s, for the whole world to walk through.”

In our baptism, each of us was anointing with Sacred Chrism Oil and were united to the mission of Jesus as priest, prophet, and king. Each of us is called to serve in a priestly manner by our prayers and sacrifice of self for the good of others. We serve as prophets by speaking the Word of God and teaching other about the faith. And we serve in a kingly manner by guiding others in the path of holiness, particularly those entrusted to our care as children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. Every Christian must carry out these three aspects in some way, but the ordained priest is called to do so in a unique way, a way that is more intimately connected with the mission of Christ by virtue of the priest’s own consecration. He fulfills these obligations not simply as a member of the flock but as a shepherd.

The first reading shows us the prophetic office of the priest. The ancient prophets were understood to be direct mouthpieces of the Lord, which we see indicated by their frequent use of the phrase ‘Thus says the Lord’ and the explicit reference today of “whoever doesn’t listen to my words which he speaks…” [emphasis mine]. The priest, too, is called to be a mouthpiece of the Lord in his preaching, teaching, and guidance of the community, preaching not his own gospel but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the reason that priests’ preaching has power and authority and that it should be followed: precisely because it is not his personal teaching but the teaching of Jesus. And whoa to me if I do not preach the Gospel, as St. Paul says in his letter, because if you caught that last line of the reading, you know that if a priest preaches his own word instead of the Word of God… he dies. Maybe not physically but certainly spiritually. If I ever start preaching something other than the teaching of Jesus and the Church, you should call the bishop ASAP and let him know he has a dead priest on his hands and you need a new shepherd!

The Gospel speaks to us clearly of the authority that Jesus had (and still has!); how He cast out demons and they listened, unlike anything they had ever seen before. Jesus’ power was something to behold and that same power was given to His Apostles, His priests. Often times when we hear about power we think about it in a heavy-handed sort of way, but the authority that Christ gives His priests is one of service. The power and authority of Christ was given to the Apostles to work ‘in persona Christi capitis’ (in the person of Christ the head) in order to bring healing to people. In the celebration of the sacraments, a priest always wears a stole - an ancient sign of the authority –  to show that he is acting in the person of Christ and that it is truly Christ Who works. In reconciliation it is Christ who absolves us. In baptism, it is Christ who cleanses us. In the anointing of the sick, it is Christ who anoints us. And when the priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer at Mass, it is Christ who says “This is My Body.” If you think about it, the priest doesn’t really get anything out of his actions of authority other than the ability to serve others and bring them into an encounter with the God of Creation.

Litany of Supplication for my ordination

The priestly piece comes in our second reading from the letter to the Corinthians. There it speaks of the unmarried man and woman being anxious only about the things of the Lord. A married man or woman is necessarily divided between their obligations to family and to the Lord. That’s not a bad thing at all; in fact, it’s the will of God! What parent would spend their day in prayer and neglect the needs of their family for food, medical care, or means for education? But this is the reason for the celibate vocation of the priest, as well as the religious brother or sister.  I’ve often had people express a desire for priests to be able to marry and for many good reasons and not with any ill intentions, but the religious and priest is called to be free of marriage in order to give everything to Christ. When the bishop calls and assigned me here, I didn’t have to worry about my wife’s job or kids’ schooling. I was able simply to pack up and come. When the bishops sends a man for further studies in Rome for a couple of years, he need not be concerned with providing for a family left behind. And in the midst of regular life as a priest, I need not be concerned with providing for a single family as a married man would. Instead, I am called simply to give everything that I have to Jesus Christ and to open my heart to whoever happens to be in front of me in the moment and permit them to walk through my heart and there to find their Lord. My mission and the mission of every priest is simply to be the living presence of the loving Lord Jesus in their own community. Admittedly we fail often in that, but the mission is still entrusted to us the same.

This last word is what brings me to the point of this homily: a plea for prayer. Please pray for me and my brother priests. We need your prayers and without them we will surely be lost. All through my time in seminary I struggled to respond to the call to priestly ministry. It seemed every few weeks my spiritual director had to re-convince me that I was indeed still called. I had a whole host of concerns, but the biggest was the fear of loving others. I was watching one of those home renovation shows on HGTV the other day and the new homeowner walked into a home with carpet right in the front entryway and she remarked “Why would they have carpet here? It’s just going to get dirty when we come in!” And those words about simple carpet could well have applied to my heart. There was a fear that if I let the whole world walk into my heart with no reservation and no limits that it would surely get a bit messy. Every one of us who has ever taken the risk of loving someone else knows that sometimes that risk bites us when the one we love hurts us. I was scared and, honestly, still am at times, to open myself up to that sort of risk. And yet the Lord kept calling me to walk forward and open wide my heart.  That is possible only with the help of prayers and I say the same for my brothers in the ministry. We are men of the Church. We are men for the Church. But we cannot be men without the Church. So I ask you to join me in a brief litany of saints to pray for priests throughout the world.

Good St. Joseph, pray for them.

St. Jean Vianney, pray for them.

St. Alphonsus Liguouri, pray for them.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for them.

St. Ann, pray for them.

St. Vincent de Paul, pray for them.

Mary, mother of priests, pray for them.

We All Like Stories

Readings for Sunday, January 4/ Epiphany:
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-13
Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

Everyone likes a good story. If you think about it, much of our lives revolve around stories. We’re drawn into stories as we watch movies and tv shows. We’re drawn into stories as we read our books and articles. I guarantee you that right now half of my facebook newsfeed is filled with stories: this inspiring story, that tragic one, this one that’s sure to make you cry (as if that’s gonna make me click on it!), and so on. Even our daily conversations are often simply telling stories to one another about what happened recently or in the past. Stories have a magical power that permits someone who is otherwise separate from a situation to have access to it – to be able to enter into a situation vicariously and have something of the same encounter.

The other day I was visiting with a friend who is applying to the seminary and he was asking about what to include in the biography and how long it had to be. I said ‘Just write your story. Length and such doesn’t really matter.’ After the conversation I began to reflect on my own journey in seminary and they many times that I was asked to share my story. It seemed like the second vocation as a seminarian because it seemed like every person I met or every group I encountered sooner or later got around to the question ‘Can you tell me/us your story?’ Over time my story would grow and evolve, not because the details were different, but because I understood things differently or sometimes would emphasize something that was specifically striking to me in that time or some knew insight I had recently realized. But in the midst of it all there was the invitation to reflect with others on the ways that God has shaped and guided my life to the point where I was then as a seminarian and where I was heading.

As we listen to our Gospel today we hear recounted to us the familiar story of the Magi, those three wise men from the East who come in search of the newborn king. The gospel narratives are necessarily short in this instance. This is because the writers were typically working with expensive scrolls of a certain length and so they had to be careful only to include what was most beneficial. But the vagueness of the Scriptures does make us wonder a little bit about the Magi. A few weeks ago we had our La Posada celebration as we went in search of the Holy Family, just like the Magi. To prepare for the journey we watched a little animated video narrated not from the perspective of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but from that of the Magi. They used a little creative license, but it got me thinking about the ways God might have worked in their lives to bring them together. How they may have been all in separate places and converged as they each separately sought the Lord, a sign of unity in Christ. What were the things God used in their lives to prepare them for that blessed day of finding the Christ child? What were the stories of the things that happened along the way as they risked their lives and livelihood on this journey chasing after a star?

It’s interesting to ponder all of this, especially in light of the fact that the Church traditionally honors the Magi as saints. We can see part of the reasoning in this at the conclusion of today’s Gospel reading. It says that they received a message in a dream not to return to Herod, but that they “departed by another way.” And as Fr. Robert Barron has noted well: isn’t this always the case that when we meet Jesus, we walk away changed, by a different route as it were. In every encounter our heart is either softened like that of Peter or hardened like that of Judas. We always leave by a different route.

And what about us? What about you? If someone were to walk up to you today and ask you to tell them your story of faith, what would you say? If someone said to you ‘tell me the story of your vocation’ what would be the places that are significant? Where are the places where God has invited you to make a journey of faith chasing after your own star? Where are the places where you encountered the Lord and went off by a different route? What is your story?

Soul Cleansing

Cleansing the Temple

Readings for Sunday, November 9/ Dedication of St. John Lateran:
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
1 Corinthians 3:9-11, 16-17
John 2:13-22

Today we celebrate the feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran, one of the four Major Basilicas in Rome. The title of the feast can be a bit misleading because there is no saint named ‘John Lateran’. Rather, the church derives it’s name from its consecration to St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist and its location on the Lateran Hill in Rome. It can seem odd that the celebration of the dedication of a church in Rome would take precedence over the Sunday celebration of Mass throughout the world and yet that's the case. This is because St. John Lateran is the Popes cathedral. Most of us would think that St. Peter's would be the Holy Father’s main church, but St. Peter's only became the residence of the Holy Father a few hundred years ago. Before then, dating back to the 4th-century, St. John's was the central place for the Pope and for this reason it is given the title ‘Mother of all churches in the city and the world’. This bold, yet beautiful, title helps us understand why it is celebrated universally and with such solemnity: because it is the main reminder of God’s love for us in giving us the Church herself, from which flows all grace and spiritual life.

We see this concept of a ‘mother church’ in the first reading from Ezekiel, who saw the Temple with the water flowing from its side out to the world. That vision of life-giving water shows us plants that bear fruit times a year and draw all living creatures to find refreshment in it. That life-giving water is also a cleansing water, as we see that the river flows into the Arabah, making the saltwater fresh. This sign shows us that rather than being changed by the world, the water changes that which it touches. This water is symbolic of the grace of Christ in the church, spoken of by the Lord in various places but especially in John 3. A couple of weeks ago I preached about the Church as the Bride of Christ and we heard it referenced again today in the opening Collect. And what happens when a bride and groom get married? The two become one and from there on out, as the saying goes, ‘what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours.’ The same is true of Christ and the Church. In joining Himself to her as a spouse, the Lord gives to the Church the gift of His infinite grace to be able to spread it throughout the whole world.

It is this mystery of grace going out to the whole world that we celebrate also in this scandalous teaching of Jesus on the resurrection of the Temple. When Jesus says He would raise the Temple in three day, the hearers of that word would rightly be shocked because they had been laboring for 46 years already and weren’t done yet! And, yet, we are told that He wasn’t really talking about the Temple around them at all, but rather about the TRUE Temple – His Body. This is significant because for the Jewish people the Temple was the place to encounter God. They had synagogues to listen to God’s Word all over Israel but there was only one Temple – and it was there that sacrifice was offered and there that the Holy of Holies was, the place where God dwelt among the Israelites. And with Jesus saying He was the true Temple, He was saying in no uncertain terms ‘Do you want to see God? Here I Am.’

Here is where the mysteries tie together. The Church is often described as the Mystical Body of Christ because, according to St. Paul’s teachings, we are made members of the Body of Christ in our baptism. We are joined to His Body; it’s like having and addition to your house – except the Body of Christ has simply been rejoicing in billions of additions over the course of 2000 years. And if Christ is the Temple, the place where the Holy Spirit dwells in truth, then as we are brought into the Body of Christ, the same becomes true of us. This is why St. Paul can rightly say that we are Temples of the Holy Spirit. And if the Temple of the Jerusalem needed to be cleansed to better honor God, the same can be said of us. The cleansing of Temple happened in days of Jesus, but it is intended to continue daily in our own hearts.

This week being National Vocations Awareness Week, I’ve been thinking about my own experience of discernment and I recalled a trip I once took to Nashville, TN. A group of about 20-30 seminarians from Notre Dame in New Orleans went to visit the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. We visited with them for the day, having meals, prayer, and recreation time with them. At one point the seminarians sat down with the group of recently professed sisters and it was suggested that we each give a minute-long clip of our vocation story, and so we went. It was incredible to hear how God has worked in so many different ways and to hear where people were coming from all arriving in the same place. One of the seminarians started laughing at the end and said, “Did anyone notice the pattern?” We all looked, intrigued. He pointed out that almost every sister described her calling in terms of love – they were wooed by God, they were embraced by His Love, they found the joy of being a bride of Christ, and the like. On the opposite end, the guys all spoke in physical, often violent, terms – we were all hit with a divine 2x4, slapped upside the head, tossed into the muck of life, etc. Maybe that’s a commentary on the hard-headedness of men, but that’s another homily! But it struck me because all of us need to have the temple of our heart cleansed, but that can happen in different ways. We can give God the stuff of sin that lies within our hearts and have a gentle, loving encounter with the Lord that builds us up. Or…we can cling to our sin and let God whack us with that divine 2x4 and give up our sin then. The choice is ours, but the end will be the same.

That said, the obvious invitation now is to open the door for the grace of God to pour in and cleanse the temple of our hearts. What is that one thing you need to stop? That one sin you keep struggling with, that temptation you keep having, that mindset that seems impossible to change? I presume most of us know exactly what that thing is right now – we usually know our biggest sins without much reflection – and so the next step is to let God have it. When the offertory comes up, place you sin in the basket. Let’s let God have it and let the waters of God’s grace flow into our hearts to bring life and freshness where saltwater once rested. Let’s take this opportunity and invite the Lord to come cleanse us that we might be worthy dwelling places of the Lord, and one day be welcomed into the glory of the sanctuary of Heaven.  

Made for Heaven

Fr. Joshua Johnson

Readings for Sunday, June 1/ Ascension Sunday:
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47:2-3, 6-9
Ephesians 1:17-23
Matthew 28:16-20

I don’t know about you, but this weekend has been an incredible one from my experience. Yesterday morning I had the joy of concelebrating at the Rite of Ordination of Priests at Sacred Heart Church in Baton Rouge. Deacon Joshua Johnson walked in at 10am and Father Joshua Johnson walked out just around noon changed, a priest of Jesus Christ. The experience, as every ordination I’ve been to, was one of incredible joy and hope. The diocesan choir and gospel choir present were both beautiful and lifted our hearts to the Lord in ways that rarely happen, the bishop preached an inspiring and challenging homily, and each of us priests was filled with thoughts and sentiments of our own days of ordination. The joy was palpable and not a single person that walked out the church did so without a smile on their face and a sense of awe at what had just taken place. In the midst of it all I simply tried to soak up the moment because days like that are few and far between.

Our vocation as Christian, Pope Francis continually reminds us, is to be a people of joy, hope, and life that reach out into the world that shine with the radiant Light of Christ. But you know as well as I that we don’t have to look very far to find things going on that try to steal that joy, hope, and life from us and replace them with sorrow, frustration, and despair. The torrential downpour that left many in our community – including some of you present today – with water in your homes, the expected or unexpected death of loved ones, illness that changes your daily life drastically, or just a whole slew of little things that seem to keep going wrong. These and others are ways that the evil one wants to quench the fire of hope in our hearts. But how do we fight back? How do we keep hope when things seem so difficult for us? Heaven. Remember that you and I were not made for this life. We were made for Heaven.

The feast of the Ascension, which we celebrate today, has two main points to it. First, it is about the Lord Jesus reclaiming the glory that is rightly His. The second point is that He doesn’t go to reclaim that glory alone, but to draw us into the glory of the Trinity with Him. The feast of the Ascension is celebrated because the Lord first humbled Himself and descended to be with us, draws us to Himself like a great magnet, and hoist us back up into Heaven with Him.  In short, the Ascension reminds us of that reality that Heaven awaits us and that it is our ultimate goal. The Collect for the Mass today spoke it such a wonderful theological and visual manner: where the Head has gone in glory, we the body are called to follow. Christ wants us to be with Him in Heaven because there alone we can find our fulfillment. There alone will we know true joy. In Heaven, the joy of our hearts will be so great that the greatest thing we experience in this life will seem as very little and the worst day here will seem as though it never even existed. Heaven is a place of such great glory that we can’t even comprehend it or conceive of an idea that comes close. And that is what we were made for.

The problem that I have personally is that while I know all of this in my head, it is often difficult for me to put it into action in my daily life. So as I was preparing for this homily I focused on three ways that I myself could try to re-orient my focus to Heaven. They are to simplify, reconcile, and pray.

Simplify. I’ve mentioned before that I love books. I don’t have that many valuable possessions or possessions at all for that matter, but I do have a good number of books. It’s funny because I always buy books. I don’t read them necessarily, but I buy them to have them in case I get to read them. I keep amassing this pile of books and the reality is that while all of those books are good and holy – mostly about Christ, the Church, the Mass, and other theological things – they are things that keep me focused on earth rather than Heaven. They enable me to do exactly what they are trying to prevent me from doing! And that’s not all. I fill up my time with all sorts of various activities and other things that complicate my life rather than letting things remain simple, permitting me to lift my mind to Heaven. To simplify is to remind myself that I don’t belong here. My treasure should be elsewhere.

Reconcile. In Heaven, every person will be perfectly united with God. They will have passed through purgatory and had cast aside all that separates them from the Blessed Trinity. And if every person is perfectly united to God, then that means every person is necessarily perfectly united to one another. And you and I both know that is not how this life works, unfortunately. I see in my own life that there are people with whom I am not completely reconciled. There is still room for forgiveness, increased unity, and a willingness to set aside past hurts, pre-conceived notions, biases, and all that other junk that divides me from others in order to build up here on earth what is going to be the reality of all eternity. To reconcile with others is to build up the body of Christ here and to prepare for the joy of true unity in the life come.

Pray. My vocation is primarily to pray and secondarily to serve the people of God. That sounds rather self-centered, but if I fail to spend the necessary time in prayer then my ministry among you will not be filled with the Holy Spirit but will be filled with the spirit of Fr. Brent Maher and whatever I feel like doing, and that is not what God wants. I recognize in myself that there are times that I pray well and am grateful for it, but there are also times where I fail to pray as well as I could. It’s easy to pop in the rosary while riding the roads and simply say the words but not give my mind to the mysteries and mark of my “pray the rosary” on the spiritual checklist. It’s easy to say the words of the psalms and readings for my obligatory priestly prayers each day and check that off too. But that is not what I am called to do. I am called to enter into real prayer that changes the way that I live my life. When I really pray, when I give myself time to enter into the presence of the God of Heaven, I interact with others differently, I interact with the Lord differently, my experience of life is approached differently. Everything changes because I was with the Lord and lifted up into Heaven.

It’s not about doing grand things. It’s about being willing to do regular things, but for the Lord. I was struck by a quote from St. Jean Vianney that I read the other day. It says this: “If we would only do as much for God as we do for the world we should all be saints.” How easy it is to get caught up in the things of this life! But when we do so we set ourselves up for sorrow, frustration, and despair because we were not made for this. We were made for Heaven. Let us pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to be with us to help lift our eyes to the place that awaits us and be filled with the joy that comes from God, knowing that what awaits us is even greater.

Marriage and the Gospel Witness

Marriage of Joseph & Mary

Readings for Sunday, February 9/ 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Isaiah 58:7-10
Psalm 112:4-9
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Matthew 5:13-16

Take a moment and think of someone you admire, someone you try to emulate. What is it about that person that draws you to them? What makes you look up to them? I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you probably picked someone you know personally – a family member, friend, co-worker, or someone else in the community – and the reason you did so is because you have been struck by the way they live their life, especially in regards to attributes you believe are important. Whether they knew it or not, their life and example has changed the way you lived yours. And there are others looking to each one of us for the same.

That's what Mother Church invites us to reflect upon this weekend: the value and need for our witness in the world. The prophet Isaiah, the author of the psalm we used for our response today, and the Lord Jesus Himself call us to become world-changing witnesses - salt and light. We like food around here and everyone knows how a little bit of salt can change a whole meal. So, too, one small match can change a pile of wood into a raging bonfire. When we think of being witnesses it doesn't mean having to do great things so much as letting God use us as He desires - and sometimes it does have huge effect. But the most important part is simply putting ourselves in God's hands and witnessing to His work. This is what Saint Paul reminds us today in the letter to the Corinthians. He said, “I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of Spirit and power.” It wasn't by pretty words that people were able to be saved so much as the witness of God's grace working in Paul himself. That is what changes lives.

All of us are called to be witnesses to Christ and the Church, but as we celebrate National Marriage Week this week and World Marriage Sunday this weekend, it seems appropriate to emphasize especially the call of married couples to share this witness. Unfortunately we are seeing a serious attack on marriage and family life in our world today. The folks pushing the homosexual agenda are trying to redefine marriage itself, the throwaway culture says when marriage isn’t fun anymore to divorce and move on, and even many of our young people don't grasp the reality that marriage is a Sacrament and settle for a civil marriage outside of the Church. How true, indeed, is the powerful quote from St. Jean Vianney: “very few people invite Jesus Christ to their wedding; on the contrary, they seem to do all they can to keep Him away.” This is foolishness because it is Christ Himself who make the two become one in the first place!

The importance of marriage cannot be overstated. Holy Marriage is the basic element of family life. It is the place where children find stability and balance. Marriage is the foundation of society as a whole as society is composed largely of family units.  It is the place where the faith is first passed on to our youth. It is the place where virtue is learned most powerfully. But beyond all of that, it is a visible, tangible witness of the Gospel message itself!

The couple being a couple speaks to the fact that all of us are created for something more, that we long to be fulfilled. Marriage does this to some extent in this life, but it is God alone who can fulfill us completely and every couple reminds us that God is real and we are called to union with Him. In fact marriage is the main image used to describe the relationship between God and humanity; from the first page of Genesis to that last words of Revelation it echoes constantly. The love that spouses show to one another is a sort of echo of the love that God has for us. Because we are imperfect, there is necessarily a time when sin, faults, and failures come into the picture and so we are able to see also a witness of God's mercy in the forgiveness the show toward each other. The fidelity of God is also made manifest in the permanence of marriage. I love to hear from couples how long they have been married because it reminds me of the God who is ever faithful and also encourages me to be faithful to my own vocation despite whatever difficulties come. Whether they are aware of it or not, every married couple is speaking to the world around them something of the Gospel message itself. This is why we need Holy Marriages. We often hear that we need more priests (we do!) and that we need more religious brothers and sisters, deacons, and consecrated virgins (we do!) but the vast majority of the people who discern one of those vocations does so because they have been seeing a witness of the love, mercy, and fidelity of God in their parents from youth. Holy families produce holy vocations. 

Again, all of us are called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ in our own way. But those of you in the vocation of holy marriage are called in a special way to be living witnesses of God’s love, forgiveness, fidelity, and life. So I encourage you, spend time together as a couple and as a family. Pray together and pray for each other. I need your witness, your kids need your witness, our community and our whole world needs your witness. Please let the light of Christ shine brightly, that seeing your good deeds, we all may glorify God our Heavenly Father.

Praying for Vocations

The IVE (brothers) and SSVM (sisters)

Readings for Sunday, April 21/ 4th Sunday of Easter:
Acts 13:14, 43-52
Psalm 100:1-3, 5
Revelation 7:9, 14-17
John 10:27-30

Today we celebrate World Day of Prayer for Vocations, so Mother Church invites us to take a moment to pray for more priests, deacons, and consecrated religious, and to continue to reflect on the ways in which we are encouraging – or sadly, sometimes discouraging – religious vocations.

In the Gospel of Luke, the Lord Jesus tells His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” And so we all receive this divine mandate to pray for an increase in vocations. This increase in vocations, though, doesn’t mean that God will call more young people to pursue a religious vocation. He has created them with that in their heart already, the call to prayer is that those whom God desires to follow Him in this unique way would be able to discern that calling in their hearts and have the grace to be able to respond. The shortage of vocations is not because God isn’t calling them; it’s because so many simply don’t hear it. And so we pray. We pray for more vocations throughout the world, but we also pray for them specifically for our diocese, from our parish, and even from our own families.

This last part can often be the most challenging aspect of encouraging vocations. Everybody wants to have more priests, but so often they want that priest to come from someone else’s family. I know when I first entered seminary my mom was a bit unsure of the idea because she feared that I wouldn’t be fulfilled living a life of celibate chastity instead of having a family like most people. Indeed I have found that fulfillment and I rejoice in it, and I rejoice also that my mom sees that in me and has peace with it as well. The reality of giving up a son or daughter to Christ and His Church can be a bit scary, but if God has created them with that vocation in mind, then that is where they will find true joy in this life.

This openness and encouragement of a vocation from one’s own family is a good and necessary step, but the need for prayer is still there. It may not result in a child pursuing a religious vocation, but you never know how those prayers might be put to use by the Lord. About seven years back when my paternal grandmother passed away, we began to divide all of Grandma’s belongings between us and, being that I was pursuing the priesthood, I was the default recipient of anything religious. One day I was looking through her prayer book when I came across a holy card with a Prayer for a Vocation from One’s Family. It struck me that while none of my Grandma’s eight children discerned a vocation, the fruit of her prayers came in the form of my discerning my call to the priesthood. Prayers are never wasted!

So let us pray! The world needs priests and consecrated religious especially today because our society makes it easy to focus on so many things but the Lord, but the priest and religious speak an entirely different message. Our calling is to always and only listen to the shepherd, to be those sheep that have no concern but hearing, following, and being pleasing to Him. This is the source of my joy: that I have been set apart to give all of myself and my life to Christ Jesus who is love and life itself, and whose presence always brings peace. There is nothing else I’d rather do with my life than serve as a priest and I thank God for calling me to this blessed vocation. So let us pray for our world, diocese, parish and families, that others too might discern in their hearts the seed of a vocation and with our prayers and God’s grace, respond generously to the Lord and seek always to listen for His voice.

A Voice

Readings for Sunday, January 13/ Baptism of the Lord:
Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm 104: 1-4, 24-25, 27-30
Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7
Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

As we gather to celebrate this weekend the Baptism of the Lord, the question should naturally arise in our hearts why the Lord Jesus, Himself fully God and perfectly sinless, should receive baptism. Furthermore, how is it that the Divine Son, who always was in perfect union with the Father and Spirit, received the Holy Spirit at His Baptism? To be honest, there are a number of reasons, of which the following are a few.

 

I was interested to find in one source that Christ received baptism to fulfill the Jewish Law that a man, to be recognized as a priest, must go through a ceremonial washing and anointing with oil. This first part, with the latter anointing, would show to the Jewish people that legally He had fulfilled the requirements to be considered a priest. He didn’t need to fulfill these requirements, but for their sake He did so. And so we see that one reason was to manifest His priesthood to the people of Israel, that priesthood which offered Himself as the sacrifice to win for us eternal life.

Continuing on, we read in the scriptures that the baptism of John was a baptism of repentance and conversion. It seems odd that Our Lord would receive it since, as I noted to begin with, He was completely free from sin and needed no repentance. But if we look at the final goal of John’s baptism it makes a bit more sense. The repentance and conversion toward God that happened in the washing meant that one was now given a mission to remain in God’s grace and to begin something anew. This we can certainly see in the effects of the baptism Christ receives. It is in receiving His baptism that the Lord begins His formal mission of salvation by teaching, healing and enduring His Passion. So we see, took, that this baptism began something new in the life of Christ.

Another reason is simply that it provides for us an example. Essentially Christ shows us that if He who had no need of baptism humbled Himself to receive it, then we who are in need of it must do the same in imitation of Him.

More important for us is the reality that in receiving baptism, Christ prepares the way for us to follow. It has been said that when we receive the Eucharist, it is not we who change the Eucharist but rather the Eucharist which changes us. The same can be said analogously of Christ at His baptism – when He was immersed in the waters, it was not the soul of Christ was that changed by the water but rather the water was purified by the soul of Christ. The water was purified by Christ that in receiving it, we ourselves might be purified. Furthermore, because He has taken on our very flesh and assumed our human condition, we are in a sense all taken up into His action of baptism. St. Paul tells us that through the disobedience of one man (Adam) all merited death and that by the obedience of one man (Christ) all are invited to receive eternal life. In baptism, Christ the Head receives the washing with water that we the body of Christ might follow and receive it as well. Likewise, Christ receives the Spirit in His humanity that we, as members in His Body, might also be able to receive the Spirit. It was not for Himself that He received baptism so much as it was for us.

And then we come to that final point, when the heavens were opened up and the Spirit came down in bodily form. This shows us that the baptism we receive is a heavenly one, not an earthly one. Also, in that moment, the Father reveals to us the Son and the Spirit and we are invited to enter into that relationship with the Blessed Trinity here on earth that will merit our living it eternally in Heaven, which has been opened up for us. On this last point, when Jesus hears the Father, I want to reflect a bit more.

Think for a moment of the consolation that must have been in the heart of the Lord Jesus in that very moment. Remember, while the Divine Son, He was also a man in the flesh who had emotions and thoughts of His own. It wasn’t a revelation or adoption of Christ as the Son; He knew He was the Son of the Father even at age twelve when Mary and Joseph find Him in the Temple and He says to them that He must be in His Father’s house. He knew who He was, but to hear it out loud and in front of a crowd so as to truly enter into the mission must have been a true gift for the Lord to hear.

Changing gears a bit, this coming week is national Vocations Awareness Week, a week in which we are called to pray for more vocations, talk about vocations, and encourage others to consider a vocation.

When I first decided to enter seminary, I made the decision and then said not one word of it to anyone for a couple of weeks. The happiness I experienced in that time was immense, as I had finally figured out why God created me and what part of my mission was to be. After that first couple of weeks, my mom and I were cleaning up after a family gathering and it was just the two of us in the house. She was cleaning the last of the plates and asked if she could tell me something in confidence. I said yes and we spoke about something going on in the family at the time. Then I paused and asked if I could tell her something. She said yes and I said, “I think I want to go to the seminary to be a priest.” She paused, turned to me, turned back around and said, “That works.” I didn’t exactly know what ‘That works’ meant so I asked and she said that she thought I would make a good priest. In that moment I was full of joy to be able to share what was in my heart and hear someone confirm it. But at the same time I wondered a bit how things might have turned out differently if my mom or someone else had encouraged me to discern a vocation when I was younger.

The reality is that in our own community we have people who are discerning a vocation to priesthood, religious life, and consecrated life. I have spoken with some of them and I’m sure you know them as well. Others are quietly thinking about it, without us being aware. Still others have the seed of a vocation in their heart but haven’t realized it yet. For all of these people – children, young adults, and adults as well – we must be sources of encouragement not only in prayer but also in word. If we see someone who might make a good priest, religious sister or brother, deacon, or consecrated virgin, tell them. That might be the confirmation they’ve been waiting for or the invitation they need to take the next step in discerning a vocation. You never know how a simple question or invitation can affect someone. And, yes, it can be a bit scary sometimes. As one approaching someone it can be scary because you don’t know how they’ll take it. And as one being approached by someone about the possibility of having a vocation, it can be equally scary because of the reality that you might actually have one. Remain open to God’s Will and to seek the Spirit’s guidance. Fear may well come, but as Our Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples and many have said since then, “Be not afraid.”

Our Mother's Love

The newly-invested novices immediately following the Mass

Readings for Satuday, December 8/ Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception:
Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Psalm 98:1-4
Ephesians 1:2-6, 11-12
Luke 1:26-38

Yesterday morning I had the joy of being at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. for a Mass of Investiture as fourteen young women, most of them in their early to mid-twenties, gave themselves to Christ as Spiritual Brides. My seat being in the sanctuary, I had the blessing of seeing their faces and each of them was called forward, called by their religious name for the first time, and received their veil to mark their bridal vocation. The joy that showed in their faces was like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life and my heart burned with joy simply watching them. This joy of this already beautiful moment was increased as I saw a good friend and one of the youth from my previous assignment who has become a spiritual daughter to me. The ceremony was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced and I was shocked by the love and joy in my heart for the sisters, including even the ones that I had met only the night before. Throughout the day, as we continued the celebrations with the community and family, I continued to reflect on the experience. And as I was reflecting on that experience and preparing a final draft of this homily, I was struck by something. If I, imperfect and sinful as I am, was so filled with love in that moment for my daughter, friend and their sisters, how much more does our Blessed Mother Mary look upon us, her children, constantly with burning love in her heart - she who was full of grace, perfect in all things, and absolutely pure in heart?

In our first reading we heard the familiar story of Adam and Eve disobeying the Lord and partaking of the forbidden fruit, which cost them God’s grace and merited pain and death. Then our first parents passed onto us that spiritual state which longs for some redemption. For centuries humanity and all of creation awaited that redemption and we find it in Christ Jesus, through His Blessed Mother.

Eve was mother of all the living in the physical sense, that she gave us our lives. Mary comes to us as a spiritual mother, bringing us eternal life. By that beautiful response to Gabriel, “Be it done to me according to your word,” she opened herself up to God and enabled God to bring about salvation and redemption in Jesus Christ, who Himself made a radical act of obedience in the Garden of Gethsemane when he said to the Father, “Not My will by Thy will be done.” By their acts of obedience, Jesus and Mary, the New Adam and New Eve, gained for us a gift far greater than physical life – they gained us the ability to behold the Face of God for eternity! Indeed she is the true mother of all the living. And as a mother she does not look up us all as a large group but rather as individual souls – each of us a special child in her eyes - honored, guarded, and deeply loved. How blessed indeed we are to have such a mother who is always, at every moment, watching over us and working to pour out the grace of God upon us that we might be drawn more deeply into the tender embrace of her Son and the Blessed Trinity. With that all in mind, I want to pray with you a section of St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s ‘Prayer to Jesus’ [full prayer HERE]:

Yes, Mary is necessary for me at Thy side and everywhere: that she may appease Thy just wrath, because I have so often offended Thee; that she may save me from the eternal punishment of Thy justice, which I deserve; that she may contemplate Thee, speak to Thee, pray to Thee, approach Thee and please Thee; that she may help me to save my soul and the souls of others; in short, Mary is necessary for me that I may always do Thy holy will and seek Thy greater glory in all things. Ah, would that I could proclaim throughout the whol world the mercy that Thous hast shown to me! Would that everyone might know I should be already damned, were it not for Mary! Would that I might offer worthy thanksgiving for so great a blessing! Mary is in me. Oh, what a treasure! Oh, what a consolation! And shall I not be entirely hers? Oh, what ingratitude! My dear Savior, send me death rather than such a calamity, for I would rather die than live without belonging entirely to Mary.

Indeed Mary is a most incredible gift and through her we have all receive the Lord Jesus and the offer of salvation. Today as we honor Our Lady, let us give everything we have, to her who has opened the way for us to receive everything we desire. Let us make our own the words St. Louis so often prayed:

Mary, I am thine and all I have is thine.

Mary, I am thine and all I have is thine.

Mary, I am thine and all I have is thine.

Amen.