The Three Knots

Deacon Dollars!

2011-10-16T21:56:00.000-06:00

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Is 45:1, 4-6; Psalm 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10; 1 Thes 1:1-5b; Gospel: Mt 22:15-21

Soundbite Traps
I am sorry to say brothers and sisters that we are not too far from the beginning of yet another presidential campaign cycle, where we will soon be bombarded with endless commercials that for the most part will have some 20 second sound bite telling us what an oaf the President Obama is, or what a goof the Republican candidate is.

Every one of these commercials will be taken out of context from some speech that one of these two contenders will have made and be blown out of proportion in order to scare us into voting for the “other guy”.

Today’s Gospel is a soundbite trap
The reason why today I am the herald of this bad news, is because this is what the Pharisees are doing in today’s Gospel. They want to trap Jesus into making a 20 second sound bite that is either going to get him into trouble with the Romans, or get him in trouble with the Jews. They are so smart that they have an iron-clad mousetrap that is sure to get them the results that they want!

Jesus in the trap - Fiddler on the Roof meets Kung Fu Panda
I would like you to imagine this part of Matthews Gospel like a scene from a movie. If I was directing this movie, I would do this scene like Fiddler on the Roof meets Kung Fu Panda.

Ok, hold on, I know that half of you are thinking – “What is Fiddler on the Roof”, and the other half is thinking “What is Kung Fu Panda?” Fiddler on the Roof is the story of Tevye, a devout Jew who is always talking to God like this:

“Lord – this is my problem. On one hand I could do this… On the Other hand I could do that…

Kung Fu Panda is an animated film about a Panda who becomes this super-powerful kung fu warrior who protects his village from an evil foe. Whenever he fights, the scenes are portrayed in super-slow motion, showing the Panda doing amazing feats while his opponents stand awestruck.

In Deacon Paul’s imagination of this scene…
I would combine the two styles of these movies into this scene, because I would have Jesus caught in a slow motion fight scene with the Pharisees, they spring their trap, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” and then our film transitions to a slow-motion scene, where in Kung Fu Panda, the Panda would be able to hit his opponents 14 ½ times, while they move in slow motion, and he moves at super-panda speed. Except, instead of Jesus doing Kung Fu, he enters into prayer to his Father like Tevye

Father – I don’t know why I have to deal with these guys. If I answer that it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar they will brand me as a supporter of Rome and use that as proof that I don’t love you, and I won’t be able to preach.

On the Other Hand…
If I say that it is not lawful to pay taxes to Caesar then they will report me to the Romans as a revolutionary and I will most likely get killed.

Then, a flash of Divine inspiration, and Jesus gets this slight smile on his face, and the scene transitions back into normal speed for everyone.

What does it mean to give myself to God?
We give ourselves to God when we choose to be free. In a certain way, Jesus is saying it does not matter who is ruling us, the Persians, the Greeks, or the Romans, what is important is that we live our lives as lives of freedom, so that we can give ourselves freely back to God.

[[ASK FOR SOME HELP FROM THE CONGREGATION]]

Solve the National Debt
Last night I worked hard on my computer and solved the national debt crisis. Here is my solution – Deacon Dollars.

QUESTION: Who created this Money? Deacon Paul

QUESTION: Who do these dollars belong to?
QUESTION: How do you know?
When someone creates something, they are the owner of it, unless they are able to sell it to someone else.

Then it belongs to him, give it back because in truth, the act of giving me this money is truly worthless in the eyes of heaven. It is just a thing.

QUESTION: Who created you? [[GOD]]

In the Gospel today Jesus transforms the trap into an opportunity to teach a truth about the Kingdom of God and our own nature as well. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but to God what is God’s.

What does it mean to be free? - To do what I want?
If I think that Freedom is to do whatever I want then I can go home and print millions of Deacon Dollars. Then I am going to take a sack-load of Deacon Cash and buy my Groceries. This way I will have plenty of food (especially ice cream). They may not like my Deacon Dollars is their problem – it is a free country after all.

What is the Sin here?
What would I be doing if I printed up a bunch of Deacon Dollars and used them to buy my groceries at King Soopers? What crime would I be charged with? Stealing? Yes! Would my action be sinful? Yes!

Doing whatever I want is not freedom, it is license.
Jesus is teaching us that God has given us the gift of Freedom, and He invites us give that gift back to God in return. The Freedom that we have is to choose to do what is good over what is evil.

Choosing Good Frees me
There is a beauty in this gift that God gave us, when I use my freedom to choose good, I become more free, I have a greater ability to choose the good, and that allows even more freedom. This is what the lives of the Saints teach us. When they choose the good, avoiding sin, forgiving their enemies, loving even those who do not love in return, they discover that this is a gift from God, and it helps us to love the world more and more and more. The more we are able to love, the more we are free from sin to love.

Choosing Evil Enslaves me
If on the other hand I choose to do evil, then I become enslaved. The more I sin, the more addicted I become to my sin, and the less free I am, until my sin becomes a compulsion and I sin without even thinking about it. I become less and less a person.

There is only one true freedom, and that is to choose the good. To choose to do evil means that I choose slavery to sin.

How does evil enslave?
By addiction, by making a lesser good seem like the ultimate good. Then we are willing to sacrifice the greater good for the lesser good.

The Cookie Monster
A 2 year old wants a cookie. Mom says you need to eat your vegetables first. The two year old gets upset and throws a riot, trying to wear the mother down. The mother now has to make a choice between two things. 1. Choose the good and teach her child the value of good nutrition, or choose the good and give the kids a cookie so she can have 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

Which is the greater good? Why would we choose a lesser good?

Because we are upset, overwhelmed and our reason isn’t fully working.

The greater good is for the child to eat there vegetables, ultimately their body will be healthier from eating healthy food over junk food. More importantly, their soul is learning to listen to the voice of love (their mom), and the virtue of delayed gratification – earning what you work for.

Choosing the good over evil – telling the truth.
The two year old demanding cookies from his mother is much like us when we are addicted to sin. We struggle to choose the good because we fail to see the greater good. We choose lying over the truth because we think that the benefit of getting caught today is better than the benefit of eternal life. We are so worried about getting caught today that we fail to see the greater good at the end of our life.

To choose the good would be to tell the truth and accept the consequences in order to grow in humility and truthfulness.

Choosing the lesser of two goods, food vs fast.
We choose gluttony today, because we don’t clearly see the true cost of being overweight, getting diabetes, loosing limbs in the future. We choose the lesser good (a full tummy) over the greater good (a longer healthier life). More importantly, when we choose gluttony, our stomach becomes greater than our brothers and sisters who are hungry, who are starving, who we can really help.

To choose the good would be to eat a simpler meal and to give some of our excess to the poor.

Blessed John Paul II
Blessed John Paul II used to give himself to God each time he met someone in his day. His interior prayer was always to the Holy Spirit saying “Father, help me to open myself up to your will at this moment. Help me to give myself to you, so that you might use me as your humble instrument.” It was in that John Paul gave his heart back to God.

How are we going to give our hearts back to God this week?

Working

2011-10-02T08:30:00.000-06:00

27th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Is 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20; 2 Phil 4:6-9; Gospel: Mt 21:33-43

In our last episode from Matthews Gospel…
In last weeks Gospel Jesus asked the people to choose which son was better, one who said he would do His Fathers work, and then did not, or one who said he would not do his Father’s work and then did.

[[QUESTION: Which is the better son?]]

Seeing Right and Wrong in others, in ourselves.
Jesus uses parables to help us to see right and wrong. Then he shows us how His parable applies to our lives and asks us to look again. Jesus does this because it is easy for us to see right and wrong in others, and more difficult to see right and wrong in ourselves. He knows that we are trapped in our sin, so in the Gospel today he is trying to free us from the path of destruction and get us onto the path of life.

God is Isaiah’s Friend
Isaiah says that his friend has a vineyard. Who is Isaiah’s friend? It is God. Who is his vineyard? It is us, the ones whom he loves.

The Stones are our sins
God shows how much he loves his vineyard, because the first thing he does is he moves through his Church and clears it of any stones.

The Stones are our hard hearts. When we have a hard heart it is difficult for us to change, to be open to Gods love and to produce good fruit. God cleansed our hearts of stones when we were Baptized.

When we are brought low we reach out to God – we open up to his grace.
God wants our hearts to be fertile sources of his love, and so he spades the vineyard over, opening the soil so that it will be more receptive to his love. For us, we are spaded over in our lives when we go through hard times and trials. We can respond in one of two ways to these times – either we can blame God – in which case our hearts become hard and stony; or we can thank God for our trials, in which case our hearts open themselves up to God’s love, like freshly turned soil receiving the autumn rains.

Choice Vines – The Sacraments – Windows of God’s love.
The choice vines that God plants in the vineyard are the sacraments that we receive. Christ nourishes us with his Body and Blood, and empowers us with the gifts of Confirmation. He calls us to service in Holy Orders and in the witness of Christian Marriage. He heals our wounds in Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick. God gives us Himself in these sacraments so we can show the world His love.

The Hedge – The 10 Commandments = The boundary.
The hedge around the edge of the vineyard is the boundary that protects us. Within the vineyard there is life and abundant fruit, outside there is a wilderness where jackals, lions and robbers lurk. These predators want to break into the vineyard and spoil the fruit. The hedge is the Commandments that protect us from becoming victims of sin and destruction. They are like a man who lived with his family on a rocky island with cliffs all around it that plunged hundreds of feet into the sea. The man built walls along the edges of the cliff so his children could play in safety without falling down a cliff. In the same way the Commandments keep us from falling into evil.

Watchtower – Our Conscience
The watchtower represents our conscience. When our conscience is well formed, it recognizes the truth and leads us to live a life that is in harmony with God’s law. Our conscience alerts us when sin is trying to break through the hedge, and encourages us to chase away the temptation.

Winepress - Heaven
The winepress represents heaven – the place where we are working towards – a heavenly banquette filled with love and peace and joy. It is here that we will enjoy the fruits of our labors, with God, the Blessed Mother, and all the Saints.

We are the workers in the vineyard
In the Gospel today we learn that the workers in the vineyard are not doing the right thing. Instead of working to produce good fruit, they are plotting to kill the owner and to take the vineyard for themselves. The workers today have chosen sin over the heavenly feast. In short they are headed for self-destruction.

[[QUESTION – IS THIS GOOD OR BAD?]]

The example of Anger
If my sin is anger at some person – maybe they hurt me, or robbed me, or hurt a member of my family. I stop thinking about the work Christ has called me to do and I plot my revenge. I imagine how I will hurt them, how I will trap them and how they will suffer at my hands. When anger becomes the dominant thought in my life, it twists and distorts me. Finally, because my life is consumed with the fire of anger I have no time, and no desire to do the work of God. I begin to resent the prophets and the servants who are demanding good fruit – they become annoying and get in the way of my revenge. I am blinded to all of the gifts that God has given me and I am consumed in my sin.

The example of Lying
Similarly, if I tell a lie, I become very cautious. I spend more and more time trying to remember who I told what part of the lie to. Then, as time goes on it takes more and more energy for me to keep on telling the lies and keeping them straight. Soon, I become so busy thinking about fooling everyone that I lose touch with the truth and I am lost myself. I don’t work in the vineyard because I am too busy telling the lie.

The example of adultery
If I am trapped in adultery, either in an affair or through pornography, then my mind fills up with images of someone who is not my spouse. The more I am unfaithful the more I criticize my spouse and think poorly of them. I become cold and angry and jealous. Finally, I am so lost that I throw away the beautiful gift that God gave me for an imitation, a fake.

Wake Up!
This is what will happen to us if we are poor workers in the vineyard. This is the warning of the Gospel, and it is meant to wake us up to take some action.

What do we do when we see that we are poor workers?
The first thing we need to do is to listen to the voice of the watchman in the tower when he yells – “Look out!” Our conscience knows that what we are doing is wrong, and it leads us to conversion and repentance. Go to confession, be absolved of your sins and work to sin no more.

What is the secret of living in the vineyard?
In the second reading St. Paul gives us the secret to living in the vineyard. He tells us how to gather in the fruit to prepare for the heavenly banquette. The secret to living in the vineyard is that we can’t buy our way to heaven with good deeds because heaven is God’s gift and it can’t be bought.

The secret to living in the vineyard is to allow God’s love to transform our lives. If God’s love is transforming our lives then our work in the vineyard becomes a great joy because we want to share that love with as many people as possible.

The secret to living in the vineyard is to depend only on God; in both good times and bad we are to Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.

Friends

2011-09-04T10:30:00.000-06:00

23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Ez 33:7-9; Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Rom 13:8-10; Gospel: Mt 18:15-20

Holy Friendship
Over the last few weeks the Gospel has taught us about faith – our relationship with God. This week the Gospel teaches us about holy friendship – how we live with one another.

Holy Friendship is founded in love.
A holy friendship is one that is founded in God. It is a friendship that is centered first in a love for God, and then love for one another. In a holy friendship we are able to walk together through good times and bad. When people witness our friendship – they see the presence of Christ in our love.

Standing Watch
In the first reading today God tells us that we are “the watchmen of the house of Israel”. Part of being a good friend is that we watch out for each other. When I was in the Navy from time to time I had to “Stand Watch”.

Be Alert
When I was standing watch, it was my job to be alert for anything that might endanger the lives of all of my shipmates. If there was a fire, I had to sound the alarm. If the ship ran aground on a reef, I had to wake the crew to save the ship. I was usually ordered to stand watch at night. When I was standing watch I had a flashlight to help me see into the dark places. This allowed me to see if there was a leaky pipe that was causing a flood, or a smoldering rag that was starting a fire. Without my flashlight I was not a good watchman.

Adoration – A Spiritual Flashlight
Being alert in our spiritual life means that we have the light of Christ in our hearts. He is the flashlight that helps us to see into the dark areas. One way we can allow Christ to illuminate our lives is to spend time with Him in Adoration. On the first weekend of each month a group of families from our parish meet for an all-night vigil starting Saturday evening. This group is called Adoracion Nocturnal. They spend the night in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. When we pray in Christ’s presence He helps us to become aware of both the good and the bad in our lives. Allowing Christ to shine the light of his love on the sinful areas of our lives helps us to be alert to the danger that our soul is in.

Be Aware
The second part of standing watch is to be aware. Being aware means that we know what will happen if we let something continue. If we ignore that smoldering rag it will start a fire. If we ignore that leaky pipe it will burst and start a flood. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of the consequences of temptation and sin.

Lead us not into temptation
One way that we can become spiritually aware is to start our day by praying the “Our Father”. This prayer helps us to become aware because we ask God to “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. When we start our day with the Lord’s Prayer, we are bringing into our awareness of the fact that today the devil will try to lead me down an evil path. When we ask God to help us avoid evil, then we become open to God’s help when he sends someone point out our sin.

Sin is like cancer to the soul
Recently a good friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer; her whole life changed. Everything that she was doing was put on hold so she can fight this disease. The reason she did this is because she understands that if she does not fight the cancer then it will kill her.

In the same way, Sin is like cancer to our soul. If we recognize that our sin is a cancer then we will radically re-orient our lives to get rid of the sin. If, we think that our sin is only a little cold, then we will ignore it and let it eat away at our soul.

Judge not lest ye be judged… (remember the whole verse)
In the Gospel today, Jesus teaches us how to act if someone has sinned against us. Jesus tells us to talk with those who hurt us. Living out this Gospel is hard because we don’t like being judged. Some times when we confront a friend with their sin they accuse us of judging them and will quote the scripture “judge not lest ye be judged”. As Christians we should never be afraid of scripture, but we should always read the whole verse, in this case Matthew, chapter 7, verse 2, says “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.” Jesus does not tell us to stop judging, rather that we should judge as He judges. Jesus judges us out of a desire to heal our souls by killing the cancer of sin with his love and forgiveness.

I would be mad at a doctor for not talking about my cancer
If I don’t tell my friend about the way that their sin is killing our friendship then I am like a Doctor who knows that his patient has cancer but he won’t speak about it for fear of hurting their feelings. Who wants that kind of Doctor? If I had cancer that was eating up my lungs, and crushing my heart, and my doctor would not talk to me about it then I would find a new Doctor who could really help me.

In the same way brothers and sisters God is calling us to talk about the cancer that we see in each other’s lives. When we see that there is sin, we need to confront it and to seek healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. We do this first by talking privately about how the sin is hurting us. This requires humility because we often don’t want to admit that we have been hurt. If we are heard then we have great joy because our friendship has become more holy.

How to tell your friend is not your friend
The next part of the Gospel seems harsh but it really isn’t, it is simply recognition of human freedom. If your friend hurt you, and you told them about it and they would not listen to you, or to your mutual friends, or even to the Church, then they really aren’t your friends. This is Jesus’ way of telling us that it is time to find another doctor.

Two ways of being a good friend.
The Gospel today teaches us about how to be a good friend in two different ways.

Be open to our friends holding us accountable to a holy life.

If our friends need to talk to us about Cancer (sin) then listen to them.
If our sin (or cancer) is serious, then go to confession (the Doctor).
Otherwise, our sins will destroy our souls.

Likewise we can help our help friends grow in holiness

If they sin against us, then we need to tell them.
If they don’t listen to us, then we need to try to help them to see it.
If they won’t listen to us, our friends or even the Church, then they are not our friends.

Why should we model our friendships in this way?
If we can have holy friendships like these, then whenever we are together as friends, everyone will see that Christ is truly present in our midst.

Dogs with Faith!

2011-08-14T16:33:00.000-06:00

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Psalm 85:9, 10, 11-12, 13-14; Rom 9:1-5; Gospel: Mt 14:22-33

Faith is the gift we receive at Baptism.
At the beginning of the baptismal rite, the Priest or Deacon asks those who are going to be baptized – “What do you ask of the Church?” The response to this question is – “Faith”. In baptism God gives the gift of his forgiveness that he poured out on the cross for us.

The gift of faith at Baptism is the gift of God’s love.
Jesus came as a man to open heaven for us. In a practical way, He came to invite us into relationship with God by removing the obstacles that we have placed between us by our sin. Jesus paid the price for sin to invite us into a loving relationship with God. This is what it means to ask for faith – we are asking to share our lives with God, and to be one of his beloved children.

Today’s Gospel humbles Christians – St. Peter vs Pagan Woman.
It is humbling then to be confronted with today’s Gospel. When those who ought to know (i.e. St. Peter, the first Pope) are rebuked for their weak faith, and those who are ignorant (The pagan woman in today’s Gospel) are extolled for her great faith.

Our lives of faith are a work in progress
At the same time, Jesus did not abandon Peter to the waves, but rather he continued to work with Peter to help him to see the totality of Gods’ love for him. He does the same with us. If we thought that we have done our part in loving God last week, that is good, because today Christ calls us to walk with Him in a deeper way, He calls us to deepen our faith and our love for Him.

Saints respond to Gods love and are beautified.
Recently Pope John Paul II was beatified, which is one of the steps on the way to becoming a saint. A saint is a man or woman who chose to allow Gods love to transform their lives. When we beatified Pope John Paul II we recognized that his life was beautiful because his life was filled with faith. One of our desires as humans is to want to become more beautiful, and accepting our faith is a certain path to beauty. It is through living out our faith completely that we become beautiful.

Embracing the fullness of the faith exposes our entire life to the light of God’s love.
A characteristic of saints is that they embrace the fullness of the faith. They do not pick and choose the easy parts, but they embrace the teachings of the Church in its entirety. When we have the courage to do this we bring the fullness of who we are into contact with the gift of faith that God has given us. This allows us to be purified because our selfishness is illuminated by Christ’s selfless love. When this happens have the opportunity to make a decision, to see good and evil in the light of Gods love and to choose the good and to reject the evil – which is the grace of our baptism.

We say “I believe” by responding to the trial of faith with love.
When we recognize the love that God has shown us we need to make a decision – will I love God in return? The way that I love God in return is to imitate his love for me. This is why Christian’s are called to love those who hurt them rather than to hate them by seeking revenge. When we choose to love then we are free because we are not allowing our persecutors to control our behavior.

Saints know the love of God because they are humble.
Another way that the saints see the greatness of God’s love is through the gift and their own powerlessness. They are all beggars because they recognize the truth of their own weakness, how easy it is to allow sin to rule their lives rather than to depend on God’s mercy and grace. In this sense they too became more loving and forgiving of those around them, while at the same time encouraging those trapped in sin to seek the grace and forgiveness of God. If we find that we are trapped by sin, a way of live that is contrary to the Gospel, then we are encouraged to seek forgiveness in the sacrament of confession. To be cleansed of our sin and purified so we can experience God’s love more fully.

What are we going to do about it?
In the Gospel today a pagan woman comes to Christ as an annoying beggar and says “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” At first Jesus simply ignores her, but because she is so annoying he finally says “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” Pause a moment and think about what Jesus just said. He was rude, he called this poor women a dog. This woman has determination because she sees in Christ the abundance of God’s love and knows that it must overflow beyond the Jews. She knows that God’s love is so great that it must overflow to all people and so she responds. “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Jesus responds to her witness of God’s love by saying “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.”

Is our life of faith recognizable?
Do we recognize Gods love for us in our lives? More importantly – are we living lives that allow our faith to form us so that our family, friends and co-workers can see the greatness of Gods love in our lives, and share in this great blessing that God has given us?

Lord Save Me!

2011-08-07T16:29:00.000-06:00

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a; Psalm 85:9, 10, 11-12, 13-14; Rom 9:1-5; Gospel: Mt 14:22-33

Elijah on the run from the Queen
In the first reading today, the prophet Elijah is in the midst of a crisis. He is in trouble with Queen Jezebel because God asked him to oppose her pagan worship and she has sent her men to kill him. Elijah knows that he will most likely die. His response is to take time out to pray.

Prayer – the answer to every crisis!
When we find ourselves in moments of crisis one of the best things that we can do is to pray to God. It is important that when we pray that we pray from our hearts. This means that we honestly and openly share our hearts and our lives with God. Then we listen to what God has to say to us in reply.

Distractions in Prayer – Wind, Earthquake and Fire
When Elijah tries to pray he finds that his prayer is distracted by a wind that is crushing the rocks, an earthquake and a fire. When these things happen Elijah checks to see if God is present, and when he does not find God he returns to his prayer.

Wind, Earthquake and Fire = Distractions of the Crisis
Time in prayer is time that we set aside to listen to God. We listen to God so that we can hear him and encounter him in our hearts. One of the difficulties of prayer, and especially with prayer of those in crisis is that we are often filled with many distractions, when we sit down to pray our mind is attacked by our worries, fears and anxieties. These are like the Wind, the Earthquake and the Fire that Elijah encountered on the mountain. When we are distracted in prayer we gently set the distractions aside and return to listening for God to speak to our hearts with his small, still voice.

St. Therese of Lisieux is a good teacher of prayer
She was born in France in 1873, the youngest of four girls. Therese grew up with an intense love for Jesus, and for the Eucharist. At 15 she became a Camelite nun, entered the convent and spent the rest of her life trying to listen to the still, small voice of God in her heart.

Like Elijah, Therese had distractions in her prayer
Like Elijah the prophet, St. Therese encountered many distractions in her prayer, She had to deal with living in community with her sisters, dealing with envy, injustice, pettiness and all of the other distractions that are part life. Therese was able to take all of this with her into her times of prayer, to listen to God and to hear his voice speaking into her heart.

From her prayer, Therese understood the path to holiness
It was through her listening to God that Therese discovered her “Little Way” to holiness.

1. Therese learned that God’s way of loving her was through mercy and forgiveness. He was always showing her His mercy and His love.

2. Therese discovered the best way to approach God was to be like a little child.

Like a little kid on his Fathers lap
Whenever little kids get to sit in their Dad’s lap they start with a lot of talk about what is going on in their lives, but then at the end, they just want to snuggle and to be in the presence of their Dad. This is the deepest type of Prayer. When Therese would pray, she would pray as God’s little girl and curl up in her Daddy’s lap to share her heart with him.

Kids copy their parents
Kids also learn to copy their parents. As Therese lived in the convent she started to copy God by showing love and forgiveness to her sisters. Whenever someone insulted or persecuted her she responded with compassion and forgiveness. Therese chose to love them by responding to their pain rather than their insults. She chose to copy the love that God showed her.

The Little Way transforms the world
We too can do the same when we allow God into our hearts. When God is with us, he transforms our hurt into love and so we too can follow the little way of St. Therese and help to transform the world.

The symbolism of the Gospel
Today’s Gospel is rich in symbolism. We heard about the first symbol last Sunday in the feeding of the 5000. This is a symbol for the Mass.

The Boat = The Church, the Storm = the World
After the Mass, the disciples take their boat across the sea, and while at sea the boat gets caught up in a storm. The boat represents the Church, and the stormy seas represent the world, filled with sin and strife that so easily distracts us.

Jesus says to us – Do not be afraid!
Often times when the troubles of the world surround us, we are overwhelmed by fear. We doubt God’s love and think we are going to die. Jesus says to us “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!”

Jesus teaches us to be in the world but not of the world
Then we notice that Jesus is walking across the water – He is teaching us to be in the world, but not of the world. Jesus shows us how to face temptation and sin, but not to get trapped by them and to drown.

Peter gets out of the boat
Peter responds to Jesus’ call and gets out of the boat and is walking across the water. As soon as he realizes what he is doing, he gets distracted by the wind and the waves and starts to drown. When this happens he calls to Jesus for help, and Christ saves him.

How do we put these readings into practice?
- Listen to the small still voice
After Holy Communion today, it is our time to be like Elijah and Peter, to listen to God as he speaks to our hearts with the still, small voice.

Ask Jesus to call you out of the Boat
Then, ask the Lord, “if that is you then command me to get out of the boat”. God is sending us out of the boat onto the waves of the world this week. But we are being sent out to walk on water, to live lives that witness the love of God to our friends and family.

Remember to call on him this week when you get distracted!
Finally, when we are out there this week and we see the wind and the waves and we want to panic let us remember the prayer of St. Peter – “Lord Save Me!” And he will.

Faith on Fire

2011-05-22T20:49:00.002-06:00

5th Sunday of Easter – Cycle A

5th Sunday of Easter

Acts 6:1-7, Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19, 1 Pt 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12

Three questions about Faith.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles today describes how the first seven Deacons were called to serve the Church. Because I am a Deacon, this reading is especially precious to me.

Three Questions, Three Symbols and Three Deacons
To help us dig into these readings I want to propose three questions on our faith, three symbols that illustrate faith and three deacons who lived as witnesses to our faith. The three questions are; “Are you and I men and women filled with Faith and the Holy Spirit”, “Do we have faith in God?” and “Do we have faith in Christ?” The three symbols of faith are; Faith is a fire, Faith is a coral reef and Faith is a Bridge. Finally the three Deacons are St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ephrem the Syrian and St. Phillip.

Is our Faith on Fire? Does it illuminate, attract and purify?
Fire is such a wonderful symbol for faith because it has three characteristics that are true of both fire and faith. Faith that is on fire illuminates our lives – it helps us to know where God is leading us. Faith that is on fire draws others to bask in its light – they come to us for advice and to know what to do. Faith that is on fire purifies us and leads us to holiness.

Francis rebuild my Church
St. Francis of Assisi lived in Italy in the twelfth century. When he was in his twenties he had three goals in life – wine, women and song. These are not bad things when pursued in balance, but Francis pursued them recklessly! One day he stopped by a ruined field chapel to pray before the crucifix, and Jesus touched his heart with his love. “Francis,” he said, “rebuild my church which you see is falling down around you.” This encounter with the risen Christ transformed his life. His faith was set on fire and he let the world know about it by telling everyone he met about the magnificence of God’s love.

Instead of chasing after wine, St. Francis fell in love with Christ in the Eucharist, where he encountered Jesus, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Instead of chasing after women, St. Francis fell in love with Lady Poverty because he learned that chasing after wealth did not fill him with happiness. Francis discovered that true friendship with God is both satisfying and eternal. Francis did continue to sing, but his songs were filled with the mercy that God had shown him.

Francis’ faith is a beacon of the middle ages. His conversion was so profound that even today, eight hundred years after his death people are still drawn to his radical way of simply living the Gospel.

Fire fascinates – It draws others to take advantage of its light
When we live out our lives of faith others are drawn to stand in the light. As Francis lived out his faith men and women came to join him because he was a guidepost for them. His faith helped them to know how to live a life full of love for God. Is our faith attractive? Does our faith witness a holy life to those who live with us?

Fire purifies – Faith purifies us.
The third characteristic of both faith and fire is that it purifies. One of the consequences of being able to see is that we can tell right from wrong, good from evil. Does our faith illuminate the actions of our lives that are sinful and impure? Does our faith show us where we need to repent and change so that we can grow in holiness?

Is our faith like fire?
Francis’ faith let him see the ugliness of his own sin and so he led a life of profound repentance. He was renowned for his fasting, his humility and his great desire that everyone to live in peace and in the love of God. Francis was able to allow his faith to lead him to conversion. Is our faith purifying us? Are we allowing it to lead us to conversion?

St. Ephrem the Syrian
Another Deacon who had profound faith in God was St. Ephrem the Syrian. Ephrem lived in the fourth century in northern western Syria near the border with Iraq. He was ordained a Deacon and spent the first fifty years of his life teaching. The Persians besieged his hometown time after time until they finally succeeded in capturing it. St. Ephrem was exiled along with the entire Christian community and so as a refugee he finally settled in the town of Edessa, a place filled with pagan and heretical cults. For the last ten years of his life he helped to establish a school where he wrote songs praising God and taught Christianity until his death in three hundred and seventy three AD.

St. Ephrem was like a coral reef in the ocean
The image of faith that St. Ephrem brings to mind is that of a coral reef. Coral reefs grow up in barren patches of the ocean and they are filled with life. If you ever swum out over a reef, or watched Jacques Cousteau on television you know that reefs are full of life and splendor. At the same time when the seas are stormy, the reefs protect the creatures living on them from the violence of the storms.

St. Ephrem was like a coral reef for his church. At times of peace, his faith brought abundant life to his community. Similarly, when storms struck his faith was a safe harbor for them, as he helped his people to find shelter and safety.

We too can have reef-like faith
Here too at St. Anthony’s we have people who have reef-like faith. How we sit in the Church is a bit like reefs in the sea. If you are a regular here, you know where the reefs of faith are in our congregation. Look around and see those men and women of our parish whose faith is anchored in God. When our faith is anchored in God it inspires our families and friends. One of the blessings of my ministry as a Deacon is to witness your faith, watching it blossom as your love for God grows and you become holy.

Faith is like a Bridge
In the Gospel today Jesus says “Have faith in God, have faith in me also”. Jesus came to reveal the love of the Father to the world. Jesus would not allow any barrier stand in his way, not even death. As Christians we are called to bridge the gap between God and man by imitating Christ.

Deacon St. Phillip – Cross-Cultural Bridge
The first Deacons were called to heal the divisions of a bi-cultural church. Phillip was a Greek, and he lived in Jerusalem where there was division and injustice between the Greek and Jewish Christians. He was ordained a Deacon to bridge that gap between the communities. At St. Anthony’s we have a bi-cultural community, and all of us are called to imitate Christ and seek ways to bridge the gaps between the Spanish and English communities. How does our faith help us to do this? It allows us to see first that we are children of the same God, rather than seeing where we were born or what language we speak.

St. Phillip and the Ethiopian
Later in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Phillip encountered an Ethiopian Jew who was reading scripture and not understanding it. Phillip reached by explaining his faith in Christ to his new-found Ethiopian friend. Phillip did not worry about the cultural norms, he reached out and shared his faith, and the Ethiopian was baptized. This is one of the earliest accounts of how the faith came to Africa.

In the Gospel today Jesus declares that He is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”. As his disciples we are called to shape our lives by imitating him. We too are called to be bridges of faith, signs of Gods love in our own communities, in our families, our jobs, our schools and with our friends.

Let your faith be fire, a reef and a bridge
Where this week will we let the fire of our faith shine with the love of God?
Where this week will we provide shelter for those who are battered by the storms of life?
Where this week will we build bridges to meet those in need of true relationship with God?

The Way

2011-04-24T12:00:00.000-06:00

Easter Sunday – Cycle A
Gospel: Mt 28:1-10

Pilgrim Church, Pilgrim People
In the Gospel there are two disciples who are walking on the way to Emmaus. St. Luke chooses this word “Way” intentionally. In ancient times Christians were known as the “People of the Way”. This is because in the early Church the Christians were often on the road, as pilgrims or as missionaries. For this reason, St. Luke knows that the “Way” is a symbol for the Church – which is us, God’s Holy People. We have been called a pilgrim church because we are on a journey through life to heaven.

The disciples had lost all hope
In the beginning of the Gospel the two disciples have lost all hope. They knew that Christ was God’s chosen one. They knew that Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit and they knew that Jesus was the one whom God had sent to save them from their sins; but their experience of Good Friday showed them that they were wrong. God’s plan was wrecked, in shambles. How could they have been so wrong about Jesus? They couldn’t stand the pain and they just had to get away.

So they were walking away from it all – time to start over.
The two disciples in the Gospel today are walking away from the greatest disaster of their entire lives. Their hopes have been crushed so completely, that they were abandoning their community, the Church and leaving.

We too were walking away until God called us to be here today
How many of us here today know that we are not walking on the path that Christ has called us to? How many of us here are downcast? Not every road we take is the journey that God called us too. Sometimes our sin, our actions that hurt God and our brothers and sisters lead us to walk this way alone, downcast, lacking all hope. It is at these times that Christ comes to walk with us as he did those two disciples on the way to Emmaus.

How are we going to respond to his invitation to dialog?
Will we ignore him? Will we engage him? Will we be real with him or lie to him?
It does not matter what road we took to get here this morning. At the heart of Christ’s message is the fact that “God loves you!” When Jesus met the two disciples in the Gospel today he did not judge them, he did not condemn them, he began to speak with them. Jesus took his time to speak to them about their problems, their fears and their failures. He listened to them first, and then slowly and gently began to teach them what had really happened during these last three days. How he offered himself up to God as a sacrifice for their sins, how he had died, and yet had risen from the dead.

Emmaus was not an accident
It was not by accident that Christ met these two disciples on the road. He knew that they were in the depths of despair, and that they needed his companionship.

We are not here by accident either
It is not by accident that we are here today. Some of us haven’t been here for a while, some have been here regularly for many decades. The truth is each of us is seeking a deeper friendship with Christ. We are all need his friendship because he is able to embrace our suffering and pour into our wounds His healing love.

How can we meet Jesus on the Way?
The Gospel today teaches us that there are three steps to this daily encounter with the resurrected Christ; Prayer, Scripture and the Eucharist.

1. Prayer – When Jesus met the two disciples on the road, he first listened to them explain their problems. We can do this by taking time to pray with Christ each morning this Easter. We can start our days with a short time (maybe five or ten minutes) before getting out of bed to share our needs and worries of the day with Christ in prayer. This needs to be an honest sharing of what is on our hearts for the day, our plans and worries. Just a short note, hitting the snooze alarm and then falling back to sleep does not count as prayer. If that is a struggle for you, then pray over a hot cup of coffee!

2. Scripture. After Jesus heard their concerns he spoke with them, using Scripture. He went through all of scripture and pointed out to the disciples how the Word of God spoke about him. The secret to scripture is to listen to God. We can’t live our lives by always telling God what we need if we don’t also take time to listen to him. Set aside some time (at lunch, or after work, or in the evening) to be present to Jesus in the scriptures. If you are looking for a place to begin then consider the Acts of the Apostles; it is the story of the early Church. After reading a little part of scripture then take time to pray in order to give God thanks for all of his gifts that he has given to you.

3. Eucharist. After speaking and listening to God the disciples in the Gospel encountered Christ in the Breaking of the Bread. They became aware of His presence and grace when He gave them Himself – His Body and Blood in Holy Communion. Some of us might not be able to receive Holy Communion. If we are living in a state of sin then it is easy to rejoin the Lord’s table, all we need to do is to repent (that means to see that we are on the wrong road and change our lives), confess, and invite Christ more deeply into our lives! Jesus died on the Cross to share His Body and Blood with us. When we receive Him in Holy Communion we enter into the heart of God.

Which way will we choose?
Brothers and Sisters, it does not matter what road we were on this morning when we came to celebrate Easter. What matters is the road that we choose when we leave here. Will we just return to our old ways of sin and death, or will we choose a new way – the way that sets our hearts on fire with the love of God?

Incredible

2011-04-23T22:30:00.000-06:00

Easter Vigil – Cycle A
Gospel: Mt 28:1-10

What is the most incredible sight you have ever seen?
Take a moment and pause and think – what has been the most awe-inspiring, beautiful, powerful overwhelming thing you have ever seen?

[[PAUSE]]

Watching the Birth of my kids
Watching the birth of each of my children has been one of the awe-inspiring events of my life. I remember how each of them was born, some naturally, others by cesarean section. Yet every time I was amazed with the beauty of new life that God creates.

The truly awe-inspiring events are celebrated with ritual
We like to remember awe-inspiring events like these. We celebrate our birthdays with parties, our anniversaries with a special dinner. For each of us these are days we remember the magnificence of God’s gifts. We use ritual, a birthday party, an anniversary dinner to celebrate the significant events of our lives.

Tonight we remember the most awe-inspiring event in the history of the world. That is why tonight we participate in this special celebration. We do this because the truly incredible things of this life cannot be remembered, they must be experienced, they must be lived.

The heart of Christ must be experienced – it must be breathed!
Christ’s victory over sin and death is so great, so profound that it cannot be described, it must be experienced. That is why tonight we celebrate with great ritual – with fire and incense, with story and song, water and perfumed oil, and the bread and wine that become Christ’s Body and Blood.

We experience God’s love tonight with all of our senses:

- When the Easter Candle entered the Church, we saw with our eyes that Christ is the Light of the World, and the light of our hearts.

- When the Church filled with incense we could smell the beauty of our prayer rising up to God.

- When the story of our sin and salvation was read, we heard with our ears the greatness of God’s love.

- Kimberly, Marnila, Yajaira, Divine, Anjelina, Evelyn and Arath will feel the cleansing power of Christ’s cross as water is poured over them and God enters into their souls through Baptism.

- We will experience Christ when we eat His Body and drink His Blood as He shares His life with us in the Holy Eucharist.

Walking in the garden
Let’s use our imaginations to plunge back through time to that first Easter morning. Imagine that we are walking early on that morning the first day of the week with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (the mother of St. James the Less). It is dark, with just the briefest glimmer of the pre-dawn as we walk through the garden. The grass is damp with dew, and the morning air is a little brisk. The world is quiet, but we are filled with fear. Who will roll away the stone? Will the soldiers allow us to anoint Christ’s body? Will they interfere with us? All of our fears are mingled with grief and sadness and despair – God’s chosen one has been slain, God’s plan is ruined. Will He ever save His people? Will He ever save you and I?

The Garden is a cemetery, filled with those dead because of sin.
The garden that we are walking in is a graveyard, it is a place filled with tombs. All around us the dead lie in their graves. We can relate to their perspective as well. We are not dead, but all of us are trapped in some way by our sin. We find ourselves paralyzed with fear, trapped in the cold hardness of our heart in some relationship or addiction. The Devil has us trapped in here, with the weight of a heavy stone rolled across the entrance and guards outside to prevent us from ever escaping from our tombs of sin.

In a flash the obstacles are gone
Then there is a flash of lightning, the earth shakes. When the Mary’s recover they see the work of God – The soldiers are paralyzed with fear, the stone is moved aside and they see the angel of God who points to the empty tomb and he says “Do not be afraid”. In a flash God sends His angel to remove all obstacles for us.

Experiencing God’s love is the reason for our joy!
If we are like those trapped in the grave then we can leap up with joy! God comes to judge us with Love, with mercy and with grace to bring us out of the grave. Brothers and Sisters, for the last six weeks we have prayed and fasted and given alms to help us to battle these sins. Tonight we rejoice because God has answered our prayers and sent His Son to free us from the death of our sin!

Go and spread the good news!
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary left “very quickly” and began to make the angels words reality. As soon as they acted on the angels words they encountered Jesus. When we go out to spread the Good News we encounter the Risen Christ. The Good News that they carried with them is that Death is not the end, and that there is freedom from sin, freedom from death. They ran with swiftness and joy to share the liberation of us all.

Christ is Risen from the Dead, go and tell the world, for He goes ahead of you and will meet you on the way. Christ is risen from the dead – go and live the Gospel so that our lives give witness to the most incredible thing!

Birds, Lilies and Grass

2011-02-27T08:41:00.002-07:00

8th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Is 49:14-15; Psalm 62:2-3, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Cor 4:1-5; Gospel Mt 6:24-34

St. Anthony of Padua was a great preacher, recently I discovered a book with his homilies in it, and I have been studying his preaching. I thought that it would be good for us as a parish to learn about how he thought about God and the Sacred Scriptures.

When St. Anthony reflected on this Gospel he had three insights to help us put this Gospel in the action. At the heart of this Gospel Christ is trying to teach his disciples (that is us) that God loves us, we only need to trust in him. It is really that simple. God loves you.

Birds, Lilies and Grass
In the Gospel Christ uses three different parts of nature to teach us about God’s love and the spiritual life. the Birds, the Lilies and the Grass. Each one of these examples is a lesson for us to grow in holiness.

The Birds
“Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” St. Anthony taught that the birds are the saints who are able to soar quickly to God in their prayer. They soar to the spiritual heights readily and are easily able to be in the presence of God. St. Dominic was known to experience quiet moments of contemplation when he was out walking with his brothers. His friends said that they saw him stealing a quiet moment here or there when he was rapt in ecstasy, filled with the love of God.

Stealing quiet moments of praise
We too are called to live saintly lives; to live lives like Jesus. One way that we can walk a little further on the road to sanctity is to find a way to steal a quiet moment of praise and thanksgiving with God during the daily hustle bustle of life. For example when we have the opportunity to speak to one of our children and we know that we are touching their hearts, or when we get a new job, or our relative is healed. Take a few moments and sit down in a quiet corner of your house and offer a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God. In this way we can be a little more like the birds in the sky that fly readily to God with praise and thanksgiving.

Lilies of the Field
“Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.” St. Anthony compared the lilies of the field to those faithful Christians who attend mass regularly and try their best to live a faithful life in the world. One way that the lilies represent the members of the Church is that they are in the field that represents the world. God finds us to be most beautiful when we persevere in our Christian life away from the Church, because it is in the world that we are the witness to God’s love.

Medicinal roots, white flower, beautiful fragrance
St. Anthony taught that we are like the lilies of the field when we are serious about our repentance in three ways. First of all, repentance for our own wrongs helps us to stay focused on our goal – which is eternal life in heaven. The root of the lily is a medicine for our body, just as a life of penance is medicine for our soul. Secondly, we give witness to the fact that God loves us when we love one another chastely – that is purely. Our pure love for one another is like the white flower of the lily as it reminds everyone of the beauty of chaste love. Lastly, a lily has a very beautiful smell. St. Anthony says that when we are grounded in our penance and live a good example of selfless love then our lives give off the fragrance of a good reputation, and people enjoy being in our presence.

Grass of the field
“If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?” Unfortunately each and every one of us also has a little bit of the grass of the fields growing up between our toes. St. Anthony likens the grass of the field to sinners who are unaware of where their sin is leading them. Jesus says that the grass grows up today, but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. Let us take a moment together and think back over the last week looking for those occasions where we fell into sin? Ultimately what happens when we choose to sin is that we think that the consequence of our sin is not as bad as the reward we get by sinning. When we view internet pornography, we don’t think about how that is damaging our marriage or our relationship with women, we are only thinking about our own selfish pleasure. When we cut down a friend or spouse with our words it is our need for vengeance that outweighs the reality of the hurt that we are inflicting. Whenever we choose to sin we are blind to the reality of the hurt that we cause to others and to God, we are blind to how we are hurting ourselves by separating ourselves from God’s peace and joy.

It’s time to do some weeding.
In the second reading St. Paul says that when Christ comes “he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God.” Let us take heed of his warning and this week live like the lilies rather than the grass. Let us pay attention when the Holy Spirit convicts us of some area in our life that is wrapped in the darkness of sin. When we find those areas let us bring them to the sacrament of confession, which we have here at St. Anthony’s every Saturday afternoon. If we can do this we become more like the lilies in the field that are clothed by God with finer garments than that of Solomon. Then when our time here on earth is finished, we will soar like the birds of the sky into the presence of our heavenly Father who will praise us for fighting the good fight against sin.

Verso L'alto!

2011-01-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Zep 2:3; 3:12-13; Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10; 1 Cor 1:26-31; Gospel: Mt 5:1-12a

Over the past couple of weeks we have been talking about the various parts of the Mass in an effort to help us enter more deeply into our worship of God.

Today we are going to take a guided tour of the Communion Rite, and to help us out I have had guide books printed up and placed in all of the pews. If you don’t already have your guidebook with you then please locate one, they are labeled missalettes and we are on page 154.

I also thought that an experienced guide would help as well. Today, our guide is none other than Blessed Pier Frassati, a university student from Turin, Italy.

Pier was born in 1901, to rich parents. His father was an ardent agnostic and his mother a devout Catholic. Pier loved the outdoors and is often pictured climbing mountains and skiing. When he was beatified in 1990 Pope John Paul II described him as “The man of the Beatitudes”, so Pier works well with our Gospel today as well.

Pier had a great love for the Eucharist. When he would go skiing in the Alps he would begin his day with Mass, spend all day on the slopes and then return in the evening to visit Jesus in adoration. Sometimes he would spend all night adoring Christ in his parish church.

In the Gospel today, Jesus teaches us the Beatitudes from atop a mountain. So equipped with our guidebooks, and our guide let us go though the Communion Rite of the Mass and pause along the way to take in some of the beautiful views and awesome vista’s that we can see when we get to the height of the Mass.

The first place that I would like to visit is the Our Father. We begin the communion rite by praying the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. This is a good prayer for us to say on a daily basis.

In the Lord’s Prayer we pray these words: “Thy Kingdom Come…”. In the Gospel today, Jesus teaches “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

If we want God’s Kingdom to come then we need to be poor in spirit. The reason why this is the first of the beatitudes is that true humility is the foundation for a healthy spiritual life. When we ask God for his Kingdom to come we need to get out of the way and let him work through us. God can’t do this if we are too busy saying to Him – “It’s ok Lord, I’ll handle this one…” Blessed Pier used to ride 3rd class on the train and run rather than take buses so he could spend the money he saved in bus fare to help the poor of his community. When asked by a friend why he rode in the third class he answered “Well, they don’t have a fourth class!”

Later on in the Lord’s prayer we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”. In the Gospel, Christ says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

To be merciful means that we build our relationships around our ability to forgive others their faults. When was the last time you hurt someone and had to ask for their forgiveness? [[PAUSE]] How did it affect your relationship? [[PAUSE]] When was the last time someone asked you for forgiveness? [[PAUSE]] Did you respond with vengeance or mercy? [[PAUSE]]

Moving on up higher still in our climb, we come to the Sign of Peace. Later on in chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says “If you bring your gift to the altar and there realize that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” In the Beatitudes Jesus teaches “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”.

This readiness to seek peace is built on the humility to see our own fault in the troubles of our relationships. It also requires us to be merciful. When we can humbly show mercy then seeking after peace becomes easy.

Pier discovered that it was his own sin that disturbed his peace, and so he became acutely aware of the need to reconcile those relationships that were hurt in his life. Sometimes this was with his Dad, whose political views he did not agree with.

After the sign of Peace we pray the “Lamb of God” – asking Christ for his mercy, which we know he will gladly give because he teaches us “Blessed are the Merciful, for they will be shown mercy”. This is similar to the centurions prayer “Lord I am not worthy..” – because we recognize that we are all beggars before God. We are like the good thief who while he was being crucified with Christ asked Jesus “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom”.

Now we arrive at the moment of Communion. This is when we approach God and invite him into our hearts and souls. We approach God it is with reverence, with a bow of our head.

I invite you to make this moment of communion an intensely personal moment. When you see Christ, welcome him into your life. When we receive Holy Communion, either on our tongue or the hand, the Minister says “The Body of Christ”, and we respond: “Amen” – which means “I believe”. Then afterwards as you return to your pew, invite Jesus into your heart. Let your heart share its depths with the heart of Christ.

Blessed Pier said this about Holy Communion:

“I exhort you with all the strength of my soul to approach to the Eucharistic Table as often as possible. Nourished with the Bread of the angels from which you draw the strength to vanquish in the battles against the passions and all adversity, because Jesus Christ promised eternal life and the graces to obtain it, to those who nourish themselves with the Holy Eucharist.

And when you are consumed by the Eucharistic fire, you will be able to thank the Lord God with even more recognition, you who are called to be a member of His flock; will receive a peace that those who are happy according to the world have never tasted. Because real happiness, my friends; does not consist of the pleasures of the world and the realities of the earth, but in the peace of conscience that we have only if we have a heart that is pure and in the spirit."

In June of 1925 one of Pier’s friends took a picture of him climbing a cliff, Pier wrote his motto on it; “Verso l’alto!” this is Italian for “To the Top!” On month later he contracted polio and died in five days. He never stopped climbing towards heaven, when he was dying he gave a list of names to his sister, these were the poor people that he spent his saved bus fare on. He asked her to make sure that they were cared for.

When mass ends today, and we are sent forth, let us remember why we came here – to gain the strength we need to get “To the Top!” – to heaven with God and Blessed Pier. Then let us live out the Beatitudes this week with Humility, Mercy seeking Peace and Forgiveness in our communities. Brothers and Sisters – “Verso l’alto!”

Storytime

2010-12-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Christmas – Cycle A
Is 62:1-5, Psalm 89: 4-5, 16-17, 27, 29, Acts 13:16-17, 22-25, Mt 1:18-25

Storytime
When I was a kid my parent’s told me that St. Nicholas was very clever, he would not come to my house until I was fast asleep, and then he would sneak in and leave presents for us under the tree. I was always so excited on Christmas Eve that I had a hard time falling asleep.

I thought about that we might be able to help the kids get ready for bed tonight by reading a bedtime story.

[[READ The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola]]

There was a young orphan named Giovanni. He begged for food and slept in the doorways. Giovanni was happy because he could do something wonderful. He could juggle!

[[PAGE]]

In the morning Giovanni would juggle oranges in front of Signor Baptista’s vegetable stand. People would watch Giovanni and buy vegetables. Signora Baptista would always feed Giovanni a bowl of soup.

[[PAGE]]

One day a troupe of traveling players came to town with a play. Giovanni saw their pretty clothes, dancing and singing and said – “That is the life for me!” So he begged the Maestro “Please let me come with you. I will be a hard worker and … I can juggle!” The Maestro agreed and Giovanni became a traveling player.

[[PAGE]]

Whenever he juggled Giovanni would dress up as a clown. First he would juggle rings, then clubs and then the Moon, the Earth and the Sun. When he got to the Earth and the Sun and the Moon he would juggle them higher and faster and the crowd would laugh and cheer.

[[PAGE]]

Giovanni became famous, He traveled all over Italy playing to people. Once he juggled for a Count, then a Duchess, then a Prince. His act was always the same.

[[PICK UP THE RINGS]]

First he would juggle the rings.

[[PICK UP THE CLUBS]]

Then he would juggle the clubs.

[[PICK UP THE EARTH, THE MOON AND THE SUN]]

Then he would juggle the Earth and the Moon and the Sun in the heavens! Each time the people would clap and cheer and laugh. They really enjoyed Giovanni’s show.

[[BOW AND SIT BACK DOWN – THEN PAGE]]

One day when Giovanni was between two towns he was sitting in the shade of a tree eating a lunch of bread and cheese when Two Little Brothers came down the road. “Will you share your food with us good Clown for the love of God and the blessings of our Brother Francis?” “Of course good fellows, there is more than enough” said Giovanni.

As they ate, one of the two little brothers named St. Anthony told Giovanni how they went from town to town begging their food and spreading the joy of God. “Our founder, Brother Francis, says that everything sings of the glory of God. Why even your juggling.” “I only juggle to make people laugh and applaud” said Giovanni. “That is the same thing”, said St. Anthony, “If you give happiness to people, you give glory to God as well.” “Thank you” said Giovanni and after lunch they went on their way.

[[PAGE]]

Giovanni became richer and richer and more famous. Wherever he went the crowds would be all smiles and laugh and clap – especially when he juggled the Sun and the Earth and the Moon.

[[PAGE]]

Then one day while he was juggling the Sun, the Earth and the Moon he dropped the Sun in the Heavens. All of his balls came crashing down. The people laughed at him – but not from joy. They did a terrible thing and threw vegetables at him and so Giovanni had to run for his life.

[[PAGE]]

Giovanni gave up juggling. He took off his clown face gave up juggling forever. He lost what little money he had saved and soon he was once again begging for food and sleeping in doorways. It is time to go home he thought.

[[PAGE]]

It was a cold winters night when he got back home. The wind blew and the rain was icy and it was dark. The only place that was open was the Church of the little brothers, so Giovanni crept inside the dark Church and fell asleep cold and tired.

[[PAGE]]

Gloria in excelcis Deo! Giovanni woke up to the Church filled with people singing the Gloria. He could scarcely believe his eyes! So much beauty, a long procession of Brothers and Sisters, Priests and Townspeople all bringing their gifts in front of a Statue of Mary and Jesus. He asked one of the townspeople what was going on. “It is the birthday of Jesus, it is Christmas! We are all bringing him our gifts to celebrate His birth”.

When Mass was over, everyone went home. The Church was dark again except for the candles around Mary and Jesus.

[[PAGE]]

Giovanni went closer. Mary and Jesus seemed so serious, so stern. “I am but a poor beggar thought Giovanni, but I know what I can give as a gift.”

[[PAGE]]

He opened up his juggling bag, put on his clown makeup and began to juggle for Mary and Jesus.

[[PAGE]]

The porter came in and saw Giovanni and ran to get the Father. Giovanni was now juggling the Sun and the Earth and the Moon. They went around and around faster and more beautifully before. His heart was pounding, “For you sweet Jesus, for you!” cried Giovanni.

[[PAGE]]

Suddenly his heart stopped, and he fell dead on the floor.

[[PAUSE]], [[PAGE]]

When the Father came in, he found Giovanni on the floor and he said – “This poor old clown is dead – may he rest in peace.” Then looking up at the statue of Mary and Jesus he noticed that Jesus was smiling, and in his hand he held the Sun. The End.

[[PAUSE – THEN PICK UP THE SUN]]

The Sun was Giovanni’s gift to Jesus for Christmas – he gave him part of himself, he showed Jesus his love by juggling for him. That is why Jesus had a smile on his face at the end of the story.

The gospels give us three different ideas for gifts for Jesus this Christmas.

The gift of love.
The gift that St. Joseph gave to Jesus was the gift of his love. Joseph responded to the Angel and took Mary to be his wife. His gift of love lasted his entire life, where he provided for, protected and cared for Mary and Jesus.

The gift of obedience.
When the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary to ask if she would be the Mother of Jesus she responded with her yes. She said “Let it be done to me according to your word!” Mary’s gift to Jesus was to listen to his word and act on it in her heart.

The gift of help.
After Mary became pregnant with Jesus, she traveled to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is the mother of John the Baptist to help her in her own pregnancy. Mary’s response to having Jesus grow within her was to share him with Elizabeth and John the Baptist.

What is your Gift to God this Christmas?
On Christmas we celebrate God’s generosity by giving one another presents. This Christmas, what gift are you going to bring to Christ? Love? Obedience? Help? When we give gifts of ourselves we share God’s love and proclaim Glory to God in the highest!

Look to the Barrens

2010-12-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

3rd Sunday of Advent – Cycle A

Is 35:1-6a, 10, Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10, Jas 5:7-10, Gospel: Mt 11:2-11

Gaudete – Catching the first glimpse of Bethlehem
The reason why we are wearing pink vestments today is because today is Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice. We rejoice because we can see our hope – the coming of Christ into the world. It is as if we have been on a long journey, and we have just crested a ridge and can get our first glimpse at our destination – Bethlehem. It is in Bethlehem that we will celebrate God’s greatest blessing to us; His Son. Christmas is the celebration that God sent his Son to take on flesh so that we can have a new relationship with Him.

The correct liturgical description for the color that we wear today is “Rose”. Rose is particularly fitting color as today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and rose has always been a symbol of our Blessed Mother.

The story of St. Juan Diego and the Blessed Mother is well known. She appeared to him on the hill Tepeyac, outside of Mexico City, and asked him to have the Bishop build a Cathedral there. When St. Juan Diego asked the Bishop, he asked Juan Diego for proof. The next day the Blessed Mother told him to pick some roses at the top of the hill (it was December) and to fold them into his tilma. When Juan Diego opened his tilma before the Bishop on the roses cascaded out onto the floor, revealing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on his apron.

Through this miracle, the entire country of Mexico converted to Christianity within a very short time. Our Lady of Guadalupe began as the patroness of Mexico, but over time she has extended her mantle to incorporate all the Americas; and so today we thank God for the convergence of these two celebrations – the celebration of Gaudate Sunday and of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Why do we give gifts for Christmas?
Ask anyone you meet these days what Christmas is about and they are almost sure to answer that Christmas is about giving gifts. Why do we exchange gifts over this holiday? Why don’t we have Turkey gifts for Thanksgiving, and 4th of July gifts for Independence Day? We celebrate Christmas by giving gifts to the ones that we love because when we give gifts we imitate the big gift that God gave us on the first Christmas. When we give a gift we are giving of ourselves for another’s good. Giving gifts is a way for us to show our friends and family that we love them. Giving gifts is a way of putting our love into action.

Look for God’s presence in our weakness
In the first reading today the Prophet Isaiah uses the imagery of a desert as a symbol for our relationship with God. Isaiah shows us that God’s gifts are most readily seen when he brings the wastelands to life. Isaiah directs us to look to the deserts and wastelands to see God’s gift of life. He says “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song.”

God is our strength
Isaiah teaches us that Christ makes himself present in our weaknesses if we allow Him. He prays for God to “Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak, say to those whose hearts are frightened”. When Christ enters into our lives and our relationships they are transformed – we will see it because “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.”

Relationship game
But what is our relationship with God like? If you had to use the imagery of Isaiah to describe your relationship with God what words would describe it? I want to invite you to take a moment and close your eyes and try to conjure up what that relationship would look like.

Fertile Farmland
Is it fertile farmland? Is your relationship with God filled with life and growth? Are you “on fire” for God? Is it a relationship where everything that is planted takes root quickly and bears fruit?

Rolling Hills
Is your relationship with God like rolling hills? Does it have its ups and downs yet still moves along? Is there a level of stability in it that leads to complacency?

Barren Desert
Or is your relationship with God a barren desert, quiet and empty of life? Is it a hard place where you have to work hard and get almost nowhere?

[[PAUSE]]

Review our relationships
No matter where we are in our relationship with God, or with our family and friends Isaiah can help us to understand what is going on in our lives.

· Where are you and I blind to our own sin that causes us to overlook our shortcomings in our friendships?
· Where are you and I deaf to the cries of the poor?
· Where do you and I fail to speak the truth, and because of our muteness our relationship is suffering?
· Where has our sin crippled our friendships because we lame and unable to act?

Who did you go out into the desert to see?
In the Gospel Jesus asks the disciples the question – “Who did you go out to see in the desert? Someone in nice clothes? Someone who would tell you what you want to hear?” “To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.” John the Baptist was the greatest prophet ever born. People were drawn to John because he was a holy man, he was a man who let God direct his actions.

Let the Holy Spirit lead
St. John the Baptist allowed the Holy Spirit to direct his life. He did not worry if he was living in the desert, preaching by the Jordan or locked up in Herod’s prison. St. John surrendered all of his life to God. He knew that God can bring strength out of weakness which is why St. John surrendered his weakness to God so that God could be glorified. St. John knew that as long as he remained open to the Holy Spirit God would bring good out of evil no matter what. That is why Jesus says to John’s disciples – Tell John that “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” This is Jesus’ way of telling John that He is the Messiah.

How do we let God into our lives more readily?

Have Faith in God
First we need to be grounded in belief that no matter how hopeless or barren a relationship seems to be that God can breath new life into the situation. We need to trust in him that he will do so according to his timing.

Be a Farmer
Second, we need to be like Farmers. In the second reading St. Paul uses the imagery of the faith of a Farmer who plants the seed and then watches it take root in the ground. We too need to be firm in our faith – firm in our knowledge that if we are able to simply live our lives according to the Gospel then God will be glorified.

Farmers are Practical
Farmers are always practical; they like to dig in the dirt, water the crops and when the harvest is ready to gather in the grain. In a practical way we need to live our lives in accordance with the Ten Commandments. Isaiah gives us a clue on where to watch for God – look to the barren areas of our lives. St. Paul had a spiritual maxim; where I am weak God is strong. Where I am overcome with Sin, or temptation to Sin, that is where God can act in the most powerful ways if we only allow him.

Third – be patient
The most difficult part of the spiritual life is that it is an ongoing journey. It is not a novel where we can skip the boring parts. We can’t skip to the end to see how it finishes us. We need to live our way through it. Christ does tell us what the end is, but he doesn’t give us the details. While we are patiently watching the crops grow we need to surrender the areas of sin in our lives. We need to surrender the areas of weakness to God’s love so that Christ can fill these areas with his transforming love.

Gaudete – Rejoice!
When we are able to surrender the sinful areas of our life to God then God is able to bring the dead to life! Remember that no matter how barren or rocky a friendship is; no matter how blind, deaf, dumb or crippled we are by our sin; God is coming to bring us new life! This is why we rejoice today!

The Incredibles

2010-11-14T06:59:00.003-07:00

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Mal 3:19-20a; Psalm Ps 98:5-6, 7-8, 9; 2 Thes 3:7-12; Gospel: Lk 21:5-19

The Incredibles
One of my favorite movies of all time is Pixar’s Animated Film “The Incredibles”. It is the story of a family of superhero’s who are trying to lead ordinary lives, concealing their secret identities and super powers. This family was started when Mr. Incredible (who has incredible strength) and Elastigirl (who has incredible flexibility) fall in love, get married and raise a family. They are forced into concealing their super-powers and have to live a life pretending to be normal humans.

Am I a Secret Christian Superhero?
I think that some of us Christian’s here can relate to this because we live in a world that wants us to pretend that we are not Christians. The readings today call us to examine the way we are leading our lives and to ask the question – Am I conforming my life to the way God wants me to live it or am I living my life the way the World wants me to live?

Addicted to Justice
Mr. Incredible has a problem, which is that he is addicted to justice. Even though doing the right thing has gotten him into trouble, he still sneaks out in the middle of the night with his superhero friend “Frozone” and they save people in trouble.

I think that we all share Mr. Incredible’s addiction to justice – we all have an intuitive sense of right and wrong, and we all get irritated when we witness injustice.

What is Justice?
Justice is acting in a way that reveals God’s love to the world.

[[ REPEAT THIS DEFINITION WITH A PAUSE SO IT SINKS IN ]]

The boss and the mugger
There is a scene in the movie where Mr. Incredible’s boss is meeting with him and a man who is mugged right outside the office. Mr. Incredible finds himself conflicted between his need to catch the mugger, and his need to have this job to provide for his family. He ends up resolving this inner conflict by punching out his boss after the mugger gets away.

Ask the Question – How is God’s love revealed by my actions?
This is why we need the definition of justice; it helps us to evaluate our actions to see if they are going to be good or bad. When we recognize that we are in conflict, we need to ask ourselves the question – how is God’s love revealed through this action?

Superhero’s confront Injustice
Whenever Mr. Incredible catches a bad guy he is always taking time to speak to the reporters about the crook he caught. He is pointing out to the community an injustice that needs correcting. If only Mr. Incredible could do this with his own actions then those situations too might be resolved with charity.

What is Injustice?
If Justice is acting in a way that reveals God’s love to the world than injustice is acting in a way that obscures God’s love in the world.

[[REPEAT FOR EFFECT - PAUSE]]

Lying to cover firing – Helping his nemesis
After he punches out his boss Mr. Incredible gets fired from his job. Unwittingly he is hired by his nemesis, an evil scientist named Syndrome who uses him to perfect his superhero killing robot.

To cover up for getting fired he lies to his wife, giving her the impression that he was promoted when in reality he was fired. He moonlights as a superhero and she thinks that he is having an affair. He gets trapped, and it seems that there is no way out.

How do we fall into the Injustice Trap - Malachi
We too can fall into the Injustice trap. In the first Reading the prophet Malachi says “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch”

Two will be burned – Evildoers and the Proud
Did you notice that there are two kinds of people who will be burned away in that last day? They are evildoers and those who are proud.

How do Christians become evil-doers?
First, we might say – “God loves me and He won’t worry about my little faults here or there”. This is wrong because we think that we can earn our way into heaven without paying attention to what is inside our hearts.

How are we guilty of pride?
The other way is for us to think that we have already made it and we don’t need to do any works because we are here in the Church. This is the sin of pride because our actions do not reflect what our faith teaches.

Sin is like burning garbage
What is behind both of these actions is sin. Sin is like a garbage heap that spontaneously combusts. Have you ever smelt burning trash? It reeks and stinks, and burns itself away to nothing. When we allow sin to persist in our lives that is what it does to our souls. Sin corrodes and destroys us until nothing is left but our own self-consuming anger. This is the kind of fire that is used to describe hell – the place where unrepentant sinners end up.

God’s love is a purifying fire.
Earlier in this same chapter Malachi speaks of God’s love being like fire as well. He uses the image of God’s love being like fire purifying silver – burning off the sin and corruption and leaving our soul as God created us to be – beautiful and precious in his sight.

When we repent we expose ourselves to the purifying fire of God’s love. That fire burns away the sin in our lives so that we become purely who God created us to be. God’s purifying fire allows his love to be revealed to the world through our actions. This is the witness of all of those Christian superheroes we call the Saints – like Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

How do we escape from the trap? By becoming People of action
Mr. Incredible gets caught both by his nemesis Syndrome and his wife Elastigirl. He does not get stuck because he remains a man of action. It is the actions of Mr. Incredible, of his wife and his family that ultimately free him and save a whole bunch of other people from Syndrome’s evil schemes. God often uses our family and friends to reach out to us and save us when we are trapped in sin.

Choose to be a Superhero!
We too are called to be Christian Superheroes because we are called to be women and men of action. This means that we

Love Justice
- That we ask the Holy Spirit for the gift to see how God’s love needs to be revealed in each situation of each day.
Confront Injustice
- That we ask the Holy Spirit to point out where our actions are obscuring God’s love in the world. Ask Him to make us aware of the temptation to sin.
And Take action
- Examine our lives for injustice. When we find it – confess it!
- Reach out to someone with charity this week. Maybe it is a family member who you have hurt, or a friend at work or school, or maybe it is someone who has fallen on hard times.

This is how Christ invites us to prepare for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

2010-10-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Ex 17:8-13; Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8; 2 Tm 3:14-4:2; Gospel: Lk 18:1-8

I want to teach you a very short prayer and song today – so I brought my conductors baton to help out. The prayer is “Veni Sancte Spiritus” which is Latin for “Come Holy Spirit”

[[START WITH A CONDUCTORS BATON – ASK THE WOMEN IN THE PARISH TO STAND AND TEACH THEM THE HIGHER PART TO VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS

THANK THEM AND THEN ASK THE MEN TO STAND AND DO THEIR PART – THE BASE PART

THANK THEM]]

An image of God - the Choir Master
I am sure that some of you were not expecting to come to choir practice today. The reason why I asked you to sing is because I would like to give you an image of God that you might not have – that is the image of God the Choir-Master.

A Good Choir Master seeks the best out of each singer
A Choir Master is the leader of a choir who helps everyone to sing in unison, on key and to the same tune or melody. A good choir master will see the talents of his singers and then find the right part’s for them to sing in the choir.

Christ is the best Football Coach
However, this is Bronco’s season so perhaps a better image is that God is like a good football coach. If you have ever had the opportunity to train under a good coach then you have an idea of what I am talking about. Think back to those days in practice when the coach pushed you harder than you thought you could go – he was always encouraging you to run a little faster, to hit a little harder. Bit by bit you were molded into the player that he always knew you could.

[[BRIDGE]]

Each one of us has a vocation to fill – just like Moses
Last week we started to preach about vocations here in the parish. The first reading gives us an idea of how God uses each persons individual vocation to bring about His kingdom. In the first reading today God is very much acting in the coach role. A superior army that is attacking them to destroy them outnumbers the Israelites. God uses the vocations of various people to protect his children. He uses Moses to pray, and Aaron and Hur are to help Moses in his prayer. Joshua is the general and it is his vocation to plan the fight and to choose the men to fight it. The chosen men are the soldiers who carry the fight to the enemy and ultimately bring about the victory. Would God have been glorified if Moses had prayed but did not have the help of Aaron and Hur, or if Joshua planned the battle but the chosen men did not fight? No, it took everyone responding to their vocation to bring victory for God’s people.

God is calling each of us to our own vocation
The same is true for our Church today. God is calling each of us to our particular vocations. It is up to us to listen to that call and then to respond to God with our hearts. God is the coach calling each of us here our vocations – the questions are; do we hear Him and do we have the courage to say “Yes” to Him?

Some of us here today are asking the questions “What is a Vocation?” or “How do I discover my vocation?”

What is a Vocation?
At the core our vocation is who God created us to be. It is fundamentally who we are. When we discover our vocation our response is “I should have been doing this all my life!” – It radically changes our understanding of who we are and makes us more complete, more whole and more purely who God is creating us to be.

How do we discover our Vocation(s)?
The first step to discovering what our vocation is to enter into a relationship with God. When we take time in our lives to invite God into our relationships and into our work, then we can begin to listen to the directions that our Heavenly Coach is giving us.

Discovering Diakonia in the Colorado Prairie
For me, I discovered my vocation to be a Deacon while I was helping out at a retreat center in North Eastern Colorado called the Peace Huts. I moved to Colorado 22 years ago after I got out of the Navy. I did not know anyone in town except for my immediate family. I was studying in college when I met some young adults at Spirit of Christ Catholic Church. One of them was trying to build a retreat center out near Akron but needed help with organization. God used my skills in organizing to help to get the retreat center built. Along the way I began to share my life with Him and He began to share His dreams for my life with me.

One of the dreams God had for me was to be a Deacon. I told him that he would have to first convince my wife, and I stopped worrying about the problem.

Flying home from Rome
Two years later on a plane flying back from Rome my wife Tina turned to Father George who was accompanying us and asked him if I had spoken to him about the Diaconate. You could have knocked me over with a feather because I realized in an instance how serious God was in his dream for me. Tina and I spent the next three years discussing and discerning what this vocation would mean for us and our family and finally in 2003 I entered the seminary and began to study to be a Deacon.

What have I discovered since being ordained?
Last year I called a friend of mine from Wisconsin. When she picked up the phone she said – “You seem really upbeat today, what have you been doing?” It was Sunday and I had spent the day here at the parish, serving the Mass, baptizing a baby, and visiting the sick in the nursing home. I was excited. The funny thing about being a Deacon for me is that it is not draining but energizing. I think that the reason why is that when I am serving God with all of my heart and my soul I am able to meet people in the most profound moments of their lives and see how God is working with them – what an amazing experience.

What can each one of us do to better understand our own vocation?
But enough about me, how about you? The first thing that each and everyone of us can do is to begin to share our lives with God. When we get up in the morning ask Him what His will is with us. Be open to the idea that God might be coaching us for something we haven’t even dared to dream about. Reflect on the souls of our children. Ask God to provide for them out of his abundant love. Help our children to better understand God’s will for them in their lives.

Pray for the members of our parish who are pursuing their vocation
There are men and women in our parish who are trying to figure out if they are called to be a Priest, or a Deacon or a Sister. They have the courage to consider the God’s call in their lives. There are men and women in our parish who are discerning if God is calling them to be married to one another. Pray for them that God helps them to choose His will. We have three seminarians who are currently preparing for ordained life. Arturo Ariza, one of our own parishioners who used to lead the Hombres para Cristo is studying to be a Deacon. Ryan Tydball and Brother Clarance Wetegrove are preparing for the priesthood and are here. The Franciscans in the Convent have another 3 men who are spending this year asking God if they are called to follow Jesus as Franciscan Brothers. Pray for them.

Do we have the courage to live God’s Dreams? Veni Sancte Spiritus…
In the Gospel today Christ teaches us that God’s dreams for us are greater than we can imagine. If a wicked judge will give a just judgment to a nagging widow then how much more will God give us what is good? Do we have the audacity to live God’s Dreams for our lives? Let us pray for God to give us that courage!

[[FINISH BY SINGING VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS TWICE THROUGH]].

Encountering God

2010-07-18T08:30:00.000-06:00

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

Gn 18:1-10a, Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 5, Col 1:24-28, Gospel: Lk 10:38-42

Test Question – Who is Holier?
Are you ready for a test today? Often times when I ask that question it puts people on edge. They quickly get a worried look on their face, because they know that they are about to be put on the spot. Don’t panic today however, because while I have a question for you, I am not going to put you on the spot.

Blessed Mother Teresa – Busybody for Jesus
Who do you think is holier? Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta or St. Joseph? Some of you might answer Blessed Mother Theresa – because she worked tirelessly to provide for the needs of the poor, the sick and the abandoned in the streets of Calcutta and all over the world. She slept very little, some biographers saying only 4 hours a night so that she could devote as much of her life as possible to begging for, caring for and loving the poor and afflicted of the world.

St. Joseph – Sleep is the way to sanctity
On the other hand, we have the model of St. Joseph – who in the early part of St. Matthews Gospel spends a great deal of time sleeping. He was sleeping when the angel came to him and told him not to divorce Mary but to take her as his wife. He was sleeping again when the angel asked him to take Mary and Jesus into Egypt to flee Herod, and yes, you guessed it – he was sleeping again when the Angel told him that it was okay to return back to Israel after the death of Herod. So who is holier? Blessed Mother Teresa, or St. Joseph.

It is a trick question
They both are – it is a trick question. The important part to remember is that both St. Joseph and Blessed Mother Teresa encountered God in their lives. For Blessed Mother Teresa, she encountered Christ in each one of the people that she knelt down to care for. For St. Joseph, he was prepared, and open to encounter God, and to respond to God even during his rest times.

The readings today describe how four different people encountered God, and there are four different spiritualities that we can learn from in these encounters.

Abraham – the model of generosity
Christian Scripture scholars have understood that the three men that Abraham encounters in the first reading to be the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. When Abraham encounters God, he encounters Him from a heart filled with gratitude. Abraham understands that all that he has is a great gift from God, that he is rich thanks to God, and that God gave him these gifts so that he could share them with Others.

When the Blessed Trinity encounters Abraham, he goes out of his way to invite them to share in his blessings. First, he offers them a place in the shade, then some water to cool their feet. Then he scampers off behind his tent, picks out the finest calf, and asks Sarah to make some fresh bread from the finest flour – to share with his guests. Abraham delights in sharing his blessings with others – this is his spirituality of encounter that maybe we can learn from today, a spirituality that is rooted in that profound understanding that everything that we have is a gift given to us by God to be shared with the world. Where in your life do you practice the spirituality of gratitude so that you can encounter Christ?

Martha – Encountering Christ in the work of service
In the Gospel today we see the two sisters, Martha and Mary. Throughout the ages, Martha gets a bad rap because she whines a little to Jesus. Let us look again at the Gospel – It is Martha who welcomes Jesus into her house. It is Martha who dives into the busy-ness of caring for Jesus and his disciples who descended upon his house. Her downfall (which is slight) is that she gets a little distracted and overwhelmed with all the work of taking care of the guests. How many of us are Martha’s helping around our parish – like the women in the Altar and Rosary society, or the various Mens groups here who are always busy about the work of caring for the needs of the parish. Perhaps we live this spirituality the best when we are preparing for and carrying out our Fiesta – busy as bees. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was like St. Martha in the sense that she worked tirelessly for the Gospel, even though for 40 years she did not enjoy the consolation of Gods presence as a tangible experience in her life. She knew who God was, and he had revealed to her who she would become, so it was this experience that kept her faithful to the path that she knew God had called her to encounter him through.

Mary – A Eucharistic spirituality
Another form of encounter spirituality is that practiced by Martha’s sister Mary. When Jesus comes into her house, Mary drops everything to pay attention to him, to be with him, to listen to him and learn from him. She recognizes that the Word made Flesh – God become Man, the Truth of the Love of God had come into her home, and she was so captivated, rapt with love for him that she was transfixed. It was as if she were a dry sponge soaking up the moisture. Mary’s spirituality is a spirituality of presence. She recognized the goodness of the Lord’s presence and chose to rest in it. This is why Jesus tells Martha that Mary has chosen the better portion – because he knows that she is encountering his eternal being. We too have the opportunity to practice Mary’s spirituality of presence here at St. Anthony’s on Tuesday nights at 6PM when we have a couple of hours of Eucharistic Adoration. St. John Vianney once spoke with a Farmer who spent some time in Adoration each day – he asked him – what do you do when you are with the Lord and the Farmer replied “I look at him, and he looks at me.” This farmer witnessed to St. John his practice of presence with God.

St. Paul – Encountering Christ in Suffering
We now turn to the second reading for perhaps the most difficult spirituality of encountering Christ. St. Paul says in this reading “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church”. How do we encounter Christ in the saddest moments of our lives, when we are sick, or suffering loss or grief. Even there in the depths of our despair and struggle Christ is with us, and walks with us. St. Paul was able to find Joy in these moments because he understood the true meaning and triumph of the Cross. The witness of God’s love and action in his life – that it could take him in such a wretched state and free him, transform him from a persecutor of the Church to a Martyr, a witness in his blood of the Love of Jesus. We have many people here who are struggling with sin and sadness, sickness and death. St. Paul’s witness to us is that even here God is present, and God can be encountered.

God provides us with many ways and opportunities to encounter him this week. The question is, will our hearts be open to him when he comes to us?

Spectacles!

2010-06-13T11:00:00.000-06:00

11th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle C

2 Sm 12:7-10, 13; Psalm 32:1-2, 5, 7, 11; Gal 2:16, 19-21; Gospel: Lk 7:36—8:3

How many people here today wear glasses or contact lenses? [[RAISE YOUR HAND]].

Glasses have the power to transform
I know that seems like an odd question to start out a homily with, but it is a subject that I think can help us to reflect on today’s readings. For me, glasses are something that is so minor and trivial that I don’t really ever think about them much, and yet, at the same time, they have transformed my life and my world.

Going to the eye doctor
When I was 12 years old my Dad took me to the eye-doctors for an examination along with my older brother David. The eye doctor had me sit in a chair and put that funky perscription machine in front of my face and try to read the letters off of a chart.

He said – “Cover your eye and read the smallest line on the chart”. I did – I said [[COVERING ONE EYE]] “I…M…B…L…I…N…D…”. [[PAUSE]] “Good”, he said, “and now the other eye and read the smallest line on this chart.” So, I did, I said – “I…O…U…50…BUCKS…” [[PAUSE]]

“Very good he replied”, and he told me that I needed glasses and gave my Dad the bill for $50.

[[PAUSE]]

Glasses transformed my world – but I take them for granted
When I put on my new glasses my life was transformed. I could see the world clearly, and ever since then I have always worn glasses day in and day out.

God sends the Eye Doctor (Nathan) to King David so he can see the hurt
In the first reading God sends Nathan the prophet to be an eye doctor for King David. David is blind to his sin, and he does not see the damage he has done to his relationship with God. Nathan shows David that he has sinned, and once David is able to see the hurt that he has caused and the wrong that he has done he is filled with sorrow and repentance. To repent means that we see what Sin has done to our relationship with God.

Just wearing glasses is not enough.
In the second reading St. Paul teaches us the difference between obedience to the Law and the value of faith. For St. Paul, the Law is the ability to know right from wrong – it is essential to our relationship with God, but it is not complete. If the law is a pair of glasses then just wearing glasses is not enough to save us. St. Paul says that it is faith that saves us – by faith, St. Paul means our relationship with Jesus.

Jesus helps us to see the hurt our sin does to our relationship with God.
St. Paul teaches that the reason why Christ came in the flesh was to be out brother and save us from our sin. When St. Paul encountered the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus he came face to face with the effects of his Sin. St Paul understood that it was his relationship (faith) with Jesus that saved him from death to Sin and allowed him to live in the light of God’s love. St. Paul sees the effects of his sin in the skin, flesh and blood of Christ hanging on the cross. The glasses of the Law helped St. Paul to lead a good life, but it is in his relationship with Christ that St. Paul experiences the reality of forgiveness that frees him and transforms his life from one of suffering and misery to one of joy and peace.

Law and Faith; Sin, Repentance and Forgiveness
The Gospel today ties together both of these two themes – The Law and Faith (that is relationship with Christ), and the process of Sin, Repentance and Forgiveness.

Simon wears his glasses but takes them for granted.
There are three people in the Gospel, Simon the Pharisee, the Sinful woman and Jesus. Simon is basically a good man - he is a man who has lived his life with his glasses on. Part of Simon’s sin is that he takes his faith for granted – and he does not allow his relationship with God to transform his heart. Jesus reprimands him for failing to wash his feet or anoint his head. Simon has a false sense of security in his salvation because his focus is on the fact that he wears glasses and not on what he see’s through the glasses.

The Sinful Woman is blind and knows that she needs salvation.
The Sinful Woman on the other hand is blind, her life has been spent in the darkness of sin. What we don’t know from the scriptures is if she had an encounter with Jesus earlier that day that led to this radical display of love and gratitude. Something happened in her relationship with Christ that made her aware of him – perhaps he met her earlier in the day and showed her the truth of her life wrapped in love. Whatever it was, her encounter with Jesus is trans-formative because it makes her aware of how empty her life has been, and of her need for salvation. She becomes painfully aware of Jesus’ ability to bring her from darkness to light, from despair and sin into joy and peace and life. Jesus offers her a way out of the trap of Sin that has destroyed her life. She is first and foremost painfully aware of her sin, and that allows her to be profoundly grateful for the forgiveness that Jesus offers her.

Another angle – The physics of a swing-set or the reality of a swing-set.
Another way of thinking about Simon and the sinful Woman is that Simon understands the physics and mathematics of a person on a swing, but is unable to see where Sin is in his life. Simon could describe the mathematics of a person on a swing but he has never taken the time to examine his own life to see where he is in sin. Simon thinks that because he lives by the law (or for us because we go to Mass) he is immune to Sin and its effects.

On the other hand, the Sinful woman has swung on the swing-set and she is painfully aware of it. She wants to escape from the evil life and knows that it is her relationship with Jesus that can get her out of her life of Sin that is killing her.

Where are we in the story?
Where do we find ourselves in this story? How aware are we of the effects of sin in our life. Do we know the math and lack the personal awareness of our own sinfulness? Who are you in this story? Are you more like Simon, who has fallen become complacent in his faith and stopped examining his relationship with God? [[PAUSE]] If we are then we are more like the person forgiven the debt of 50 days wages rather than 500. Or are we like the sinful Woman – painfully aware of our sin, but perhaps trapped in the effects of our sin, we might feel powerless and a victim of our sin? In either case the Gospel today is good news for us because Christ invites us to his forgiveness, so that we can be free to live a life filled with the presence of God.

Psychologists say that when you want to make a change in your life for the better, then you are 70% more likely to follow through on your commitment to change if you speak to a person about your commitment. As Catholics, this statement is icing on the cake because when we have the sacrament of Confession so that we can hear the words of Christ in our hearts. When we take advantage of the sacrament we have the opportunity to speak with Jesus and hear his healing words – that is the grace of the sacrament – your sins are forgiven. That frees us to live a life of conversion.

Take the Evangelical Eye Exam!
The Gospel this week invites us to take an eye exam – look at our lives and ask ourselves the question. Where am I sinning? Then to really take to heart these readings and consider if we understand our sin like King David, St. Paul, the Pharisee or the Sinful Woman. We are invited to repent and confess our sins so that we can live our life in freedom like a person who has been forgiven a great debt. The day when we can meet that challenge is a day when our entire world will be transformed.

Party On!

2010-05-23T22:49:00.003-06:00

Pentecost
Acts 2:1-11, Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34, 1 Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13, Gospel Jn 20:19-23

What is God’s favorite thing to do? Party!
Have you ever stopped to wonder – what is God’s favorite past-time? Well your presence here today gives us a hint as to what that might be. The most favorite thing that God loves to do is to party! That is what the Mass is – it is our worship and celebration of the true and living God who desires to be with us!

A true party is a celebration of the life of the one you love
Some of us might have a vision of partying that is a little askew from what I am speaking about today. When I refer to partying, I mean spending time with those that you love the most. We have read from the book of Revelation about how all of those who love God are gathered around him in heaven spending eternity in communion with those whom they love. This is what true partying is about – it is about enjoying one another's presence. Often times we have a distorted view of celebration – that it takes drugs or alcohol to have a good time. The truth is, when we are honestly ourselves, when we are as God has created us to be we discover that those crutches get in the way of a true, honest and loving relationship with one another.

Pentecost is the Birthday Party of the Church
In today’s readings we hear about the birth of the Church, which is the great feast that we celebrate today. Pentecost is in a very real way the birthday of the Church. Let me be the first to wish you “Happy Birthday!” The Holy Spirit sent out the invitations for the Feast of Pentecost by empowering the disciples to go out and speak to the world about God’s love and action in their lives. The disciples (that’s you and me) are the ones who have been commissioned to invite people to the banquet of the Lord – to this great celebration that we share in today.

When we receive gifts we know we are loved
When we want to show someone how much they are loved, we make it a point to give them a gift. When we are choosing gifts, we want them to be something that reminds them of our love for them, and at the same time, that is useful, practical and helpful to them. Sometimes we might give a gift that is a picture, something beautiful to look at. Or maybe it is something to help them in their hobby like fishing gear or perhaps a book to read.

God gives gifts at Pentecost – to the Church and at Confirmation to us.
God is the same way, when we come to his party, he brings us Gifts. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit poured out his gifts on the Church. For those of us who have been confirmed we have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives. God has given us these gifts as an expression of his love for us. He wants his gifts to be beautiful, practical and useful to us. He knows each one of us intimately in the depths of His heart and he knows how his gifts will benefit us. The question is – are we open to his gifts and do we allow God to work in our lives by using his gifts?

We should not practice “Gift Envy”.
Each one of us has different gifts in different ways. This is part of the beauty of the Holy Spirit. He gives gifts to each one of us according to our need. This is never a case for “Gift Envy” – because the gifts that God has given each one of us is uniquely tailored to our situation in life and in the world. It does not mean that God loves some of us more than others, but rather that God understands each one of us intimately and provides for our needs with practical, useful and beautiful gifts – custom fit for our lives.

How do we identify the gifts of God?
The question is how do we identify the gifts that God has given us, and more importantly how do we begin to use those gifts?

· Wisdom – The ability to make right judgments according to the way that God would judge, rather then as we would judge.
· Understanding – An ability to understand, comprehend, to hold in our mind the deeper truths of our faith. To see that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. To understand how God is calling us to live out our lives of faith.
· Counsel – God gives us the gift to provide good counsel, good advice to those who are in need or who are struggling with a situation.
· Fortitude (Courage) – a time when we know that we need to stand up for what is right and the Truth.
· Knowledge – Is the ability to know ourselves. (To Know – in Hebrew Yada – means to know a person intimately. To have a clear understanding of who God has created with all of our gifts, and our faults. To know our heart as God knows our heart.
· Peity – To have a clear vision of our relationship of God, his holiness and our unworthiness for his love, coupled with a true acceptance of that gift of love that he gives us.
· Fear of the Lord – An understanding of the awesomeness of God – an understanding of the Truth of who God is – how immense, vast, beautiful, powerful and overwhelming his love truly is.

When we use God’s gifts we are like Birthday Candles
When we live our lives open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit our lives are filled with an awareness of the fire of the Holy Spirit. We become like candles on a birthday cake, where the light of God’s presence in our lives becomes a source of joy for all around us. Yet we become more than just little birthday candles, rather like those special candles that parents sometimes put on birthday cakes – the ones that will burn no matter how hard you try to blow them out.

Be a Birthday Candle this week.
When we ask the Holy Spirit for his gifts and we use them our life becomes like a birthday candle that never goes out – our fire; our relationship with God grows brighter and brighter. The brighter it grows, the more it fascinates and draws people to God. When we live out our lives open and using the gifts of God then He uses us to invite more people to the party! This week the Gospel is calling us to go out and be birthday candles for God – to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that the Church can be recognized for what she is – the light of the world!

Good News(papers)

2010-04-25T09:30:00.000-06:00

4th Sunday of Easter – Cycle C

Acts 13:14, 43-52; Psalm 100:1-2, 3, 5; Rev 7:9, 14b-17; Gospel: Jn 10:27-30

Newspaper Headlines for Easter Sunday
If newspapers existed during the time of the first Easter what would the headlines have been? Here are some of my ideas:

[[HOLD UP A SIGN]]
Devil Looses
[[PAUSE – THEN READ THE BACK ]]
Must spend eternity in a lake of buring sulfur. “You get used to the smell and the heat” says Satan.

[[HOLD UP THE OTHER SIGN]]
God Wins!
[[PAUSE – THEN READ THE BACK ]]
Untold multitudes spend eternity in heaven experiencing the joy and love of God!

The purpose of a newspaper is to share the relevant events of the world with those that we live with.

Christians – God’s Newspapers
The word “Gospel” is an old-english word that means “Good News” – In that sense we Christians are called to be “Good” newspapers because we need to share the impact of the Good News on our lives. We do this by our actions of caring for the poor and the sick, of standing up for the weak and the innocent, of speaking the Truth with Love to our world today.

Christians – the Everlasting News papers
In another way, Christian’s are nothing like a newspaper. We are not just a piece of paper that is here today and gone tomorrow. Our Good News is always relevant, always fresh, always compelling. If it isn’t then it is a testament to our own faith, and calls us to re-examine our relationship with God. We don’t just report the facts, but rather we are called to share the Gospel, to share our experience of the transforming love of Jesus Christ with the world.

Surely you aren’t talking to me – Don’t call me Shirley!
When we share the good news the first stumbling block that we have is ourselves. We say to God – “You can’t possibly mean me”. How many times do we allow excuses to stop us from sharing the joy that we have in our hearts. What is the excuse that you or I might use? Well one way to find out is to look at the excuses that various saints and prophets have used in scripture.
- I would be embarrassed,
- I am not a good speaker
- they won’t listen,
- they will laugh at me,
- they will think that I am stupid, or naive?

Christ calls us to proclaim our Joy in knowing Him!
The truth is Brothers and Sisters that Christ is calling on each one of us here today to proclaim the Good News to our friends and family that we live with this week. Jesus chose each one of us to be witnesses to the Resurrected Christ not in spite of our weaknesses and fears but because of them. St. Paul recognized this when he said – “Where I am weak, God is strong”.

St. Paul – the unworthy witnesses to Christ
If ever there was a more unlikely witness to the Good News it was St. Paul.
- St. Paul was a short and homely man – not useful when you need to be a public speaker.
- His career highlights included sending Christians to jail and witnessing the stoning of Stephen.
- He was absolutely dedicated himself to destroying Christianity wherever he found it.

What transformed Paul’s life was his encounter with the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. When he encountered Jesus, his whole life changed. He no longer persecuted Christians, but rather he proclaimed Christ, and him Crucified.

St. Paul’s Cable TV Show
St. Paul was always getting into fights. We might think that God could have picked a better person to be his “Apostle to the Gentiles”. Paul was not a quiet, peaceful and gentle man who was preaching the Love and Reconciliation of God. Paul was a scrappy little fighter, who seemed to start riots in every town he visited. If St. Paul had his own cable TV show it would be at the top of the ratings. Today’s first reading could be like a classic episode of Paul’s show. Whenever he came to town, he would share his love for God, and within two weeks there would be a riot which would usually end with Paul getting beat, and heading off to the next town to do it all over again. The beatings and abuse did not seem to matter to Paul, so powerful was his encounter with the resurrected Christ.

Serve the Lord with Gladness
Given this kind of encouragement, what can stop us from being witnesses to the “Good News”. The challenge for those of us here who are still on the fence about our faith is to climb down from the fence and get into the game. Christianity is not a spectator sport; it is a contact sport. Get into the game. We can do this in many different ways. Here are some examples

1. Encounter Christ – Read the Gospel. Go home tonight and take out your bible. Turn to the back where the Gospels are (“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John”) and read a little section each night. Use your imagination and get involved with the story. Allow Christ to enter into your heart and your life.
2. Pray daily. Pray for your families, pray for your co-workers. Pay attention to the needs of those around you and bring them before God. Say a rosary for them, or come here on Tuesday night for a period of adoration.
3. Get involved with the life of our parish. There are plenty of ways to get involved here at the parish. Help out with the fiesta in June. Volunteer to visit the elderly or the sick. Get involved with Mass, become a Lector, Server, Musician, Usher, or Extra-ordinary minister of Holy Communion. Help us to visit the sick or to teach catechism. Get involved.

Christ allays our fears – My sheep hear my voice…
In the Gospel today Christ allays our fears. He tells us that “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.” He knows us in a personal and intimate way, and he gives us the gift of eternal life, we cannot be separated from the Love of Christ. If we know – really know in the depths of our hearts, then we have nothing to fear from this world.

God’s Newspaper – written in Flesh and Blood
God’s Newspaper is not something you can buy at King Soopers or Safeway. His Newspaper is made of flesh and blood, it is those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, those who are sitting here today in this Church. You and I sisters and brothers are called to be the Good News to the world.

[[PAUSE]]

When you go out into the world this week to live your life – what will be your headline?

Do knot sin!

2010-03-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

4th Sunday of Lent – Cycle C

Jos 5:9a,10-12, Psalm Ps 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6, 2 Cor 5:17-21, Gospel: Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

Rope – a tool for preaching
When I was about 12 years old one of my favorite toys was a 30’ piece of rope that we found in the woods near our house. We used that rope for everything! It was great for hauling wood to make forts, for swinging like Tarzan through the trees, and tieing up prisoners when we played cops and robbers.

This week I have discovered a new use for my favorite old toy – preaching homilies!

[[PULL OUT A SECTION OF ROPE]]

Prayer, Fasting and Alms-giving
For Lent, Father Dan asked all of us homilists to reflect on the Lenten Disciplines of Prayer, Fasting and Alms-giving and how they permeate our Catholic lives. I would like to reflect together with you about today's Gospel from the perspective of Alms-giving.

Why do we give Alms?
Have you ever wondered why Alms-giving is at the heart of our spiritual life? Why does it rate right up there with Prayer and Fasting? [[PAUSE]] The book of Genesis says that we are created in the image and likeness of God. This means that giving is at the heart of who we are created to be. We know this because when Christ came to earth he was completely self-giving. We become more fully human when we become more like-Christ; when we give selflessly for the benefit of others. This self-sacrifice is at the heart of Marriage, Religious and Family life. Relationships where we need to become self-giving help us to to grow in holiness.

Look at the Prodigal Son in terms of the relationships
This piece of rope that I have can be used to help us to think about what is going on in the parable today. Imagine that this piece of rope is the relationship between the Sons and their Father in the Gospel today. How do the Sons relate to their Father?

The Younger Son [[TIE THE FIRST KNOT]]
The younger son thinks that his Dad is just a bank – the Bank of Dad.

He uses his Father to get some money.
He says – Dad you might as well be dead, so fork over the dough – I gotta go!
He then uses his Father’s money to use other people
He throws outlandish parties
He uses women for sex
What is ironic, is that all of the people who come and enjoy his Father’s money are using him because he has money.
As soon as the money dries up – they stop using him because he is no longer useful.
His sin here is that he treats things as more important than people. He treats people as if they were things.

The Older Son [[TIE THE SECOND KNOT]]
The older Son shares the younger son’s outlook on people – they are to be used to get what you want. He simply goes about using them in a different way. While he obeys his Father, his heart is hardened. He does not see that his brother has come back to life – he says to his Dad “Your Son…” rather than “My Brother…” and he refuses to join the celebration because he is disgusted with how his brother has wasted the things – (the inheritance). It is this hardness of heart that keeps the older son from being open to reconciliation.

How are we like these two sons? [[TIE THE THIRD KNOT]]
Some of us here are like the younger son – we are trapped in dissolute living. We have tied our lives into knots of Sin – Alcohol, Drugs, Sex, Lies, Stealing. We value things rather than people. Others of us are more like the older son, we have been externally faithful to the Gospel while inside we are just getting our tickets punched, and our actions during the week do not agree with what we profess to believe here in the Church. We listen to the Gospel with our ears, but we do not allow it to penetrate our hearts.

The Father is the key to everything
It is in the Father of today’s Gospel where we find the key to freeing ourselves from these knots that we have made of our lives. If we think about what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God then we realize that this has huge implications in our lives.

If we are created in God’s image and likeness then we will find that our lives are most happy and peaceful when we are living in a way that God has created us, designed us to live.
This means that we are called to live in a love relationship with one another.
We express this love in three ways
We love God. When we come to Mass we have an opportunity to express our love for God when we share him in the Eucharist. Take a moment and converse with Him in your soul today when you receive Him.
We love our families. God designed us to have families because families are the school of love. It is here that we learn to love our spouses, children and parents.
We love our neighbors. When we recognize that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ, then we love our extended family.
In order for us to live happy lives we need to learn how to love in all three of these areas of our lives.

Alms-giving – The Antidote to Selfishness!
The Father’s relationship with his Sons teaches us selfless love. He does not value his Sons as things, but as people. He practices selfless love, giving himself in relationship to care for their needs.

If we find that we are mired in sin, like either of these two sons, then there are two things that we can do about this.

1. Be like the younger son and recognize our Sin, confess and strive to live a more selfless life.
2. Practice Alms-giving as an anti-dote to selfishness. One of the ways the Church has done this for centuries is to practice the corporal works of mercy (love).
a. Clothe the Naked – Go though your closets and bring your extra clothes here. We run a clothing bank for the homeless.
b. Feed the Hungry – Go through your pantry and bring some extra food here. We also run a food bank for the hungry.
c. Educate the Ignorant – Speak with Tina and Marina and volunteer some time to help out our religious education program. If you are like me you will find that the more you teach, the more you learn!
d. Shelter the Homeless – Call Avalina and volunteer to help with our outreach to the poor in this community. Just visit with those in need.
e. Bury the Dead – Come to a funeral mass for one of our parishioners. Pray with their family, or visit with some of those who have lost loved ones this year.
f. Visit the Sick – We have an active ministry here of caring for the sick and elderly in our parish. Speak with me after Mass to visit the nursing homes.

Repent and receive God’s Mercy – so that you can be free to proclaim the Gospel
When we come to our senses, and recognize our sin, then we are ready to reconcile with God. This is what the younger son does. He recognizes that he is not happy, not fulfilled, and has made the biggest mistake of his life. When the Father see’s him coming a long way off, he has mercy, and rushes to embrace him. Why, because the Father is now rich in relationship. He does not count the cost of things, but he counts the cost of relationship. His Son who was dead to him in sin is now alive in truth!

God’s Sacrificial love – it unties our knots!
When we find that our lives are filled with knots of sin we too can come to our senses. The Good News of the Gospel is that we can go and be reconciled to the Father. He is waiting for us so that he can untie the knots that sin has made in our lives through the sacrificial love of his Son. [[UNTIE THE KNOTS]]

Ice Hockey Catholics

2010-02-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

2nd Sunday of Lent – Cycle C

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18, Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14, Phil 3:17—4:1, Gospel: Lk 9:28b-36

Ice Hockey
This past year I have come to appreciate Ice Hockey. Part of the reason why is my brother and his neighbor built an ice rink in their front yards. It stretches from driveway to driveway and is truly a marvel to behold. Recently, I had the opportunity to play some hockey with my nieces and nephews in my hiking boots (I don’t have ice-skates – they would be too big and I would be too tall). I have come to admire the skill of the that the athletes have in the Vancouver Olympics. In fact, today the players are playing to see who will win the Gold or Silver medals in the Winter Olympics.

Gold Medal Hockey Player
What does it take to be a Gold Medal Hockey player? You need to be able to skate well, use a Hockey stick to move the puck, to work as a team and to practice, practice, practice. Being part of a Hockey team means that you need to live a life of practice, sacrifice and gratitude. Being on an Olympic Hockey team means that you need to live, practice and play with the team, you listen to the coach and try to follow his directions and encouragement.

The Church is the Hockey Team
The Church is a lot like a Hockey Team, we have adopted a similar way of life – Practice, Sacrifice, and Gratitude. I know you didn’t imagine yourselves as Holy Hockey Players, but that is indeed what we are, and Lent is our time for practice.

Listen Up!
During Lent we practice the core spiritual disciplines of Prayer, Fasting and Alms-giving. We do this so that we can become better Christians, and grow closer in our relationship with God. Today I want to reflect with you about the spiritual discipline of Prayer, think of ourselves as members of the St. Anthony’s Avalanche, and I’m the assistant coach – so listen up!

Time to get serious about the Game
One of the ways that the Church and the Hockey team is alike is that we both have there is a coach and a team. Jesus is the coach and we are all on the team. We come to Mass on Sunday to hear what the Coach has to say, to be encouraged and to pray with one another so that when we get into the game [[Out there]] we can play hard and score goals. Lent is a time where we are called to get a little more serious about our game.

Love the Game – Guard the Puck
The first thing you will notice about hockey players is that they love the game, they love skating on the ice, competing and playing well. In order to do that they need to know the game, study it and become good at it. In order to win at the game of Hockey you need to be able to move the puck down the ice and slip it speedily past the goal keeper at the right moment.

Share the Love of Christ
For Christians, the puck is sharing the love of Christ. We treasure it and guard it as we skate through life in relationship with our family and friends, and when the moment is right, we take a shot to sneak it past the devil and into their hearts. When God sees a person falling in love with Him he is very happy – we scored a goal.

Move the Puck down the Ice
But how do we move the puck down the ice? I want you to imagine that this hockey puck is your love for God, that he gave you in Baptism. He also gave you this hockey stick, to guard the puck from the opposing team, and to shoot goals with. In our lives, this puck and stick are represented by our life of prayer. If we don’t make it a point to pray in our lives, then how can we be ready to shoot when the goal is open? How will we see that the goal is open, and hear the coach yelling at us – “Shoot!”?

Time for Prayer
For most of us talking to God is easy, but making time to do it requries a little bit of discipline. I would encourage you to set aside a little extra time this Lent for prayer, either in the morning or the evening – whenever you are most awake and alert. Set your timer for 10 minutes and spend that time sharing your day with God and listening to what he has to say.

Sharing your life with Christ
Talking to God is the easy part, Listening is a little more challenging. If we have the habit of sharing our day with God in prayer, then we can spend some time each day quietly thinking over what has happened. Imagine yourself sitting down at the kitchen table with Him at the end of a busy day and sharing with Him what went on. Begin with a simple sign of the Cross, and a short prayer to call yourself into God’s presence. After that just talk over your day with Jesus and ask Him to point out where in your life He helped you – to avoid temptation, or he used you to show someone his love.

How to handle the tough days
Sometimes we struggle to see that God was working in our life at all on a particular day – often times those can be the worst of days. Maybe you are drawing a blank on this right now. We can find some encouragement in the first reading today. In the First Reading God makes his first covenant with Abram – who become Abraham – the Father of Faith.

Your life is a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham
Abraham is the Father of Faith because he believed that God would do as he promised. But Abraham’s faith is not a blind faith, but rather a faith that is rooted in his daily relationship with Christ. It is also a reasoned faith. When God promises Abraham to have more descendants than the stars, Abraham’s response isn’t “Ok – if you say so” – but “How does that work out?” He has the response of reason. We too would do well to imitate Abraham’s relationship with God. How do we know that God fulfilled Abraham’s promise. Today there are about 2 billion Christians, and all of us trace our spiritual roots to Abraham. We are proof that God has fulfilled his blessing to Abraham. Take that as the first step towards sharing with God how he has used you to share his blessing with someone else this evening when you sit down to evaluate your faith. Our lives are not just the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, but much more, we just need to open our eyes to see the many ways that he blesses us.

The Lord is my LIGHT and my SALVATION
The Psalm today says that “The Lord is my light and my Salvation – In Him I trust”. When we come to the end of our day today we will have the opportunity to sit down with Christ and ask the question – How did God illumine my life today? How did he open my eyes to see the world a little bit more through his eyes? Who did I meet that Christ called me to love? To care for? To Listen to. The other half of this expression also applies. The Lord is my salvation in whom I trust. When did I recognize my need for God to save me? To help me? Did I put my trust in Him or did I try to solve it all myself?

The Saints – Hockey Hero’s
Every hockey player has hero’s guys they look up to and aspire to be like. St. Paul reminds us of that when he says – “Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ”. If we want to be good players on the St. Anthony’s Avalanche we will need to set for ourselves good role models of players who know how to skate well, and listen to the coach.

Know what it will be like on the medal stand
Finally, we come to the Gospel, where Christ, knowing that there are difficult times ahead takes his closest friends, Peter, James and John to the top of the mountain to share with them the Glory that he had with the Father before he was born. Jesus is taking us to the medal stands, so we can see and know what a Gold Medal is like – he want’s to inspire us to keep on skating hard, so that we can be with him when the match is over.

Will we hear the Lord when he says – Take the shot!
The readings today encourage us to get on our game and play for the goal. This week Christ will show us an opportunity to score a goal – We don’t know when, or where, or who, but someone this week will need us to be a Christian, and to share with them the Love that God has shared with us. When that moment comes this week will your “spiritual ears” be open to hear Jesus encouraging us “Shoot for the goal!”?

Right Way / Wrong Way

2010-02-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

Feast of St. Scholastica
1 Kgs 10:1-10; Psalm: 37:5-6, 30-31, 39-40; Gospel: Mk 7:14-23

Right Way
In the first reading today we hear from the queen of Sheba as she extols the fruit of wisdom that she sees growing in Solomon’s kingdom. All of this fruit comes from a kingdom that is clearly going the right way - towards God. The Church gives this reading to us today to encourage us as we battle sin and deceit in our own lives.

Wrong Way
In the Gospel Christ points out the wrong way that many of us follow. We like to blame our actions on external things. Christ reminds us that we often choose to live the wrong-way which is why there is so much suffering in this world. Christ challenges us to grow in wisdom by examining our own lives, and asking ourselves the question – what is broken? Where do I need to change? What is it in my belief, my actions that gives strength to my sin? Where do I need to repent?

[[PAUSE]]

St. Scholastica and St. Benedict
Today is the feast of St. Scholastica who is the twin sister of St. Benedict. Scholastica and Benedict are credited with bringing the monastic life to the Western Church in the 5th century. Benedict learned monasticism from the Monks in the desert in Egypt and brought it West. He led a Monastery and his Sister Scholastica lived in a convent across the valley. Both lived simple lives centered in prayer and rounded out with work and community life.

Monastic Life = life of prayer
The goal of the Monastic life is to surrender ourselves to a simple life of work and prayer, in Latin “Ora et Labora”. Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit with some Benedictine nuns at Walberga Abbey near Laramie, Wyoming. We began our day with prayer at 4:50, and then throughout the day we would obey the Abbey bell calling us to pray together with and for the world. At the heart of Monastic life is introspection on the Gospel. In allowing the light of Christ to penetrate my heart and cast its brightness into the dark recesses of my soul, so that you and I can see the roots of the sin in our lives, and then, with the grace of God make amends and seek to be healed.

If we pursue prayer seriously then our sin comes to light
The reason for Prayer, Work and Community is that these three fundamentals of human existence provide us with the opportunity to encounter Christ in prayer, to reflect with Christ in our work, and to share Christ in our community. It is in these three settings – centered on Christ, that we come to understand more and more deeply the source of sin and grace in our lives. It is the constant relationship with Christ in prayer that allows us to be healed, and allows our life to become progressively more and more fruitful.

But Deacon – We’re not Nun’s (for the most part) or Monks either!
The reason why I bring this up is not that we all run off to the Abbey or the Monastery and become Monks and Nuns (unless God is calling us to that) – but that we take a moment and reflect on our own lives of prayer, work and community. Take this next moment and ask the Lord to show you how to better structure your life.

Dress Blues

2009-10-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Is 53:10-11, Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22, Heb 4:14-16, Mk 10:35-45

Marines
If you have ever had the opportunity to talk to a recruiter in the Marine Corps, you will notice that they often walk around in their dress blue uniforms, looking very sharp and crisp and handsome. The Marines do this on purpose – it is part of their mystique, it is what draws young men and women into the corps to serve the country. What guy wouldn’t want to have a cool sword, nice threads and a Tank to drive on the weekends? What we don’t see are the endless hours of toil and discipline and hard work that go along with the uniform.

Dress Blues on the Road to Jerusalem
In today’s Gospel, Jesus and his Apostles are going through a similar problem. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem where He is going to suffer and die. He knows the road ahead and his Apostles are caught up in a classic “Dress Blues” moment. I can just see them walking down the road – “Won’t it be cool Lord when you are in your power and we can rule with you – how sweet that will be!” There are at least two ways that we can read the response of the other 10 Apostles, The first is that they are more pious than James and John, and hence their indignation – “How childish of you guys to ask such a lame question – don’t you see?” The other is from the attitude of “Drat! I wanted to be the first to ask that question!” I think that this is truly their source of indignation. The Apostles are indignant with James and John not because they asked to be on Christ’s right and left, but the other 10 didn’t think of that question first!

Be Christian – Be “Like Christ”
Jesus takes this moment to teach his Apostles, and us, what it means to be his followers, to love him. The word Christian means ‘Like Christ’ – and today's Gospel makes it clear that our way to salvation is to love as Christ loved, and to serve as Christ served.

Sacraments of Service
There are two sacraments of service in the Catholic Church – Marriage and Holy Orders. Both have their “shiny, glossy covers” that are similar to the sharp dress blue uniforms of the U.S. Marines, and both have their “reality checks” in which we discover as James and John did that we are called to a ministry of service.

Dress Blues for Marriage
For marriage the “Dress Blues” is a mother snuggling a quiet, peaceful baby just reflecting on the wonder of the love that created this beautiful delicate life that has been entrusted to her. It is a Father coaching his kids in soccer or baseball and seeing them succeed in ways that he couldn’t. It is seeing a married couple deeply in love with one another, caring for each other and walking together.

Baby Blues for Marriage
Marriage also has its “Baby Blues side”. This comes with the first kid when Mom is sitting up late at night with a cranky kid that won’t settle down, or Dad is stuck changing a poopy diaper that somehow has exploded all over the place. We don’t often use these images when we speak of marriage, but they are the heart of the service of love that marriage calls us to.

This is what is happening to James, John and the other Apostles. They have the “rose colored glasses” view of the Kingdom, and Jesus is reminding them of the way of the Cross.

Dress Blues for Holy Orders
For Holy Orders, the best way to speak about the “Dress Blues” moment is to share with you a little bit about my own vocation to be a Deacon. When I first knew that God was calling me to be a Deacon I was very excited, but at the same time I kept it a great secret. The only person that I spoke about my vocation about was my wife. I told her that I thought that Christ was calling me to follow him in His life of service, but that part of following that calling meant to wait on her discernment. To ensure that she had the freedom of discernment, I told no one for over three years.

Talking with the Archdiocese
After years of prayer and quiet discernment Tina and I finally decided to speak to the Deacon in charge of Deacons at the Archdiocese about my vocation. I was expecting a Marine Corps recruiter – “Let me sign you up Son!” This is how I imagined that James and John thought when the approached Jesus. That is not what I encountered – Rather Deacon Al said to me – The life of a Deacon is a life of service – a life of sacrifice, of setting yourself last of all – so that they can come to know Christ. In his own way he was calling my attention to the tough times that lie ahead just as Christ points out the passion to his disciples.

Can you drink the cup? - Why do we do it!
Jesus challenges the Apostles, and he challenges us – “Can you drink the cup that I am to drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism that I will be baptized?” – That is – do you have the courage to walk the whole road to Calvary? Do you have the strength to give yourself fully to your spouse? To the Church? Marriage and Holy Orders are not about being served but about serving. We do this every day when we go to work, or get the kids off to school. When we do these simple things, we are following Christ.

No Pain, No Gain
My drill instructor in the military said a very similar thing to me in boot camp – he said “No Pain, No Gain!” – "No Service, No Reward!"

Quiet Prayer on the way of the Cross
Sometimes it is difficult to see that our day-to-day actions make a difference in the lives of anyone – that is part of the Gospel today. Christ shows us that part of the secret to sanctification is to offer our daily work, our daily sacrifices in prayer. Uniting our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ on the cross.

Being a Mom or Dad is not about having kids to serve you, but rather it is about building a life of service to one another – first as husband and wife, then as Mother and Father in order to allow ourselves to be transformed by the practice of selfless love.

The first Order of Holy Orders is Service - Diakonia
Being a Priest or Deacon is not about leading or being in charge – it is about surrendering your own wants and needs in order to care for the needs of the Body of Christ – the Church. The first step in the ordained life is to be ordained Deacon – the ministry of Diakonia is a ministry of service. Before any priest is ordained a priest he is first ordained Deacon. Before any Bishop is ordained Bishop he is ordained Deacon. The heart of ministry in the Church is the heart of the Gospel.

Can you Drink the Cup?
Christ say’s that “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." In the same way we are not Mothers and Fathers, Deacons and Priests to be served, but to serve, and to give our life so that our children at home and in this flock can have a rich and fruitful spiritual life! Our Savior is challenging us in our lives for the week ahead – Can you drink His cup?

But first....

2009-08-31T18:30:00.005-06:00

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Dt 4:1-2, 6-8, Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5, Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Gospel Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Building Model Airplanes
When I was a kid one of the things that I loved to do was to build plastic models. I would put together Model Battleships, Submarines, Aircraft Carriers and Airplanes.
The models came with a set of instructions, mostly pictures showing you how to glue part 17B to 17A. You would hunt through the pieces and find the parts, and then pull them out and glue them together. Only then would you recognize that the picture to the right had a big WARNING! Exclamation mark, instructing you to first insert part 16 between 17A and B so that the model would go together right. Often, I would glue 17A and B together before seeing the exclamation mark, and then I would have a sorry looking plane, ship or submarine. The lesson I learned from this was to read the instructions through completely before beginning. It is a difficult lesson for guys to learn, because we feel that building stuff ought to be in our genes.

Following instructions helps us stay safe
The readings today teach us that this idea of following the instructions in order to have a cool looking model airplane, or to figure out what is wrong in the radar system is actually a very ancient idea. The readings today speak about the Law – the revealed Word that God gave us to help us to live good and happy lives. In the first reading Moses instructs the children of Israel about the law that God has given them. This is an important point – The Law is a gift to help us to live life, so that we can be in possession of the land.

The Law is a Gift.
When you compare the legal code of God to the legal code of man you quickly realize that God is pretty brief. He outlined his law in 10 commandments, whereas it takes a library filled with books to describe the American legal code.

Why did God give us the Law? – To live and possess
God gave us the law to help us to live – to live lives that are compatible with his holiness, to live lives that would lead us to happiness. Living our lives in accord with God’s laws means that we are living our lives in a way that we are in possession of our land. This is one of the brilliant ideas behind Gods scheme, he recognized the dominance of sin in our lives, and so he left us the law so that we could be in possession of our lives instead of letting Sin rule our lives.

Testing Jesus – is He for real?
In the Gospel today we find that the Pharisees are testing Jesus. They are watching him closely. I think that this is a very natural, human reaction, and I think that we all do this. We all come to Christ with the question – How do I know that you are the Son of God? One of the ways that the Pharisees fall down, and I think that we too can fall down, is that they are watching the wrong things. They are watching to see if the disciples obey the hygienic laws (a minor point of the law), while not checking out the important laws (the 10 commandments). Once they see that the disciples don’t always wash their hands before eating they have the “AHA!” moment that Mark describes in today's Gospel.

Model Airplane Building contest
Imagine that in the Gospel today Jesus and his disciples entered into a model airplane building contest with the Pharisees. Jesus is watching his disciples put together their model and the Pharisees come up and say “AHA – your disciples got some glue on the airplane! I can see fingerprints on the airplane!”. Jesus’ response is – “Yes I see, and you have attached your wings to where the landing gear is supposed to go.”

Is our way of life leading us to happiness?
The readings today invite us to examine our lives in the light of the Law. Are we living lives that allow us to be happy, to take possession of ourselves, or are we living lives that are ruled by sin? Is our heart far from Christ? Are we worshiping God in vain?

Where have we missed the important parts of the Law?
Are our hearts filled with unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance or folly?

Be Doers of the word!
If we find that we are, there is hope. James reminds us that we can begin the life of conversion today by first accepting the word that has been planted in us at baptism, the word that is able to save our souls. Not just to accept that word, but be doers of the word – to respond to this gift of God’s love by doing what is important, taking care of those who are in need, who are afflicted.
James exhorts us to be doers of the word, and not hearers only. How can we become doers of the word this week?

Those of us who struggle with unchastity, adultery or licentiousness can conquer those sins by serving others – especially in manual labor, or by keeping a vigil hour in the middle of the night and interceding for others who struggle with the same sin.

Those of us who are tempted with the sins of theft, greed or envy can attack those sins by striving to offer a little more of our alms to the poor – but to offer them out of a thankful heart, and not a grudging heart.

Those of us who find it easy to be overwhelmed with murder, malice, and deceit might try to spend a little time each day reflecting on scripture, so that we can see the great love that drives God to create and care for his creation.

Finally those who are blasphemers, arrogant or foolish might consider some time in Eucharistic Adoration – to encounter Christ as he is, and listen to him in your soul.

All of these medicines can be unsettling for our soul at first, but that is because they challenge us to repent – to believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ, and to change our lives for the better.

Faith in Action

2009-07-30T00:00:00.002-06:00

Memorial of St. Martha

Exodus 34:29-35 Psalm 99:5, 6, 7, 9 Gospel - John 11:19-27

St. Martha gets a bad rap
Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Martha, a saint who often gets a bad rap, because we always remember her in comparison to her sister Mary who Jesus says “has chosen the better part”. Martha has a feast day that is independent of her sister Mary so that we can reflect on Her witness to Christ, and on the way that God called her to live out her life allowing her to be liberated and transformed by her encounter with Jesus Christ.

Martha is a woman of mission and purpose.
St. Martha is a woman of mission and purpose. Her witness to the Gospel is that of action, she is a woman of action, who gets things done, and who does not like to sit still and wait. St. Martha teaches us that Holy work is one way that we can show the presence of Christ’s love to the world. In today’s Gospel, she hears that Christ is coming, and she does something about it – she goes out to meet him.

Martha relates to Christ in her actions
Martha is a woman of action, it is through her actions that her relationship with Christ is built. Martha relates to Christ primarily through her actions, and she recognizes that Christ’s actions are His way of showing the love of the Father to the world. She expresses her love in her actions and in that way imitates Christ who expresses the fullness of his love through his action of dying on the Cross.

Christ’s challenge / Martha’s response.
When St. Martha meets Christ he reassures her and then challenges her faith “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and anyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus does this to reveal the heart of his life of action. He uses St. Martha, the woman of action today to reveal to us that his life, death and resurrection are the saving actions of God. It is in this revelation of his saving action that Martha makes her own statement of faith similar to that of St. Peter. She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Conclusion
How will our encounter with Christ today in the Eucharist transform us so that today our witness to the Gospel is expressed in our actions? What is Christ calling you, and me to do today?

The Heart of Theology = Knowing Christ

2009-07-15T08:30:00.001-06:00

Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor

Ex 3:1-6, 9-12, Ps 103:1b-2, 3-4, 6-7, Mt 11:25-27

St. Bonaventure
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. He was a leader of the Franciscans, who said that as a youth he was spared from death by the intercession of St. Francis. He led the Franciscans during the time when St. Anthony of Padua was canonized, and continued in Anthony’s tradition of teaching the faith in a systematic way.

Systematic Theology = a Skeleton
A systematic approach to our faith is necessary, as it provides us with a framework in which to understand our relationship with God – but it is just that, it is the skeleton, and if we think that this is the sum of our faith, then we have a faith of dry bones.

Jesus Christ = Flesh and Blood
The readings today remind us, as St. Bonaventure reminded his brothers, sisters and students, that the path to God is not found in books, but in our everyday encounter with the God of Love. The love of God is a never-ending fire that burns without consuming – it respects the soul of the individual, and yet at the same time captivates, and fascinates us, so that we draw closer to Him.

God’s beauty is fascinating
When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he appeared to him in a way that fascinated Moses and drew him in. It was only after he got over the fascination did he realize that he had encountered the invisible God. Moses did not encounter God in a Bible study, but rather he encountered God in the pursuit of his ordinary life.

The fire of our love for God is where the rubber hits the road
It is that fire of the love of God that puts the meat on our bones, that allows us to live life abundantly. Let us take the word of God to heart today – from Christ himself and remember that “although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” Lord Jesus, help us to walk with you today with a childlike heart so that we can witness your glory at work in the world!

Stewards

2009-07-08T08:30:00.000-06:00

14th Wednesday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Gn 41:55-57; 42:5-7a, 17-24a, Ps 33:2-3, 10-11, 18-19, Gospel: Mt 10:1-7

God gave Joeseph the Gift of Prudence
In the first reading, we see that God has given Joseph the gift of interpreting dreams so that he could help Pharaoh be a good ruler of Egypt. Joseph is made the steward of the graineries of Egypt to help the people; in fact all of the world endure this great famine. Joseph is Prudent – he uses that gift of wisdom to expand the graineries in Egypt and to store up the food so that when the famine hits, people are still provided for.

Spiritual Starvation – An understanding of man’s role in the world
Our world today is suffering from a famine of forgiveness, a famine of people’s ability to receive God’s grace. Many people are spiritually starved, but are unaware of the hunger for God that exists in their souls. To that feed that hunger God is pouring out His gifts of grace into the world through the Church.

It is our actions of love and forgiveness that proclaim the kingdom of God
In the Gospel today Jesus calls the twelve to become stewards of the sacramental gifts of the Church. The twelve are called to be apostles, to be his special disciples to steward the grace of God to the world. Christ’s commandment to them, is his commandment to us – “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and make this proclamation – The Kingdom of God is at Hand”. The way that the Church makes this proclamation is in the lives of the community of believers.

Let us allow the grace that Christ gives us in the “bread of angels” to work in our lives so that our relationships are healed – and the kingdom of God is proclaimed.
God used Joseph to steward his gift of bread to the Egyptians, and through the Egyptians to the world. God uses the Church, you and I to steward his gift of “The bread of angels” to his disciples. It is our relationship with Christ in the Eucharist that we share that God is commanding us to us to steward. As we reflect with Christ after receiving Him in Holy communion, let us bring to Him all of our relationships – especially those in need of healing. Let us invite Christ into our actions and words this day so that He can use these relationships with our families and friends to give witness to the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Encountering Providence

2009-07-01T16:55:00.001-06:00

13th Wednesday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

The readings today call to mind three key aspects of our relationship with God – Faith, Providence and Sin. In today’s Gospel Christ comes across the Sea and encounters two men possessed by demons. These men are so filled with evil that the roads near the tombs are not safe for travel. When these two men encounter Christ they are saved from the demons that possess them. St. Matthew does not focus on their salvation, but rather on the reaction to the presence of Christ of the local townspeople and the swineherds.

The demons are driven into the swine, who are driven mad and plunge into the sea where they die. The swineherd run into town not with the Good News, but fear for the village – their source of livliehood has just plunged into the sea and is gone.

When have we encountered a similar experience, when we encounter the “Good News” of Jesus Christ only to realize that our life has changed? How do we respond to this?

Providence is God’s action in our lives. Often times the providence of God is expressed through ordinary people and ordinary events, that lead us to deepen our trust in God and his love for us.

Faith is our ability to understand that God’s providence is at work in our lives. The more we recognize God’s providence, the easier it becomes for us to have faith in times of trial, when we, like the villagers are called to be purified from our sins.

Sin is the ways that we separate our lives from God. Sin weakens our ability to trust in God’s providence, because ultimately all sin is placing something that is not God above God. Whereever we find ourselves enslaved by sin, we are choosing our sin over God, and that makes these times of trusting to God’s providence more difficult.

When we encounter God’s providence in our lives today, will our Sin prevent us from seeing that the Good News has dawned into our lives or will our Faith allow us to see the truth of God’s love?

Hold fast to the Faith!

2009-06-29T08:30:00.001-06:00

Solemnity of Peter and Paul – Cycle B

Happy New Year!
All over the world today the Church is celebrating the closing of the Holy Year of St. Paul, a year in which we celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Apostle to the Gentiles. In that sense, let me be the first to wish you a happy new year!

Today all over the Church we are celebrating the martyrdom of both St. Peter and St. Paul. Saint Peter was crucified this day in Rome, hanging on a cross upside down, at the same time, the emperor Nero had St. Paul beheaded on the Appian Way.

The Church is celebrating
A good friend of mine, Deacon Hugo is assisting in the mass to close out this Holy year in Damascus – the place where St. Paul was baptized. Another friend of mine, Deacon Phil is closing out the Holy Year in Rome, at the place of the martyrdom of both St’s Peter and Paul. In a certain sense we too can live vicariously through them, as they are members of our Church, the Church of Denver, which is celebrating with the universal Church these two great saints.

Martyr
The word martyr is a greek word, meaning to witness. In the readings for today we see how James and John were martyred, and we hear from St. Paul as he prepares to offer the final witness of his life, that he pours out his life-blood to point to Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Why did they both choose martyrdom?
It is natural for us to reflect on this radical willingness to point to Christ. What was it that caused Peter and Paul to be martyred? Both passed up earlier opportunities in their lives. Why did they both choose martyrdom today?

St Peter explains
It is in the Gospel that St. Peter gives us the answer – his profession of faith – “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” It is their absolute trust in God. Both St. Peter and St. Paul had learned through the course of their lives to rely on the absolute providence of God.

Faith is knowing that you are living in God’s will
It was the knowledge that they were doing the exact thing that God had laid out for them. They knew by faith that they were doing His will. They knew that by their actions of witness they were keeping the faith, they were remaining true to Christ who saves them. This is why St. Paul says in his letter to Timothy, “He will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom”.

When we are called to witness to the love of Christ today – will he hold fast to the faith as Peter and Paul did?

Rise, let us be on our way… / Levántate y caminemos

2009-04-09T21:19:00.003-06:00

Holy Thursday / Jueves Santo

Ex 12:1-8, 11-14, Psalm Ps 116:12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18 1 Cor 11:23-26 Gospel Jn 13:1-15

Reverend Fathers and my dearest Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

Reverendo; Padres y mis hermanos y hermanas en Cristo.

When Jesus finished praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he watched Judas coming to betray him, he turned to his Apostles and said to them “Rise let us be on our way”. With these words, Christ invites us to journey with Him these next three days as he undergoes his passion and death.

Cuando Jesús acabó de rezar en el jardín de Getsemani, pues él miró a Judas venir a traicionarlo, él se dio vuelta a sus apóstoles y les dijo “Levántate y caminemos”. Con estas palabras, Cristo nos invita a que viajemos con él estos tres días próximos mientras que él experimenta su pasión y muerte.

I want to invite you to take these words into your heart tonight, and let them become your prayer as we journey together through our celebration the most sacred mysteries of our faith – the Triduim. That is Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Over these next three days our Lord Jesus Christ invites us to walk with Him, to die with Him and to rise with Him.

Quiero invitarles a que tomen estas palabras en su corazón esta noche, y las dejo hacer su rezo mientras que viajamos juntos con nuestra celebración los misterios más sagrados de nuestra Fe - el Tridum. Éso es jueves santo, Viernes Santo y Domingo Pascua. Durante estos tres días próximos nuestro señor Jesucristo nos invita a que caminemos con él, muramos con él y nos levantemos con él.

“Rise let us be on our way” – We are the pilgrim Church
The first lesson that this prayer offers to us is that we need to be ready to travel – because the Gospel message of Christ’s death and resurrection is not for armchair Christians, but for Christians who have a mission, a purpose.

The first reading today instructs the Jews to share in the Passover feast – the Pesach, with their loins girt and sandals on their feet – ready to travel. Tonight Christ invites us to enter into His Paschal Mystery with our loins girt, and sandals on our feet, ready to walk the way of the cross with Him.

“Levántate y caminemos” – Somos la Iglesia Peregrina.
La primera lección que esta oración nos ofrece es la necesidad de estar listos para viajar – porque el mensaje Evangélico de la muerte y resurrección de Cristo no es un sillón para los Cristianos. Esta noche Cristo nos invita a entrar en su Misterio Pascual con nuestras espaldas erguidas, y sandalias en los pies, listos para caminar el camino de la cruz con El.

En la fiesta Pascual Judía Dios ordena a los Judíos a comer la carne del cordero y marcar sus casas con su sangre para ser salvados del sufrimiento y la muerte.
Esta noche estamos invitados a comer del Cordero de Dios y marcar nuestros labios con Su sangre. En Español la oración que rezamos antes de la Comunión dice:

“Señor, no soy digno de que entres en mi casa, pero una palabra tuya bastará para sanarme.”

In the Jewish Passover feast God commands the Jews to eat the flesh of the lamb and to mark their houses with its blood so that they are saved from suffering and death. Tonight we are invited to eat the Lamb of God and to mark our lips with His blood. In Spanish the prayer we pray before communion makes this point clear when it says translated into English.

“Lord, I am not dignified for you to enter my house, but a word from you will heal me.”

Christ, the Lamb of God invites us to eat his flesh and drink his blood so that we are saved from sin and death. Happy are we who are called to this supper

Cristo, el Cordero de Dios nos invita a comer su carne y beber su sangre para ser salvados del pecado y la muerte. Felices los invitados a esta cena.

“Rise, let us be on our way” – How do we know the way?
Tonight’s psalm gives us a glimpse into the heart of a Christ. Listen anew to the words of the psalmist as he prays from his heart.

How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.

At the heart of our journey these next few days is the Greek word Eucharist. For Father Dan and Father Adalberto this word has a special meaning because their priesthood is centered on offering thanksgiving to God.

All of us can share in that heart of thanksgiving by taking a moment to offer God thanksgiving for the many gifts that he has given us. In this way we too can share in the priesthood that Christ gave to the Church.

“Levántate, caminemos nuestro camino” – Cómo sabemos el camino?
El salmo de esta noche nos da un vistazo al corazón de Cristo. Escuchemos de nuevo las palabras de su corazón.

Cómo regresaré al Señor
Por todo lo bueno que ha hecho por mí?
Tomaré el cáliz de salvación,
Y llamaré el nombre del Señor.

En el corazón de nuestro viaje estos próximos pocos días es la palabra Griega Eucarística. Para los Padres Daniel y Adalberto esta palabra tiene un significado especial porque su Sacerdocio está centrado en ofrecer la acción de gracias a Dios. Todos nosotros podemos compartir un momento al ofrecer las gracias a Dios por los muchos dones que El nos ha dado. En este sentido también nosotros podemos compartir en el Sacerdocio que Cristo dio a la Iglesia.

When our hearts are filled with thanks we are able to respond to God out of love. Listen to the psalmist as he continues to pray.

Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.

Precious … is the death of his faithful ones
Brothers and Sisters take a moment and look at those who sit around you. Look around. [[PAUSE]] Because you and I are here tonight celebrating this mystery, we are God’s faithful ones. Tonight we remember that Christ says to His Father – “Not my will Lord, but yours be done.” He shows us how to surrender and die. His surrender to God is the supreme act of selfless love so that we can be freed from the bonds of death.

What is God calling us to die to?
The death of God’s faithful ones is precious because it is in dying that we find eternal life – communion with God. God is inviting us to die to sin – our attachment to the way of death. When we sin we are on a detour away from God. This evening as we watch and pray with Him in the garden He asks us to leave our detours into sin, to die to sin; so that we can rise to what Christ is calling us to do. [[PAUSE]] Ask yourself the question – “What sin do I need to die to so that God can give me the gift of new life?”

Cuando nuestros corazones están llenos con gratitud podemos responder a Dios con amor. Escuchemos al salmista cuando continúa rezando.

A los ojos del Señor es preciosa
La muerte de sus fieles.
Soy tu servidor, el hijo de su tu sierva;
Has desatado mis huesos.

Es preciosa la muerte sus fieles
Los hermanos y las hermanas tardan un momento y miran a los que se sienten alrededor de usted. Mire alrededor. [[PAUSA]] porque usted y yo aquí estamos celebrando esta noche este misterio, somos los fieles de Dios. Recordamos esta noche que Cristo dice a su padre - hagan “no mi señor de la voluntad, sino el suyo.” Él nos demuestra cómo entregarse y morir. Su entrega a dios es el acto supremo del amor desinteresado para podernos liberar de los enlaces de la muerte.

A qué nos está invitando Dios a morir?
La muerte de los fieles de Dios es preciosa porque es en morir que encontramos la vida eterna – comunión con Dios. Dios nos está invitando a morir al pecado – nuestro apego a la forma de muerte. Cuando pecamos nos desviamos de Dios. Esta noche al velar y orar con El en el jardín El nos pregunta a dejar nuestros desvíos al pecado, para morir al pecado; para poder resucitar a lo que Cristo nos esta invitando a hacer. [[PAUSA]] Hazte esta pregunta – “A qué pecado nesecito morir para que Dios pueda ofrecerme el don de la vida nueva?

Rise, let us be on our way – God invites us to a priestly life – a life of thanksgiving.
I want you to know that tonight God is calling men in our Church to the priesthood. All of us can cooperate with that plan of God by striving to live a life of thanksgiving. This means that all of us are called to listen to the voice of God. Not just the single men in our parish but all of us! God is calling us to a life of sacrifice and thanksgiving. God is calling us to become aware of those he is inviting to serve Him as priests. We do this first and foremost by being faithful to the Gospel in our own lives. We do this by being open to the presence of the Holy Spirit, to listen to him calling forth men from our community and give them the strength to lay down their lives for the Church. We make this possible through our own personal witness to a life of sacrifice.

I know that in my own vocation to the Diaconate God used certain people to open my ears to hear His voice. [[PAUSE]]

Levántate, seamos uno en nuestro viaje –Dios nos invita a una vida Sacerdotal – una vida de Gratitud.

Quiero que sepan que esta noche Dios está invitando a hombres en nuestra Iglesia al Sacerdocio. Todos nosotros podemos cooperar con ese plan de Dios al luchar para vivir una vida de gratitud. Esto significa que todos estamos llamados a escuchar la voz de Dios. No sólo hombres solteros en nuestra parroquia sino todos nosotros! Dios nos llama a estar alertas a esos que está invitando para servirlo como sacerdotes. Hacemos esto sobre todo siendo fieles al evangelio en nuestras propias vidas. Hacemos esto estando abiertos a la presencia del Espíritu Santo, escuchar a él que llama adelante a hombres de nuestra comunidad y darles la fuerza para colocar sus vidas para la iglesia.

Hacemos esto directo posible nuestro propio testigo personal a una vida del sacrificio. Sé que en mi propia vocación al diaconado dios utilizó a cierta gente para abrirse los oídos para oír su voz. [[PAUSA]]

· Tonight we watch and pray with Jesus as he undergoes his temptation in the Garden of Gethsemene.
· Esta noche velamos y rezamos con Jesús al ser tentado en el Jardín de Getsemaní.
· Tonight Christ invites us to be faithful to the vocation that He has created us for.
· Esta noche Cristo nos invita a ser fieles a la vocación para la que nos ha creado.
· Tonight God invites us to become free from the bonds of sin to live as his Sons and Daughters.
· Esta noche Dios invita a ser mas libres de las ataduras del pecado para vivir como sus hijas e hijos.

Do we have the courage? / Tenemos la Valentí?

Rise let us be on our way! / Levantémonos y caminemos.

Refreshing the Soul

2009-03-14T23:39:00.002-06:00

3rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle B

Ex 20:1-17, Psalm Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 11, 1 Cor 1:22-25, Jn 2:13-25

[[This homily requires some prop’s and setup. Walk to the back of the Church and put on a Police Badge on my Stole under my dalmatic. Then begin with the following announcement.]]

My new job!
I have some exciting news! This week the Father Dan gave me a new assignment – To the Church Offender Patrol – or COP. My new job is to write tickets to those folks who show up late for mass. (Walk up behind a parishioner, and place your hand on their shoulder). Sir (or Ma’am) – I notice that you were 27 seconds late for the entrance procession. Would you please step out of the pew? (Don’t forget to genuflect)…

[[PAUSE]]

Well, fortunately for the Church, for you and for me, this is all just silly. There is no such thing as the Church Offender Patrol. This little stunt is here to help us to begin to think about the Law, especially God’s Law.

“I have seen the light!”
Some of us here today have been driving down the highway when all of a sudden we have “Seen the Light” – that is the flashing red and blue lights in our rear view mirror because we are driving a little too fast or have done something else wrong. When we “see the lights” does our heart sink down into our chests, as that feeling of being “busted” spreads over us?

Experience of Human Law colors our understanding of God’s Law
I mention this up because the way we look at the law affects how we look at God’s Law. If we have a dim view of human law, then what is our view of God’s Law, and of God? Is the Ten Commandments just God’s way of being able to watch over us and “bust” us when we are caught breaking them?

Do we think that God is like a Speed Trap?
If you take a moment to speak with people about their image of God the Father, often times you will hear them describe God as the man in the sky with a long flowing beard who spends eternity looking down on us waiting for us to mess up so that he can take pleasure in punishing us. I think that for some of us, God is like a like a policeman hiding out with a speed gun trying to catch us speeding. This kind of theology is just as silly as a Deacon with a ticket book.

How then, should we look at the Law of God?
Certainly the readings in today’s mass speak of God’s law and Christ’s anger. The passage that we heard today from the book of Exodus is referred to as the “giving of the Law”. It is interesting to note that in this passage of Scripture Moses uses more than half of the words to describe the first three commandments, and then the last section to discuss the last 7 commandments. The reason for this is that the first three commandments help us to get our relationship with God in the right perspective. If our relationship with God is in the right perspective then the other seven commandments flow from that relationship, and keeping the law becomes easier, more straightforward.

I bring up this idea so that we can take a moment and think about how we think about God, and our relationship with Him. At the heart of Jesus’ mission here on earth was to reveal the love of His Father to us. If we have been living out life with the idea that God is a traffic cop, then now is the time for us to repent – to change our minds and take a new path. The reason why God gave His law to Moses on Sinai, and the reason why he sent His Son to us was so that we could enter into a relationship of love with God.

What is our relationship with God like today?
In the Gospel today Jesus enters into the Temple in Jerusalem and cleans it out. He makes a whip out of cord and drives out the moneychangers and the animal sellers. Jesus drives out those who are changing the temple from a house of prayer into a den of thieves. Jesus cleanses the temple to make room for something that is missing in the hubbub Jesus is trying to make room for people to worship God.

As we reflect over our Lenten journey thus far, are we succeeding in making room for God in our lives, or are we allowing the moneychangers and the animal sellers to overwhelm us so that we are unable to worship. Are we allowing sin to enslave us so that we are unable to be free so that we might hear the Gospel?

Our Bodies are the temples that need cleansing
There is another temple that Christ desires to enter and to cleanse this Lent Brothers and Sisters. That is our souls. St. Paul says that when we are baptized our souls become “temples of the Holy Spirit” and God comes to dwell with us. Christ is driving out the moneychangers because they are a distraction to the real purpose of the temple. What distractions does Christ need to drive out of our temples this week?

What are the distractions that need to be driven out?
This really takes us back to the first three commandments of the Law of God. Do we have other Gods besides God? Television, Computers, Sports, Work, Alchohol, Drugs? Do we keep the Lord’s name holy, like we would the name of a cherished loved one, or do we use his name habitually to curse and to profane? Do we keep the Lord’s day holy? Do we rest on the Sabbath? Or do we allow our cultural work-aholicism to infect this day too?

[[PAUSE]]

This brings us to the other experience of the law that we might have. For some of those gathered here today have had the experience of waking up in the middle of the night to hear some disturbance going on in the street outside our houses. What do we do? Call 911. Three or four minutes later the law shows up to help us. The key experience that we have here is the recognition that we need help.

How do we dial 911 for God?
The Church has its own version of 911 for the soul. It is called the Sacrament of Reconciliation. For those of us who are thinking that it has been a long time since I received the sacrament of reconciliation that I forgotten how, I have the 30 second refresher on how to make a good confession.
· Sign of the Cross
· Forgive me Father for I have sined.
· It has been XX days / weeks / months / years / decades since my last confession.
· Here are the Sins that I have committed.
· Father will give you some advice, perhaps ask for some clarification and then ask you to make an act of contrition – which is a short prayer to God expressing your sorrow at sin and your desire and resolve to sin no more. It goes like this. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.” (If you have forgotten your act of contrition, they are written down in the confessional.)
· Then you will receive absolution – which is the Holy Spirit cleansing of your soul from all sin.
· Lastly Father will give you a penance – which is medicine for your soul, to help you to get stay strong in your battle against sin.

We have confession here are St. Anthony’s Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. So one way that we can allow this Gospel to take root in our hearts is to make a commitment to attend Confession one of these nights this week.

The Law of the Lord can transform our lives
The Psalm today speaks of our encounter with the Law of God in a positive way. Listen anew to what the psalmist says “The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul; The decree of the LORD is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple.” And again he says “The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the command of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eye.”

I think that some times our experience with human law – which is imperfect and not entirely just that influences our response to God’s law. Jesus cleanses the temple in the Gospel today to make room for the God’s law to take root in our hearts and to grow because God’s law is a law that “is perfect, refreshing the soul”, a law that “is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple”. God’s law is “right, rejoicing the heart” and His law “is clear, enlightening the eye”.

The goal of our Lenten penance is to cleanse the temple of our souls from the corrupting influences that lead us away from God. We need to make room in our souls for God’s law, because it leads us to freedom from sin, freedom to truly love God, and to truly be loved by Him.

Signs

2009-02-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:12-18, Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17

I am excited!
One of the reasons why Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the entire Church year is because I get to see so many of my Brothers and Sisters who I haven’t seen in a long time. So in a special way, to my brothers and sisters who I haven’t been here for a while - welcome back! We have missed your presence with us.

I am also excited about Lent because it is an opportunity for us to transform our lives so that God can use us to show his love to the world in a special way these next 40 (forty) days of Lent. Lent is a time for fasting, for prayer and for almsgiving. It is a time of penance where we are invited to change the way we live so that we become more aware of God’s action in our lives in this Easter.

The Day of Signs
Today is a day of signs. There are three signs that I want to reflect on with you today. The sign that we are to one another in this community which God has gathered here today; the sign of the cross that we receive on our foreheads today; and the sign that we will be to our family, friends and neighbors in the world after we leave here today.

The First Sign - God has gathered us!
The first sign that we have today is the sign that God has shown us in our lives. That sign is the fact that we are all gathered here today to begin our Lent together. Why has God done this?

[[PAUSE]]

God has gathered us here to give us a common mission, a common purpose. In the reading today the God speaks to us through the words of the Prophet Joel when he says “return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness”. The question is – how can we do this?

[[PAUSE]]

The Second Sign - the cross of ash
The answer to the question of how can we return to God with our whole heart is found in the second sign – the sign of a cross of ashes that will be written on our foreheads. This is a sign for us to repent, to turn around and change our ways, to open our hearts to God in a new way.

We conform our lives to the cross when we choose to listen to him and follow the 10 (ten) Commandments, do good and avoid evil. To help us do this, I would like to offer a brief refresher of the way of God, the way that leads to life and not the way that leads to death.

The first three commandments have to do with our relationship with God, and our worship of God.

I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the LORD'S Day.

What are the things that we place before God? Do we use His name with reverence, do we treasure His name in our hearts as we would a loved one, or do we use His name as a curse? Do we come and visit him in the Mass on Sunday, or only when it suits us?

The fourth commandment is related, because parents are the first teachers of Gods love to their children.

Honor your father and your mother.

If we are parents, are we being faithful to the special mission that God gave us to teach His love to our children? Are we honorable Mothers and Fathers? If we are children, are we respectful, and obedient of our parents.

The last six commandments deal with how we treat those whom we live with.

You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
You shall not covet your neighbor's goods.

Do we kill – with our words, with our anger, with our gossip? Do we sin against marriage with pornography, or with an affair? Do we steal from our neighbors, our employers? Do we lie? Are we a people of truth or falsehood? Are we envious of the way that God has blessed our neighbor’s family or possessions?

[[PAUSE]]

The cross that we are signed with today helps us to battle these sins. When we are tempted to sin, when we know that what we are about to do breaks one of these commandments and we are tempted to do it anyway knowing that it wounds our relationship with God, remember this cross of ash that we are signed with today. If you wear a cross, then touch it when you are tempted and ask God for strength you to overcome temptation, resist sin and choose the way of life rather then to sin and choose the way of death!

[[PAUSE]]

The Third Sign - Our witness in the world
The third sign is the sign that we are to the world. When we leave here tonight, we will meet people on the streets, at the store, at work or at home. The sign that God wants us to be to them is our living out the change that he is inviting us to make in our lives this Lent. It is our faithfulness to this Lenten discipline that Christ will use to show His love to the world. So “return to God with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness”.

Secret Agent Saints

2009-02-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Lv 13:1-2, 44-46 Psalm Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11, 1 Cor 10:31-11:1, Mk 1:40-45

The Saint
One of the television shows that I watched as a kid was the show “The Saint”. The main character of this show was a cross between Robin Hood and James Bond. Every episode he would disguise himself and use the name of some Catholic Saint as an alias. Thus disguised he would rob from the rich and give to the poor using the coolest secret agent gadgets available.

Mark – The Gospel for Secret Agents and Spies
I mention the Saint because I jokingly refer to the Gospel of Mark as the Gospel of Secret Agents and Spies. I do this for two reasons; One, Mark’s Gospel is the Gospel of Action; Mark never wastes words describing the scene, Jesus is always busy doing things. The other reason why Mark’s Gospel is the Gospel of Spies and Secret agents is that He is always trying to keep his identity as the Messiah as a secret. In today’s Gospel Jesus orders the Leper not to tell anyone who cured him. The reason why Jesus is trying to keep his identity secret is that he wants people to encounter him as he really is, and not through their expectations. Jesus reveals the truth of his secret identity when he dies on the Cross to show us the fullness of God’s love.

Jesus’ Secret Mission
Not only does Jesus have a secret identity in the Gospel today, but he also has a secret mission. The secret mission of Jesus is to show God’s love to people, and to lead them to give thanks for God’s presence in their lives. We see this in the Gospel today, Jesus heals the Leper and sends him to offer sacrifice in the temple for his healing. This act of offering sacrifice is a way of offering praise and thanksgiving to the Father. The secret mission of Jesus is to give us grace and to invite us to return to God with thanksgiving in our hearts.

We too are Secret Agents for Christ
There is a saying, “you’re preaching to the choir”. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but today, “I am preaching to the spies”. I say this because all of us Christians here are called to be “Like Christ” – If Christ had a secret mission, then so do we. In the second reading today St. Paul helps us to carry out our mission in three concrete ways. We can think of these as three principles of living our lives as “Secret Agents of Christ”. These are

Do Everything for the Glory of God
Avoid giving offense, Try to please everyone in everyway.
Seeking the Benefit of the many – that they may be saved.

Ad Majorem Dei Glroiam
St Ignatius of Loyola’s is a real-life example of the fictional Saint. The motto was was “ad majorem Dei gloriam“ – In English, “For the Greater Glory of God”. Whenever Ignatius thought about some new undertaking, or some new venture, he always evaluated it in the light of this saying. If the goal, the purpose of the idea he had would result in the greater glory of God, then he would do it, if not, then he would discard it.

It is healthy for us too to develop a motto or slogan that we use to guide our lives. This is helpful because God has created each one of us for a specific mission, purpose in this life. Reflecting on that, and having a way to express it, often gives us a way to focus our life here on earth and order it to be productive and fruitful. If there is just one thing to remember from this homily today – it is that homework assignment – pray about your personal mission statement.

Try to please everyone in everyway.
Once we have a motto, then we understand how to frame our entire life. This was the case for the French-Canadian Blessed Andre Bessette. He had it in his heart to join the Holy Cross brothers in Montreal, but they refused because he was illiterate and ill. Perseverance and providence paid off and in 1870 he entered the order, and was given the job of door keeper, laundry worker and messenger. He spent the next 67 years of his life trying to follow the exhortation of St. Paul to “Please everyone in everyway”. This does not mean that Blessed Andre was a doormat for everyone coming to the brothers, on the contrary, he understood that the best way to please everyone in everyway was for him to allow them to encounter Christ in his actions whenever they came to the brothers in need. When people came to Blessed Andre’s door, he listen to them, he prayed with them and God used him to heal them. So many people were miraculously cured through his prayers that at the time of his death in 1937 he was receiving 80,000 letters a year from people asking for his prayers or needing advice. God used Andre’s pure devotion of heart to reach his people in the simple way he answered the door and took care of those who came before him.

“not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved”
As a teenager, St. Therese of Liseux wanted to be a missionary, to travel to wild lands and win souls for Christ. She made her first convert when she was only fifteen years old. There was a notorious murderer named Henri Pranzini on death row in France at the time. Therese prayed intensely to God that he would convert before his death. When she read the paper the day after his execution at the Guillotine, she saw that this man had asked to kiss the crucifix three times before being beheaded. This convicted Therese that the best way she could help others was through her fervent prayer so when she grew up she entered the Carmel at Lisuex and spent the rest of her life as a cloistered nun praying for the conversion of souls. This is what she wrote later in her life about how she was living out her vocation;

"I feel in me the vocation of the Priest. I have the vocation of the Apostle. Martyrdom was the dream of my youth and this dream has grown with me. Considering the mystical body of the Church, I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times and places...in a word, that it was eternal! Then in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love...my vocation, at last I have found it...My vocation is Love!”

[[PAUSE]]

Our homily today began with Simon Templar, “The Saint” who robbed the rich and give to the poor while using the name of some obscure Catholic Saint as his identity. In some way we are imitating him by taking the rich grace that God gives us and bringing it to the poor in our lives. We do this by listening, caring for and loving those we live and work with. When we look at the saints, Ignatius, Andres and Therese we see the many different ways that they lived out their lives responding to the love of God. Our secret mission is the same, and it is perhaps best summed up by St. Paul in the second reading today when he says; “Be imitators of Me, as I am of Christ”.

That – my Brothers and Sisters is our mission this week. The question is, are we brave enough to carry it out?

For whom the bell tolls…

2009-01-31T19:00:00.000-07:00

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

Dt 18:15-20 Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9 1 Cor 7:32-35 Mk 1:21-28

Eastern Europe
A Cardinal who grew up in Eastern Europe once shared with a group of young people why church bells were so important to him. “They remind me of my Baptism, of my faith and my mission in life” he said. In his country the Church bells were rung every morning at sunrise to remind the people to begin their day with a prayer of thanksgiving to God. The job of ringing the bells belonged to the altar boys who had to get up before dawn, and walk down to the Church in the dark in order to ring the bells at sunrise.

When the communists took over Eastern Europe they wanted to destroy the Church, so they imposed a curfew until dawn to try to prevent the ringing of the church bells. This cardinal, and his boyhood friend were committed to serving God, and so they would get up early in the morning and sneak over to the Church to ring the bells. One morning when it was his friend’s turn to ring the bells, he was shot for violating the curfew. This tragedy devastated the village, but every day, the bells of the Church still spoke out…

Ringing Bells make a Joyful Noise
At St. Anthony’s we begin every Mass with the ringing of the Church bells. Our bells have always made a joyful noise to the Lord because they call us to open our hearts to God so that we can receive His love. In a certain way our bells are the voice of our Church, because when we hear them, we are reminded of God, our faith and our Baptism.

It takes two to ring the bells
There are two people involved in the ringing of the bells, the one pulling the rope, and the ones listening to the sound. All of us who are baptized have this dual vocation in our lives; we have a responsibility to listen to the sound of the bells (to listen to Christ) and to be a bell for Christ by living our witness to the Gospel before our friends and family.

Listening to Christ
The first reading today contains a stern warning to those of us with this dual responsibility. In it, God warns Moses and all of the prophets (That is us sisters and brothers) that we need to hear the truth – that is the whole truth, and not just the parts of the Truth that we are comfortable with. It is not enough for me to simply hear the Churches teachings on abortion and not hear her teachings on immigration or war, or to hear the Churches teaching on the liturgy and not hear her teachings on the care for the poor or the sick. If we want to be faithful listeners, then we need to hear the whole truth.

How do we listen to Christ?
The response for the responsorial psalm today says, “If today you hear his voice harden not your hearts”. This means that we have an obligation to listen to Christ each day. We listen to Christ through attentive prayer. God has created each one of us with a specific mission in mind, a specific vocation, a calling. If we never listen to Christ, then we can only become aware of our vocation when God sneaks up behind us and whacks us over the head with the spiritual 2x4 (two by four).

Christian Life is Baptism flowing out into the world
The word Vocation means “one who is called”. There are two different connotations of the word vocation that I would like to address today; our baptismal vocation, and the vocations of service that we might be called to in Marriage or Holy orders.

Christian Life is our Baptismal Vocation flowing out into the world.
Fix in your minds the idea that at the moment of your Baptism God placed into your soul a rich spring, welling up with the purest, sweetest, cleanest water. Our Baptismal vocation is not a split instant in our life, but rather the water from this spring welling up within us and flowing out into the world over the course of our entire life. The grace that we received at Baptism remains effective for all eternity – and it desires to permeate into all of our relationships and interactions, washing them clean through the grace of God. Sadly, many Catholics receive this spring at Baptism and then seldom turn again to listen to the voice of God resonating in their souls. Some of us gathered here today may share this experience. For all of us, the readings today call us to listen anew to the bells of the Church!

Have a Conversation with God
I want to encourage all of us gathered here today to make time in our lives to listen to God. Specifically, we can take 10 minutes in the morning as we begin our days to reflect quietly with God about the people that God is calling us to be the bell of the Church for today. This is what God and Moses were doing in the first reading. They were reflecting together over the people that God had entrusted to Moses. Listening to God in prayer this way helps us to become aware of the ways that the grace that God has given us at baptism is flowing through our lives and into the world. It is also a way to become aware of when God is calling us into a more specific vocation – a vocation of service.

All are called to listen and dialog today
In the Church there are two sacramental vocations of service, marriage and holy orders. As a married Deacon, I need to be attentive to both of these calls, but all of us have a need to listen to God about both of the sacraments because all of us experience these sacraments in our lives. Those of us who are single, or young are called to listen and dialog with God about where He is calling us to serve and how he is calling us to serve. If we are ordained, or married, then we too have an obligation to dialog with God about how he is calling us to live out our sacraments today.

This means that like Christ, the prophet that Moses and God spoke about in the first reading, we have an obligation to listen to the whole truth of God in our sacramental life and not to shy away from the teachings of the Church that we find difficult or inconvenient. In this sense all of us need to hear the bells, and all of us need to be bell ringers…

Don’t be anxious about the things of the World.
St. Paul warns us today not to be anxious about the things of the world, but rather to trust in God. The reason why St. Paul warns us about this is because anxiety strangles our ability to listen to God and prevents us from trusting God.

Married People – Trust in the Lord
When it comes to marriage, do we choose to listen to Christ about contraception, or be anxious about the burden of children and so we contracept? Do we place other things above our vocation to serve one another out of love? Where in our marriage do we need to invite in the healing love of God. How can we allow him to enter into the wounds of our love and redeem them, heal them? In what ways are our marriages thirsty for the flowing, cleansing, refreshing, life-giving waters of baptism?

[[PAUSE]]

Bishops, Priests and Deacons – Trust in the Lord
For those of us in Holy Orders, are we faithful to the vows we made at our ordinations? Are we humble to His Will readily following the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our ministry? Does our life of prayer continue to grow and deepen? Are we holding fast to the faith of the Church – the whole faith? Are we obedient to our Bishop, listening to him as good sons ought to? Do we continue to conform our lives to the example of Christ?

[[PAUSE]]

Pray for Vocations – Pray for our married couples
All of us experience the sacrament of marriage – either as husbands and wives or as sons and daughters, and so all of us are affected by the fidelity of those married couples in our community who are called by God to live out this sacrament. Let us pray then sisters and brothers for the married couples of our parish that God may give them the grace to live out their sacrament faithfully, and fruitfully.

Pray for Vocations – pray for our Bishop, Priests and Deacons
Likewise all of us here experience the sacrament of Holy Orders. Without it we could not gather week after week to receive the Eucharist and to celebrate the Mass. Let us take some time this week to pray in a special way for those in Holy Orders and those living the religious life. That they might be faithful to their vows taken at ordination and so reflect the love of God to the World.

Listen and Trust in God and you will discover your vocation
All of us here are called to a vocation in life. The way that we begin to discover this vocation is to listen to God and to trust in God.

To those of us here today that have not yet received either of these two sacraments I want to offer you this reassurance. The decision to enter the seminary to study for the priesthood or diaconate is a serious decision, however, it is not the final decision to be a priest or deacon but rather the next level of listening and trusting in God to see if He is calling you to Holy Orders. In the same way becoming engaged is a serious decision but it does not mean that you are married, but rather that you are going to spend some time considering marriage seriously. Engagement and entering the seminary means that we are willing to listen to God and to trust that He will make his will known to us.

To those of us here today who are living in Holy Orders or Marriage – we too have the same challenge: to listen to God in the context of our vocation and to trust that God will provide for the needs of our ministry. If we do this we will become better wives, better husbands, better priests and better deacons.

Brothers and Sisters when we listen to God we hear the peal of the bells. When we trust in God, we are the ones who are ringing the bells. Go and make joyful noise to the Lord this week!

Tarzan!

2009-01-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Marian Devotion Hour with the Knights of Columbus

1 John 4:11-16, John 15:7-17

Oh Aahhu Aaahu Aaaaahu”!
When I was a kid we used to watch Tarzan movies. Everytime someone got into trouble, Tarzan would grab a vine, start swinging through the trees and yell “Oh Aahhu Aaahu Aaaaahu”! Then he would arrive in the nick of time and save the person in crisis or to right whatever wrong was being committed.

By now, I am sure you are now wondering, what is the connection between those old black and white Tarzan movies and our Blessed Mother.

Tarzan’s Vine – the means of heroic work
The connection is the vine. Without the vine Tarzan would not have gotten anywhere fast, and he would not have been able to go about the heroic work that made for great Saturday morning movies. The Gospel for our devotion today is taken from Jesus’ discourse at the last supper, where he says, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me, I will remain in you. Brothers, like Tarzan we to are called to heroic work, like our Blessed Mother, we too need to keep our hand ready to grasp onto the vine, so that God is able to work through us to show His love to the world, to speak out against what is wrong, and to do what is right.

Mary – the example of remaining in the vine
The readings today teach us how to stay connected to the Vine. Mary is the example “par excellence” of being connected to her Son Jesus. She teaches us with her loving acceptance of the words of the Archangel Gabriel, when she said to him – “Let it be done to me according to your word.” It is in her example of acceptance to the will and providence of the Father that we learn how to “remain in his love”. When Mary said yes to God, the Word began to take on His flesh within her womb, and so every day, she remained in His love, connected to the vine of salvation.

How do we remain in the love of God – Do His work!
God is glorified when we choose to spend time each day remaining in His love. We do this when we pray. When we provide for the sick, the poor, the disabled. When we choose to reject the love of God in our actions of Sin then we fall into darkness and separation from him. The Gospel today invites us to be whole and holy; to be men of integrity where who we are on the inside is reflected by who we are on the outside. That our connection to the vine that is God’s grace shines into the depths of our heart, illuminating the areas of our hearts that are in need of repentance, and motivating us to love as Christ loved – without counting the cost.

Grab a hold of the vine – take up the Rosary
Praying the Rosary is one way for us to stay rooted in the vine. It is through our meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary that we reflect on the events of Christ’s life through the eyes of His mother Mary. My dear brothers, let us grasp firmly to this vine as we live out our Christian life in the world, let us allow these meditations to penetrate to the depths of our hearts, so that all of our actions reflect clearly that we are men who abide in the Love of God.

Empty Chairs…

2009-01-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B

1 Sam 3:3b-10,19 Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10, 1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20, Jn 1:35-42

[[SET UP A CARD TABLE AND TWO CHAIRS IN FRONT OF THE ALTAR. SIT AT ONE OF THE CHAIRS AND FACE THE CONGREGATION]]

I know that you are wondering why I am sitting here at this card table for our homily. I wanted to use the idea of the kitchen table to help us reflect on some rather difficult issues that affect our Church and our families today.

The Kitchen Table
One of the places that our families regularly meet is around the kitchen table. Most days, after a long day at work, or school, or keeping up the house we gather here to share a meal, to give thanks to God and to talk about our day. Sometimes the kids dread the ritual questions such as – “What did you at school today?” It’s ok though, because most kids have equally ritual responses such as “Nothing”, or “Not Much”.

The place where families share life
At other times we share times of great joy, or love, or sadness. We might have a heated discussion, or laugh about a funny story, or just be happy hearing about a new friendship. Sometimes, we gather here in grief, to mourn the loss of loved ones, or some other family tragedy. It is around our kitchen tables that we share the joys and the struggles of life. Here at our table we share life with one another.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with a good friend of mine who will always have an empty chair at her kitchen table, a chair that does not have a child to fill it.

Bernadette
When Bernadette was 33 (thirty three) years old she was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. The doctors said that she would be lucky to live. This news hit Bernadette like a ton of bricks because 3 (three) days earlier she had discovered that she was pregnant with her second child. One of her doctors said that she would probably die, and if she died then her baby would die as well. The doctor said “You’re going to have to fight this with all that you’ve got – without the baby on board”. Bernadette was confronted with the choice – die from cancer, or get an abortion and fight for all its worth – and you might live.

Empty Chairs…
Bernadette’s story is not an isolated story. The truth is that in our community one in three women have had an abortion. This means, that one in three women live with a kitchen table that has at least one empty chair at it – the chair for their missing children.

[[PAUSE]]

Women confronted with Abortion
Bernadette’s story is not uncommon in other ways. Most of the women who end up having abortions make those decisions in a time of crisis in their lives. Often women struggle with the issue of abortion not in clinical, academic debate, but in the nitty-gritty reality that we often find at our kitchen tables. Many times we face this decision in a state of psychological distress, and quite often we don’t end up making the best of choices. Many times we suffer the consequences of this crisis for years and years to come.

Men shirking responsibility
Men too share in this culpability to abortion – typically we panic and frantically look for a way to avoid our responsibility. There are probably men here today who have been responsible for paying for, or encouraging their wives or girlfriends into getting an abortion. We too have empty chairs at our kitchen tables. We too are in need of healing, forgiveness. The church teaches that those who have procured an abortion are in a state of mortal sin, and in need of receiving Christ’s forgiveness.

The quick-fix is a lie
Here is where our society fails us. Our culture teaches that happiness is a quick fix. We thrive on instant gratification, because it’s all about me. We like things to end up nice, neat and tidy, no muss, no fuss. It doesn’t often end this way at our family table, because it is here, when we are home, alone that we have to face the reality of the empty chair at our table. Mothers often suffer from guilt, anger, sadness, depression. These feelings come and go over time – but the wound remains, unhealed and bleeding deep inside of us.

[[PAUSE]]

Behold the Lamb of God!
John the Baptist begins today’s gospel with the expression – “Behold the Lamb of God!” With these words he points out to us the one person who we can meet that is able to bring forgiveness, healing and peace into our lives. With this expression – “The Lamb of God” St. John recalls to us that Christ is the paschal lamb, the sacrificial lamb who has taken on flesh like us, has joined us to offer himself in sacrifice, to assume the responsibility that we have shirked, to take away our sins, to wash us clean in the blood the cross.

Rabbi – where are you staying?
How can I ever approach Christ with sin on my soul? This is where we see the good news of the Gospel today. Andrew comes up to Jesus and asks an important question – “Rabbi – where are you staying?” Jesus answers him saying “Come and you will see”. Andrew stayed with Jesus for the rest of that day, and it convicted him in his heart that Jesus truly is the Lamb of God, that He is the one who was sent to take away the sins of the world. The beauty of responding to Christ’s invitation to follow him is that through our relationship with Him he purifies our lives, he washes away our sins allowing us to be transformed from a life of darkness in sin into the joy and peace of Christ.

[[PAUSE]]

Wounds bleed, only Christ heals
The wounds of abortion hurt us intensely. Personally, the wounds that we carry from abortion remain with us the rest of our lives. Often we hide them away behind grief, denial, shame where they fester and weep slowly in our souls for years. Today, the Gospel invites us to change that – to come to the “Lamb of God” and invite him into our wounds. Modern psychology gives us many wonderful tools for managing and understanding our pain and our suffering, but only Christ has the power to wash away our sins, to cleanse and heal our wounds with His loving grace. I invite all of those present who suffer from these wounds to look into Project Rachel – a ministry of the Church where those who suffer from the effects of abortion can find support, healing and peace in their lives.

[[PAUSE]]

Pray and write a letter
The Gospel calls all of us to action. For those who are not directly involved in abortion, we still suffer the consequences of a society without children. What can we do? Two things; Pray and write a letter.

Prayer and Fasting
This Thursday is the 36th (thirty-sixth) anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe vs Wade that legalized abortion on demand in our country. This is a day of penance for our Church. This means that we are all to pray in a special way, and go out of our way to perform works of charity and to deny ourselves through fasting and abstinence.

Oppose FOCA
The second is to take some action to protect the children of our country who are in the womb. This week, congress is considering the Freedom of Choice Act – a law that will permit abortion in all 9 (nine) months of a woman’s pregnancy. I want to encourage all of you to sit down and write your senators and representatives encouraging them to oppose this horrible piece of legislation.

Learn the providence of God
Bernadette was faced with a crisis. She and her husband turned to Christ and prayed. After much struggle and discernment she chose to forego an abortion, and to have surgery to remove the cancer. After the surgery she had to wait until her child had grown large enough to survive the chemo-therapy, which she began starting in her second trimester. Bernadette delivered a healthy 8 (eight) pound baby girl, and survived her cancer at the same time. She did this by choosing to trust that God’s plan was the best for her. This is not the easy choice for her to make – but it was the best choice – because through it she learned to trust in the providence of God.

[[GET UP AND MOVE BEHIND THE ALTAR]]

Come and you will see
Like Bernadette, we too are invited this week to learn to trust in the providence of God so that we can learn that He truly has the best plan for us. God’s plan isn’t always the easiest plan, but it is always the best plan. God is calling us as He called Samuel in the first reading. He is calling us to gather around his kitchen table in heaven. This week we are invited to begin to share our life with God anew.

Do we have the courage to invite Christ into our lives?
[[PAUSE]]
Do we have the faith to listen to Him?
[[PAUSE]]
“Come and you will see!”

Family Tree

2008-12-27T19:00:00.001-07:00

Feast of the Holy Family – Cycle B

Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 Psalm Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 Col 3:12-21 or 3:12-17 Lk 2:22-40

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, and I wanted to share with you this idea that the family is a tree that starts out as a seed, and when watered by the love of God grows into the a beautiful and peaceful community of love.

I married my Sister..?
This past summer I went to California and married my Sister

[[PAUSE]]

Ok, that sounds very wrong. Let me be a little more precise. This past summer I had the great joy of officiating the wedding vows when my brother-in-law John married my Sister in California.

Marriage – the Seed of Love
Weddings are a time of incredible joy – because it is the birth of a new family. Part of the reason why we celebrate Marriage with weddings is because married love calls us to commitment, to faithfulness to one another for the rest of our lives. This is the principle difference between marriage and co-habitation, in marriage we go before God, the Church, and the whole world to publicly and freely declare are total commitment to love one another for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. The consequence is that family is born out of that commitment to love. There is intensity in that love, it is like a flare, that burns hot, bright and nothing can quench – not even the sea. Another way of describing this love is that it is like a seed – it is packed with all of the blessings, and struggles that lie ahead for that couple, all that is necessary for a good and holy life. Marriage is a seed that is packed into an intense little bundle, just waiting to get out.

Riding a Bike
Entering into the sacrament of marriage is like learning to ride a bike. We can watch movies about it, we can read books about it, we can watch other people live it out, but until we say I do, we have no clue what marriage is really like. I remember the day when I married my wife Tina, I remember standing at the altar, and watching her come up the aisle towards me. I had no clue what I was getting into, but it did not matter, because I knew that this was a vocation that God had called us to, and that He would be the one to back us up.

Relationship is the focus of the readings
The focus of our readings today is on relationship. The birth of Christ reveals to us that God is all about relationship. It is the relationship of love between the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit that we are invited by Christ to share in. In the first reading from Sirach, we learn of how husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters are to relate to one another. God is helping us to understand a right relationship with our families in order to prepare us to be in relationship with Him for all eternity.

Ribs Sunday
One of my brother Deacons refers to this Sunday as “Ribs Sunday” – because when we get to the part of St. Paul’s letter where he says “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.” Some husbands will often nudge their wives in the ribs and give a “knowing” look. This is followed a few moments later by a responding dig in when the next verse is read – “Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them.” How do these attitudes towards relationship help us to grow in love for one another?

Wives be subordinate to your husbands
Let’s start with the wives part, When St. Paul says “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.” He is expressing an idea of mutual love that is more clearly stated in his letter to Ephesians, where he says that “husbands and wives are to submit to one another as unto the Lord”. This is a difficult scripture for us to hear today, so I think that we need to struggle with it in an honest way. All too often this scripture has been used to justify some truly destructive behavior and situations. St. Paul is not trying to relegate women to a second-class status, or to justify remaining in abusive situations, but rather it is an expression of trust in our relationship of love that is backed up by Christ. When we freely submit ourselves to Christ’s love we can be confident that He will care for us because He has our best interests at heart.

Husband’s love your wives…
Now let’s move on to the husband’s role. St. Paul says to us “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ Loved the Church” – How did Christ show his love for the Church?

[[PAUSE – POINT TO THE CROSS AND SAY WITH EMPHASIS]]

He died for her!

[[PAUSE]]

Brothers – let us love our wives!
Brothers – let us remember our commitment to be good husbands to our wives – to give up our lives for our families. This is not an easy challenge because it calls us to conversion, to change our ways. Take a moment to think about the actions or habits that we have that are sucking the love out of our marriages. What habits of sin do we allow to rob our marriages and families of life?

[[PAUSE]]

We have been entrusted with the sacred duty to guarding our families from the evil that kills them. We are called to sacrifice, as Christ sacrificed, to bring about abundant life for our families.

Husband and Wife Homework
I want to invite all of the husbands and wives here today to reflect on these passages from Colossians as an examination of conscience for our marriages. Honestly share with one another where our relationships are filled with “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body.” Let us give thanks to God for the areas where we do these things, and work towards changing those areas of our marriages where we fail.

The Love of Christ is Water and Light…
The Sacrament of Marriage puts into right-relationship the love of husband and wife. When we enter into the Sacrament of Marriage, we root ourselves in the love of Christ, we ask Him to be the guarantor of our vows. In marriage, we invite Christ into our relationship of love, so that we can learn from Him who is the creator of all love. When Christ walks with us He strengthens and purifies our love for one another. The love of Christ is like water and light to the seed, it causes the seed to germinate and grow.

Children are a Blessing from God
Another one of those “riding your bike” moments found in family life is the blessing of children. The Jews always considered children to be a blessing from God. We see this in Sirach when he says “Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children”. Again, in the Gospel a few weeks back we heard of how God blessed St. Elizabeth in her old age when she conceived John the Baptist, and again, God blessed Abraham and Sarah with children when they conceived Isaac. If we go all the way back to Adam and Eve, we see the original intention of marriage, that “the two should become one flesh”, and that God “blessed them and said – be fertile and multiply”.

From Seed to Sapling - Children
Children bless our marriage, because they transform our lives from being this focused seed of intense love into a sapling. Watered and fed by the light of Christ marriage blossoms and grows. In this way married love reflects the creative love of God. Our love overflows and must be shared with children. Children bless us because they call us to a new level of love, to sacrificial love. Think back to those first moments that you shared with your children, as your mind wrestled with the idea that God has entrusted this soul into your care.

Contraception destroys the love of marriage
As a culture, we find it more and more difficult to identify with this idea that children are a blessing from God. One of the reasons why is the prevalence of contraception in our society. Our culture teaches that if we don’t practice contraception then we are irresponsible and foolish. Our Church teaches that when we do practice contraception we are sinning against the 6th commandment because we are rejecting God’s blessing by intentionally destroying His gift of fertility.

[[PAUSE]]

Children become a burden
When we loose sight of the fact that children are a blessing from God they become a burden, an inconvenience, a trophy of accomplishment, or a commodity that we can buy and sell at the fertility clinic when we want.

[[PAUSE]]

From Sapling to Tree to a Forest
As our family tree grows up, it matures from a sapling into a tree. That creative love that began as a little seed of love between husband and wife grows to be open to children and to life. When our children become adults they fall in love and our family grows yet again, as we welcome into our marriage in-laws and then best of all grandchildren. Eventually, if we allow God to work in our lives the tiny seed of love that we began with all those many years ago will grow into an entire forest of trees, each with its own special gifts and hidden treasures. The question is – are we willing to let God order our family relationships so that our families can become Holy Families?

Christ’s Herald

2008-12-25T09:30:00.001-07:00

Christmas

Is 52:7-10 Psalm Ps 98:1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6 Heb 1:1-6 Jn 1:1-18 or 1:1-5, 9-14

Story Telling
Whenever our family gathers together to celebrate birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, baptisms, weddings and funerals we always arrive at a point where we begin to share the stories of our lives together. All families have stories that are told in which we remember our history, in which we recall what has happened to make us the kind of family that we are. At the same time, when we recall these stories we remember that God has been good to us, has blessed us, and has been with us. Today is no different because today as a Church we gather together and remember the stories about the birth of Jesus.

Now that’s a Birthday Party!
The Church celebrates with a lot of color, grandeur and festivity. At Christmas, we gather as a family – the sons and daughters of God to remember the birthday of our brother Jesus. We retell the stories about Jesus’ birth and try to come to a deeper understanding of the meaning of this event for the members of our family. For this reason the Church celebrates the birth of Christ through four different masses, one at sundown on Christmas Eve, keeping with the Jewish roots of our family where the new day begins at sundown. Then, at midnight we celebrate the coming of Christ in vigil, waiting up through the night for the advent of this great day. We gathered again at dawn to announce the coming of Christ to the world at first light, and then finally, now in the light of day.

Genealogy – Christ came to heal what was broken
At each mass we retell the story of Christ’s birth, and we are invited to reflect on the events of this miraculous day. The first mass of Christmas is the mass on Christmas Eve, right after sundown. The readings of this mass celebrate the birth of Christ from Matthew’s Gospel – Reading the genealogy of Christ that emphasizes the point that Christ really became man – He really chose to enter into the flesh of our human existence. We read also of St. Joseph’s response to the angel to take Mary as his wife. In this we see that Christ entered into this genealogy to heal what was broken, to set right what had been corrupted, to make our family whole again.

Angels announce, Shepherds respond
Then we celebrated the mass at midnight where we entered into the most beautiful part of the Christmas mystery. In our celebration we heard from the Gospel of Luke, where the angels came to the shepherds who were watching their flocks at night announcing the birth of Christ – the Messiah. We followed this early in the morning when we celebrated the mass at dawn, hearing how the shepherds responded to the angels tidings; how they went to Bethlehem (which means the house of bread) and found Christ lying in a manger where they bowed down and did him homage. Their reaction to this first encounter with Christ was to make “known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds…Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.”

John’s Testimony
The fourth part of our celebration this day is to hear from the beginning of John’s Gospel, where we see how John responded to this event as he wrote down the story at the end of his life. John talks about giving testimony, of announcing that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”

[[PAUSE]]

Christ is inviting us to be His heralds
The readings for our liturgy invite us to become heralds to the truth. We are invited today to announce to those we live with that Jesus has come to heal and bring us to the peace of God the Father.

What is a herald?
A herald is one who tells the story. As Christians, we tell the story by living the story, and so we enter more deeply into our own relationship with God, and through our own personal relationship we proclaim the good news that is announced to us this day. Isaiah the prophet describes heralds when he says “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation, and saying to Zion, “Your God is King!” Hark! Your sentinels raise a cry, together they shout for joy, for they see directly, before their eyes, the LORD restoring Zion.”

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Are we living so that we can really be heralds? Do we see what God is doing in our lives and in our world? Do we allow God to establish His Kingdom in our lives by living according to His laws so that he is able to swiftly and silently come to visit our souls?

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Today is a new day
In a way it does not matter how we answer these questions. That is the joy of our celebration today, because today is a new day. Today we are invited to a new encounter with God. It does not matter what I did yesterday, it does not matter what has occurred in my life up until this point, because today we have heard – perhaps for the first time that God has a profound interest in our lives. Jesus came to earth this Christmas to get to know you and I. He comes to heal what is hurt in our hearts and souls. He took on human flesh so that we could enter into eternal life with God the Father. Today we celebrate that Christ is God with Us – He is Emmanuel.

Share the Story that God is with us – Be Christ’s Herald!
This is why today is a new day. Today we receive the invitation to come to know Christ more fully so that we can enter into a true relationship with God. It is in our relationship with God that all of our desires can be satisfied. This is what today is about – that God became man to bring us into right relationship with Him. When we find ourselves in right relationship with God then we are able to experience the love that He has for us in the depths of our hearts.

Today is a new day for us because today, Christ invites us to enter into the story, just as he invited the shepherds on the day of his birth 2000 years ago.
Today, we encounter Christ in the Word, as we share the scriptures, the stories of our family.
Today we encounter Christ in the flesh as we share in his Body that was broken for us to unite us with God the Father.
Today, we are invited to become Heralds of the Good News – that Christ is born to us; that He is the Way to the Father, so that we can be embraced by His loving arms and be filled with His peace.

To Russia, with Love!

2008-12-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Gaudate Sunday – Cycle B

Is 61:1-2a, 10-11 Psalm Lk 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54. 1 Thes 5:16-24 Jn 1:6-8, 19-28

A week of rejoicing
I often marvel at the brilliance of God’s plans for us. This past week has been one huge Marian celebration for our parish. On Friday we celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our fiesta began on Thursday night with Mass at 11PM that lasted until at least 1AM in the morning. Then, Friday night we again had a Mass with the Knights of Columbus, the Adoracion Nocturna, Matachinas and Mariachis, what a joyful celebration. I think that it is fitting that we end such a joy-filled week with Gaudate Sunday. Why? Gaudate is the Latin word for “Rejoice!” – And to show our joy we wear pink (excuse me Rose) vestments because we are overjoyed at the fact that our celebration of Christmas is only a week away!

Immaculate Conception – Father Walter Ciszek
Not only did we celebrate the Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe this past week, but on Monday we celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Which is the day when we honor the conception of Our Blessed Mother Mary in the womb of her mom, St. Anne. Monday is also the 24th Anniversary of the death of Servant of God Father Walter Cizsek.

Gangbanger to Priest
Walter Ciszek was born the son of Polish parents in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He grew up a bully, and stubborn like his father. He was known to be “a tough” – if we met him today on the streets we would call him a gang-banger.

When Walter was in 8th grade he decided to become a priest. His father was shocked. Priests were meant to be holy men, and Walter was as far from being holy as he could imagine. However, Walters mom prevailed over his father and soon Walter went away to a Junior Seminary in Michigan.

To Russia – the heart of Christian Suffering
While he was in the seminary, he read the biography of St. Stanislaus Kostka who walked from Warsaw to Rome. St. Stanislaus inspired Walter to join the Jesuits and prepare to go to Russia, where the Communists had recently taken over and killed over 150,000 priests.

Walter studied in Rome, and when he was ordained he was sent to Poland, when in September of 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and destroyed the school he was running. Father Walter snuck into Soviet Russia under the assumed the name of Wladimir Lypinski and went to work as a lumberjack in the forests of the Ural Mountains. This was the last that the world knew about him, as he disappeared into the forests of Russia to work as a lumberjack during the day and to hear confession, celebrate the Mass and talk with people about God at night.

To the Gulag
In 1940 he was arrested by the secret police and spent 5 years in solitary confinement, being tortured by the secret police before being sentenced to 15 years in the Gulag – at a slave labor camp in Siberia north of the Arctic Circle, where he loaded coal onto freighters.

Proclaim Liberty to the Captives
Why did Father Walter go to Russia, to such a dangerous place at such a dangerous time? Father Walter was convinced that God had called him to all of the suffering that was going on there at the time. In his own way, he recognized that God was calling him “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.”

Father Walter lived out the life that God had called him to by bringing the presence of Christ into the most desperate situations that existed on earth at the time. He lived and worked with the poorest of the poor, and in doing so, he was able to imitate the love of Christ by his solidarity with those who. Father Ciszek responded to the scriptures that we heard today because he chose to live out his life responding to the Gospel message.

We too have an obligation to live out the Gospel, to bring glad tidings to the poor by reminding them that God loves them. We do this when we share what little we have with those around us without expecting return. The readings that we use for this Gaudate Sunday lead us to joy through a life of selfless love.

Rejoice Always!
The second reading thought by Scripture Scholars to be one of the earliest writings of the New Testament. St. Paul writes to us with great enthusiasm. He says “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” So that no matter where our life has led us, we are always to rejoice, giving thanks for the many great blessings that God has given us.

Discovering joy in the will of God
In his biography, Father Walter came to discover through the sufferings inflicted upon him by the Soviet prison system, “that across the threshold I had been afraid to cross, things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will. I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it. God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things. To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see His will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. Nothing could separate me from Him, because He was in all things. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of Him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in His will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring. The past, with all its failures, was not forgotten; it remained to remind me of the weakness of human nature and the folly of putting any faith in self. But it no longer depressed me. I looked no longer to self to guide me, relied on it no longer in any way, so it could not again fail me. By renouncing, finally and completely, all control of my life and future destiny, I was relieved as a consequence of all responsibility. I was freed thereby from anxiety and worry, from every tension, and could float serenely upon the tide of God's sustaining providence in perfect peace of soul”

This is the reason why we should “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

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The voice crying out in the Desert
John the Baptist was sent to be a “the voice of one crying out in the desert” – In one way the desert that John was sent to cry out in was the desert of sin, where our souls are thirsting to know the love of God.

What is your Testimony this week?
Father Walter was like John the Baptist, he responded to God’s call to go into the desert and witness to the love of God by the testimony of his life. The witness of St. John the Baptist, and the witness of Servant of God Walter Ciszek is to testify to the truth of Jesus Christ at work in their lives. The question that the scriptures call us to answer this week is “What is my testimony?” “What is your testimony?” When people encounter us this week will they see our testimony? Will they know that it is our experience of the love of Christ that leads us?

If they do not, does it mean that we too need to hear the words of the Gospel and “make straight the way of the Lord” by repenting and changing our ways so that Christ can come directly into our hearts and through our hearts into the world?

Tepeyac

2008-12-12T17:00:00.001-07:00

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab

(I was asked to bless one of the local supermarkets in our parish as they celebrated the Fieste de Nuestra Senora Guadalupe)

Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, because on this day in 1531 Juan Diego listened to her and picked roses from the top of the hill of Tepeyac. Out of obedience to Our Lady he wrapped the roses in his tilma and carried them to the Bishop of Mexico. When he opened his tilma in the presence of the Bishop, the roses spilled out revealing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on his tilma.

There are two key elements to the image of Our Lady that I would like to reflect on today; the sovereignty of God and the need to live a life of prayer.

Our Lady appears in front of the Sun and standing on the Moon, which were symbols for prominent Aztec Gods. In this way she demonstrates that we are to worship only the true God in heaven and not false Gods, be they ancient Aztec Gods, or modern Gods such as money or things.

The second element of the image on the tilma is that Our Lady appears as a pregnant Aztec princess with her head bowed in prayer. The reason for this is because Mary is teaching us that the way to salvation is through coming to know her Son, Jesus. The Lady of Guadalupe teaches us that the way to know her Son is by listening to Him in prayer, and imitating him with our own love for the poor, the weak and the oppressed.

Why did Jesus send his Mother to appear to Blessed Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac all those years ago? I think the reason why is because of God’s love for us. He wants us to share the same faith that Juan Diego has, so Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in order to bring us into the Church – to know and love and serve God.

The Invisible Men

2008-11-22T19:00:00.001-07:00

Feast of Christ the King – Cycle A

Ez 34:11-12, 15-17 Psalm Ps 23:1-2, 2-3, 5-6 1 Cor 15:20-26, 28 Mt 25:31-46

I want to focus our reflections today on four different perspectives of the Gospel; Reflection, Examination, Penance and Action.

Reflection
The Gospel today helps us to anticipate the great celebration of the coming of Christ as king. In the movie the “Return of the King” there is a great scene towards the end of the movie when one of the Heroes, Aragorn is crowned king of Gondor before all of the peoples of Middle Earth. It is a scene filled with majesty, grandeur, and joy, because it celebrates mans triumph over omnipresent evil in the world, and the restoration of the world to a right order.

This is a useful image for us to keep in mind as we reflect on the Gospel today because today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, where we celebrate the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven and rejoice in the fulfillment of all the good that God has done throughout time.

Christ and the Angels
In the Gospel today, Jesus describes this time when he says that he will come “in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.”

What comes next in the Gospel today is almost a counterpoint to the grandeur, pomp and circumstance that almost always seems to accompany such great events. Jesus turns to all of the nations gathered before him, and begins to separate them onto his right and his left.

His Right
He turns to those gathered on his right, and says to them; “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”

His Left
Then he turns to those who are on his left and says to them; “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.”

The Invisible Men
The elect, those on Christ’s right ask “when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?”

Likewise, those on the left also asked Jesus “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?”

Corporal Works of Mercy as an Examination of Conscience
(How the Gospel Challenges our hearts)
What is startling about the dialog between Christ and the people is that both of them seem to be blind. Both of them fail to recognize the invisible men in their lives.

Caught up in all of this grandeur and magnificence of Christ coming in glory are the invisible women and men who are the key to our salvation. If we are able to recognize these men and women in our lives, then they can help us into the kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of God is about sharing our hearts with our neighbors, our brothers and sisters here on earth, with those who are in need. When Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, he does so based on the actions of their hearts.

The challenge of the Gospel today is for us to open up our hearts to those who are hungry for God, thirsty for his love, strangers, naked, sick or in prison.

The Hungry need the Bread of Life
Who are those invisible people in our world who are hungry for the Bread of Life, the Word made Flesh? What about those who are starving for God and we don’t speak to them about the love of God that lives in our own hearts? Is it because our hearts have grown cold, or hardened, or we are ashamed to proclaim Christ as king?

[[PAUSE]]

One of the beautiful things about taking a spiritual retreat, a day for refreshing our souls is that it allows us to open up and realize that we are spiritually hungry, starving for the love of God to become active in our lives.

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The Thirsty need life-giving water
Who are those in our midst who are thirsty to know that they are loved by God through us? It was an awareness of God’s thirst to love souls that motivated Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta to start literally feeding the hungry, stay with the dying, just to be in relationship with those people who had been abandoned on the streets of Calcutta. Christ is thirsting for souls, that his love be made known to those invisible people who are around us every day, and he is asking you and I to be the vessels of that love.

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Welcome those who are strangers to the Kingdom of God
Why is welcoming the stranger in this list? Doesn’t it seem a little out of place in the context of all of the rest? Jesus came to welcome us (who had become strangers to God, because of our sin) back into relationship with His Father. Similarly, He invites his disciples (us) to welcome strangers into relationship so that they too can experience the love of God through us; through our lives. Who is the invisible stranger in our lives? Are they here at the Church, standing beside me, or behind me, or before me? Are they at my work or at my school? God is calling us to share our hearts with our brothers and sisters, because love is always expanding, and it is through us that He has the opportunity to show His love in this world.

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Clothe the Naked – Return dignity to the people.
Who are the invisible naked people in our lives? Who are those whom we dehumanize? Who are those who live as objects rather than people in our lives? What do I mean? When we dehumanize someone, when we treat them as a thing and not a person, when we fail to recognize the beauty that God has created in them then we fail to clothe the naked. Sometimes the naked people are those who are at work, either customers or employees that we treat callously, and without love. Sometimes it is when we are trapped in pornography, that we learn to look at everyone as being naked. Is the naked that we are called to clothe ourselves? Have we destroyed the dignity of our bodies through the abuse of drugs or alcohol? Stop and think; who are the naked in your life that need clothing?

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Care for the Sick and Imprisoned
Who is imprisoned by sin, trapped by some way of acting or behaving that God is inviting us to go and visit them, so that they can know his love. When Christ came he went and stayed with those who were sick (with sin) and in prison (because of their life style). He stayed with them to heal and to liberate. When the Gospel is lived it always heals (it cures the sickness of our souls), and it frees (It frees us from the shackles of Sin so that we can live as God created us to live. Who are the sick and those in prison that Christ is calling us to visit this week?

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Penance – The Corporal Works of Mercy in Action
The Catechism refers to this passage from the Gospel of Matthew as the Corporal Works of Mercy – Meaning that these are ways that we can show God that we love him with our actions, in what we do.

Penance is spiritual medicine for our soul. Practicing penance means that we take concrete actions to correct the habits of sin that we have established in our lives. We can look at the corporal works of mercy as an examination of our conscience, and allow ourselves to be convicted by our sin. After acknowledging our sin, we are called to penance, to show that we can work at reforming our lives. We can use the corporal works of mercy as an opportunity to show our repentance by doing something concrete about our sins.

Faith in Action – Live the works of mercy
Take some time this week and practice the Corporal works of Mercy
• Bring some food to those who are hungry for the food bank.
• Bring some non-perishable drink, or drink mix (dried milk and the like).
• Step out of ourselves and greet those who are strangers in our midst, be they the immigrant, or someone here at mass who we have worshipped with for years and yet do not know.
• Go through our dressers and closets and bring some of our excess clothing here to clothe the naked.
• Consider volunteering some time to visit the sick, those parishioners who are lonely, imprisoned in their homes or at a nursing home. There are parishioners who are going to visit the sick tomorrow and in two weeks to visit the sick after the 8:30 mass on Sunday.

At his coronation the King will point out his servants
At the end of the movie “The Return of the King” in the midst of the victory celebration in which the King is crowned, and honored the King turns and draws attention to those who did his work throughout the story. They were the invisible agents of the King, doing his work, and making his kingdom known.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Gospel calls us to spend our life this week being the invisible agents of the King, feeding the hungry, giving drink to those who thirst, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, and visiting those who are sick and in prison so that they can come to know the fullness of God’s love.

Sister Death

2008-11-01T19:00:00.002-06:00

All Souls Day – Cycle A

Wis 3:1-9 Psalm Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Rom 5:5-11 Jn 6:37-40

Grandpa Frank Died
My grandfather died while I was in college studying to be an engineer. He died during finals when the weather was cold and windy, and I was taking evening classes. It was an early afternoon when I got the call from my mom who told me that Grandpa Frank had died. He had been sitting at the kitchen table talking with Grandma, and when he stood up to go and get the laundry for her, he fell over dead.

[[PAUSE]]

For the rest of that day I was in a fog. I still had finals to take and the rest of the week I just went through the motions, finishing up tests, turning in projects, and then we drove out to Nebraska for his funeral.

Seeing Death Face to Face
At the vigil we prayed the rosary for Grandpa, and it was there that I came face to face with his body, lying cold in his coffin, holding on to his rosary. It was really the first time I had come face to face with the death of someone I knew and loved very much.

When we buried Grandpa, all of us gathered around his grave, and had a really good cry. We were saying goodbye, and grieving together as a family. Our tears were of sadness mixed with joy. It hurt to miss Grandpa, but at the same time, I was so happy to have known a man who was so full of life and full of love.

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Comfort the sorrowing – Death is not the end
One of the greatest joys of my diaconal ministry is to pray with the families of those who have died. In those special moments, I have an opportunity to reach out to the families who have lost loved ones. They are sad, they are grieving, they have a sense of shell shock. At the same time it is an opportunity to share the hope that is at the heart of the Gospel – death is not the end.

We are created for Relationship with God
We are created for relationship with God and with one another. Death is not an end to our relationships, but a transformation in their nature. Grandpa Frank is with God now, and our relationship has not ended, because Christ will not end. God created us for a relationship of Love – selfless love. Love where we pour out our lives for one another.

How my fathers witnessed their sacrificial love
Years after Grandpa Frank died my Dad was sharing with me an example of his love. When my Dad wanted to go to a particular college, Grandpa went to work at a second job so that he could. It was Grandpa’s way of saying to my Dad – I love you. Likewise, when I needed to finish a basement in my house, my Dad gave up his weekends to come over and help me remodel, framing, wiring, sheetrocking, painting, and finishing. It was his witness of selfless love to me.

Grain of Sand vs Pike Peak
When Jesus came to live among us He told us that the way we live our lives here on earth determines how we will spend eternity when we die. Now, we might think that 80 or 90 or 100 years is a long time, but that is NOTHING compared to eternity. It is like comparing an itty-bitty grain of sand to Pike’s Peak.

Selfless Love
Christ calls us to love one another as He has loved us. To pour out our lives for one another. This is the witness of selfless love. When a father gives of himself to his children. When a husband serves his wife, when we take care of one another here in the Church, or on the highway, or at work or school then we are preparing our souls to spend eternity with God in heaven.

Selfish Love – You Deserve It!
Original Sin and our culture corrupts this natural tendency for selfless love and twists it into selfish love. The majority of advertisements that we see encourage us to love ourselves. Slogans like “You deserve it!” “Pamper yourself!” “You earned it!” take our naturally created need to give ourselves in selfless love and twist it inwards on itself so that we love ourselves. To God, Selfish love sounds like our sound system when we misconnect it so that it feeds back on itself. It sounds horrendous.

Sister Death
In his Canticle of the Sun, St. Francis praises Sister Death when he says “Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Death, from whose embrace man can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.”
The reason for his warning of woe is tied to the Scriptures, to the judgment of our souls. The Catechism teaches that when we die, we face two judgments, the Particular Judgment and the Final Judgment. This is another way of reminding ourselves that what we do, how we relate to one another does matter. That is why when our relationships with God and one another are in good order, we are happy to meet Sister Death.

Particular Judgment – Lazarus and the Rich Man
When we die our soul faces the particular judgment. We know this from Luke’s Gospel where Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus and the Rich Man both receive an immediate reward for how they lived their lives. Lazarus ends up with the Saints, and the Rich Man in an abyss. Both reaped the fruits of their labors, but the Rich Man was not really prepared to meet Sister Death.

Final Judgment – The Sheepish Question
Jesus goes on in scripture to speak about the final judgment that happens at the end of time. When this topic came up while I was in the Seminary one nameless Deacon Candidate sheepishly raised his hand and said – “Excuse me professor, does that mean that God can give us a reward, and then at the end of time change his mind?” The professor answered the question this way. At the particular judgment we experience immediately what we have done, but at the final judgment we see the effects of our actions, both the good and the bad rippling through the lives of all that we have met, like a stone entering a still lake. What a profound witness to the power of sacrificial love that moment will be.

Meditation on Death – Reflect on your life with urgency!
In some monastic orders, when one of the nuns or monks dies, all of the brothers or sisters gather around the body to hold a wake. The body of their dead brother or sister helps them to think about the grain of sand and Pikes Peak. As a Deacon, when I have the opportunity to pray with a family who has lost a loved one, I always come away thinking about this image as it relates to my own life; and my own death. God allows this to happen because he is asking us the question – “how am I maturing in my ability to love selflessly”?

[[PAUSE]]

I am the Vine, you are the Branches
The source of selfless love is found here in the Mass, where we become rooted in Christ – who said in John’s Gospel – “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned… As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.” In this Mass we are invited to the Table of the Lord, to unite our sacrifices to His as he pours out His life for us and feeds us with his Body and Blood. Here we have the foundation of selfless-ness, the foundation of self-giving. It is here in this great mystery that we find the antidote to selfishness, the source of holiness, and the strength to grow in relationship with one another.

Divine grace washing into your soul
Some of the most precious time that I get is when I sneak in here late at night, or early in the morning to just sit and soak in the presence of the Lord. Sometimes I can feel the Lord is gently filling up my soul with His love, like a tub that is filled to the brim and gently overflowing. I become profoundly aware of the peace, joy and love that Christ is showing me here in this sacrament of the Altar.

Watch and Pray
I want to invite you to join me in taking just one hour out of your week, or month and coming to the Church to spend time in silent prayer before the Lord. At our parish we are blessed with opportunities for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
· Every Tuesday night from 6PM until 7:30 PM (Shirley)
· Every Thursday day from 8:30 AM until 9:00 PM, (Fr Dan)
· Every first weekend of the Month we have Adoration from Friday evening until Sunday morning. (Jorge Reyes / Luis Ponce)

Come and spend an hour with the Lord and I promise you that his blessings will fill up your life. I have seen the fruits of adoration in families have given some time to God in prayer. He blesses those families with an abundance of His grace. Not all at once, but slowly and gradually they are transformed into blazing beacons of Gods love.

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What a beautiful wedding – Well done Good and Faithful..
After we buried Grandpa Frank, we returned to the Church where we had a meal that the parishioners had kindly prepared for us. I turned to my Grandma and meant to say to her, “Grandma, that was the most beautiful funeral I have ever attended”. But instead I said “Grandma, that was the most beautiful marriage I have ever attended”. She responded with a smile – “Your right Paul, because Grandpa is with God now at the heavenly marriage feast.”

And so, my sisters and brothers I long for the day when we can join my Grandpa at that great wedding feast in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Hebrew Country Music

2008-10-04T19:00:00.003-06:00

27th Sunday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Is 5:1-7 Psalm Ps 80:9, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20 Phil 4:6-9 Mt 21:33-43

Isaiah the Hebrew Country Singer
When I heard the first reading proclaimed today, I had this image of the Prophet Isaiah appearing in ancient Jerusalem. Just imagine yourself walking down the street in 700BC and coming face to face with this ancient Jewish prophet, standing on a street corner decked out in his prophet robes and great big long beard playing this tune as a one-man band. If we had to put Isaiah’s song to music, what sort of music would it be?

To help us figure that out, let’s listen again to the first reading…

I am singing a song about my vineyard
on a fertile hillside;
with the choicest vines;
a fine watchtower and wine press.

Just Like Country Music – Good and then Disaster
This part of the song would be like a country song, where the singer starts by singing about his wife, his dog and his Chevy truck.

Then he looked for the crop of grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

So now we wonder – Why this disaster?
But, then his wife leaves him, his dog gets shot and his truck gets wrecked. The translation we have here speaks of “wild grapes”, but perhaps a more accurate translation might be “stinky grapes”. So, like any good Hebrew country ballad, the singer reflects, “What more could I have done?”

What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I had not done?
Why, when I looked for beautiful, luscious, tasty grapes did I find only stinky, putrid grapes instead?

From Hebrew Country to Fundamentalist Fire and Brimstone
It is at this point in his song that Isaiah turns away from his Hebrew country-western genre and wanders into some “Fire and Brimstone” imagery –

I will let you know what I will do to my vineyard: I will tear down its hedge, break through its wall, and let it be trampled!

Images clash in scripture for a reason
And, now, we are left standing on the corner in Jerusalem before Isaiah the prophet thinking “Huh” – His one-man band show began with a beautiful country ballad, but ended up sounding like some really obnoxious thrash-metal. It’s like combining two foods that should never be put together – say pickles and peanut butter, or wearing a striped shirt with some really obnoxious plaid pants from the 70’s.

We only do this when we want to get peoples attention, and this is Isaiah’s purpose as well.

In the Gospel today, Christ uses this same parable when speaking to the chief priests and the elders of the people, so it is an important parable that the Church has given for us to reflect on today. What is the message?

Call to Conversion – Look at what God has done for us!
The message of this parable is conversion, it begins by reminding us about how blessed we are; that God has so profoundly blessed us in this life. As Isaiah says, He built the vineyard, He planted the FINEST vines, He dug the wine press, He built the watch-tower, He planted the hedge. He did all of this, and then turned it over to us, the tenants.

Think of this vineyard as our souls. God planted in our souls, the FINEST vines, we are after all created in the image and likeness of God. He gave us a fine winepress (Baptism), gave us Guardian Angels to watch over our souls, and gave us a hedge to protect us from sin.

How are we responding to God’s blessings?
How have we responded to God’s blessings? Are our lives producing stinky grapes? What is the fruit of our spiritual lives? Think back over this past week and reflect, seriously reflect; When did I fall into Sin?

[[PAUSE]]

Did I, did we live lives that Christ would be proud of this past week? Did we conduct ourselves in a manner that was worthy of the description – “Christian” – were we Like Christ?

[[PAUSE]]

Parables help us to think objectively about our lives
Jesus and Isaiah used this parable to help people see the difficult things about their own lives. Elsewhere in Scripture Christ reminds us that it is easier for us to see the speck in our brothers eye than to see the beam in our own. That is why he set’s this story in the third person and then asks the people, asks us – “What do you think the master should do after they murdered his Son?”

It’s easy to see the evil and faults of others, It is more challenging to see our own faults. That is the challenge of the Gospel today.

Are we Spiritual Brats?
Another way of asking the question of the Gospel, perhaps a bit more forcefully is – “Are we spiritual brats?”

Do we realize the great gifts that God has given us, or are we behaving like spiritual brats, picking up the precious gifts of grace that God has poured out into our lives and thanklessly throwing them into the corner, while we pursue a life of self-indulgence and sin?

[[PAUSE]]

Spiritual Maturity – the Anti-dote to stinky grapes
Well, the anti-dote to stinky grapes is spiritual maturity. The readings today are inviting us to “grow up” and begin to act as women and men who are followers of Jesus Christ. To combat the sickness of sin that is rampant in our church we can follow the example of St. Clare of Assisi.

Clare of Assisi
St. Clare was the 3rd of 5 children in Assisi in Italy at the end of the 12th century. At a young age she left home and pursued a life of austere poverty in order to focus on her relationship with God. She recognized that certain things in her life (comfort and luxury in her case in particular) were distracting her from caring for her vineyard

I am not encouraging all of us here today to head for the convent or the monastery, but rather to grasp the essence of Clare’s spiritual life and become aware of the factors in our life that distract us from Christ.

Avoid distraction – just tend to the vineyard
Clare was filled with a profound awareness of the greatness of God’s blessing in her life. It wasn’t in what she had, her family, friends, wealth, fine linens. It wasn’t in stuff, but rather it was in relationships – First with God, and her close friends. Clare found that the more she listened to the words of St. Paul in the second reading, the more that she sought after what was “true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, gracious, or excellent” the more profoundly she came to know Jesus Christ and be filled with “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding”.

Awareness of Gods blessings leads to thanksgiving
Clare’s life was filled with thanksgiving to God for the ways that He had shown her his blessings. She found that in her life, pursuing poverty in the convent was the way that she could best recognize the blessings of God, and so return to Him the finest grapes of her love.

The lesson for us is the same, to seek after the ways in which we become most aware of God’s graces in our lives, so that we too can begin to relate to God with thanksgiving. Here are three practical ways to become more thankful this week.

1. Spend time in prayer (Relationship with God)
2. Spend time with someone who needs company, relationship over “communication” – Don’t text when you can call, don’t call when you can visit. Etc.
3. Examine your day before you go to sleep (Recognize God’s blessings in your life). Become aware of the state of your vineyard.

When we stumble, we pay attention to where we are going
St. Paul described Jesus as a “stumbling stone”. In this way he describes an encounter with Christ as an encounter that means to stop us and give us the opportunity to think, and then act on the gifts that God has given to us.

We can reflect back on our sins of this past week, shrug our shoulders and say, well I tried, ho hum. Or, we can begin this by setting our sights on something that is better than a life of sin, to seek out as St. Paul encourages us to seek out “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Because when we do, we will encounter Christ, and He will become the Corner Stone of our lives, and fill us with “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

The way of the cross - the way of life

2008-09-14T18:05:00.001-06:00

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Nm 21:4b-9 Psalm Ps 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38 Phil 2:6-11 Jn 3:13-17

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Today the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This feast celebrates both the discovery of the Cross by St. Helena in 320 and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem over the site of where Jesus was crucified in 335.

This feast occurs every year on the 14th of September, and when it falls on a Sunday we celebrate it instead of Ordinary time. This is the day when we as the Church reflect on the transforming power of the Cross.

The Cross Defines our Lives as Christians
If you think about it the cross defines our lives as Christians. Action without understanding leads to superstition. So the Church gives us this feast to call us to reflect on the way of prayer that is defined by the sign of the Cross. It is not simply the opening motions of prayer, but rather a physical reminder to our own life and destination.

In Baptism
Last weekend I had the opportunity to baptize a baby boy and girl into the Church. The Rite of Baptism begins with claiming a soul for Christ by tracing the sign of the cross on our foreheads. We are reminded of this every time we enter or leave a church when we dip our fingers in holy water and sign ourselves with the Sign of the Cross. It is this action that reminds us of our birth into the Church – the community of faith.

As Christians we imitate Christ by allowing the Cross to transform us
It is suitable that the Cross defines our lives as Christians, just in the same way that the Cross defined the life of Christ himself. To be a Christian means that we are to follow and imitate the example of Christ. In the Gospel today we see that Christ was speaking to Nicodemus in the early part of John’s Gospel about the end of John’s Gospel. So very early in His own ministry Christ was looking to the Cross as the means of showing God’s love to us.

Christianity does not mean an end to suffering, but a transformation in suffering
So if you became a Christian because you thought it would end suffering in your life you came to the wrong place. Christ did not climb up on the cross to end suffering, but rather to transform it into a sign of God’s love for us. When we begin our prayer, our day, or our meal with the sign of the Cross, we are inviting Christ to transform our lives so that we can be united with God.

The Cross allows our suffering to be transformed into love
Suffering is hard, unpleasant and difficult. Christ took the experience of suffering and transformed it to an experience of love. Love for one another and love for God. The witness of Christ on the cross compels all Christians to look at the way in which he approached suffering. He allowed us to abuse him, ridicule him, torture him and kill him. Why? Because he was guilty? No Because he enjoyed it? No? Because he was showing us how to love the father. He was showing us the desire of the Father to have authentic relationship with us.

How did Christ transform suffering?
The figure of Christ on the Cross transforms our understanding of suffering, from one of fear to one of Love. Christ stands on the cross looking out at the world, and inviting the world into relationship with God.

The Cross formed Christ’s humanity into the image of love that pours out itself for the other.

In this way the cross undid the sin of Adam, where the image and likeness of God was disfigured by sin.

The way of the Cross leads us to imitate the Love of God. To be open, in a radical way, in a loving way to our brothers and sisters in community.

Our lives are called to be transformed by imitating Christ, by allowing our lives to be configured to that of Christ Crucified.

Blood and Water
As Catholics we have a special opportunity to share in the life of Christ on the Cross, because Blood and Water flowed from the side of Christ as he hung upon the Cross – Water symbolizing our baptism into his death and resurrection. Blood symbolizing the Holy Eucharist that we share today. Baptism that brings us into the community of the Church, and the Eucharist that brings us into communion with Christ and through Christ with one another.

My prayer for all of us today is that on this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross that we allow our lives to be transformed. The next time that we have the opportunity to make the sign of the Cross, we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the area of our lives that needs to be transformed to more closely imitate the Love of Christ on the Cross.

In the Name of the Father…

Standing Watch

2008-09-06T19:00:00.000-06:00

23rd Sunday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Standing Watch

Ez 33:7-9 Psalm Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9 Rom 13:8-10 Mt 18:15-20

Pirates!
A pirate with a peg-leg, hook and eye patch decides to give up his life of piracy so he goes to confession. After making a good confession, the priest asks him - "How did you end up with a peg leg?" The pirate replies, "I was swept overboard and my leg was eaten by a shark.” "That is terrible," says the priest. "What about your hook?" "Well," answers the pirate, "I lost my hand to a Spaniard whose treasure ship we had boarded to steal his gold.” “Incredible. How’d you get the eye patch?" "Eating grapefruit - I was eating my grapefruit when the juice squirted into my eye”. “That’s doesn’t sound like that would destroy your eye.” said the priest. "Yer right Father,” says the pirate, "but it was my first day with the new hook."

Ships are symbols of the Church
From the time of Noah and the Ark until now the image of the ship has always been a symbol of the Church – a place of safety on the storm-tossed waters of the world. The readings today speak about two different senses of the Church, the Family, and the Church gathered here today.

The Family is the Domestic Church
When John Paul II described the family as the Domestic Church he wanted us to understand the mission of the family as the first place where the Gospel is lived out. As parents we have the primary responsibility to witness the love of Christ in the way that we give ourselves to each another as husbands and wives. We show the love of Christ to our children in the way that we sacrifice for them and each other in our washing the laundry, keeping the house clean, going to work, doing the dishes – the list goes on and on. All of us have experienced self-less love to varying degrees. Some of our parents were evangelists “par excellence” of this Christ-like love, others not so much.

Children in the family have a responsibility to proclaim the Gospel to one another, and into the world. All of us are called to imitate the love of Christ as Brothers and Sisters. We do this in how we learn to love each other and forgive one another as Christ forgave us. Christ chose the family relationship to help us grow in our relationship with God. It is not always easy, but it is ultimately rewarding.

On Duty
The readings today give us some advice on how to grow these relationships. Among sailors, there is a responsibility that the entire crew shares called “keeping watch”. Keeping watch means that some of the crew is responsible for the safe operation of the ship for the entire time that the ship is at sea. These sailors have a responsibility to do their “duty” – The lives of their ship-mates depend on it. That duty might be keeping an eye on the weather, tending to the engines, or being alert for navigation hazards such as reefs or sand-bars where the ship might get stranded.

Keep Watch!
In the first reading today the prophet Ezekiel exhorts us to be attentive to our duty – to watch out for shoals where we might get stranded, or reefs that might tear out the belly of the ship. But he is not speaking in the nautical sense, but rather in the human sense – Ezekiel begins today with the exhortation – “Thus says the LORD: You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;” he calls us to keep watch over the souls of our fellow ship-mates here in the Church. This statement of God leads us to ask three questions – How do I keep watch, what am I on watch for, and how do I sound the alarm.

What to keep watch for?
In keeping our watch, we are like those sailors aboard ship who are looking out for the safety of all the souls aboard their vessel. God has given us the job of speaking to those who are leading lives of peril, whose souls are in danger of floundering on shoals, or running aground on the sand bars of sin. The reading from Ezekiel reminds us that we will be held accountable for how we keep the watch that God has given us – it is a serious responsibility. When we recognize that souls are in peril, we have a responsibility to sound the alarm, so that the danger can be averted.

Listen to God in your heart
Our own relationship with God is an essential part of us keeping watch. If we do not have a relationship with God, then how will we hear his voice? Prayer – speaking and (more importantly) listening to God is the first part to doing our duty well. We listen to God by hearing him in our hearts – the place where we make decisions about how we are going to act. This is a slightly different understanding of heart than the modern American usage of the word – which typically means the place where we experience our emotions.

Authentic prayer disposes us to hear His voice.
Authentic prayer, speaking and listening to God can take many different forms, from a spontaneous sharing of your day with God in the evening, reflecting on scripture, or praying the rosary. All of us are called to foster a deeper relationship with God through prayer. All of these ways of listening to God invite us to perceive the world a little more each day through the perspective of God’s heart by allowing ourselves to be challenged by His word and the teaching of His church. To listen to God means that we hear him in our hearts and our hearts are converted. That is why the refrain from the psalm today is “If today you hear his voice – harden not your hearts!”

God speaks to us through relationships
Daily prayer disposes our hearts to be open and aware of Gods presence in the world, but God does not normally speak to us directly. It is rare in the spiritual life for God to speak to us like the Captain of an old sailing ship bellowing out – “Avast there Deacon– Stand by to come about!” The normal way that God speaks to us is through one another, in our relationships, and actions. Prayer sensitizes us so that we can see the work of God in our lives more clearly. It teaches us how to look for the footprints of God in the history of our lives. Sometimes the messages are “atta boys”, and other times they are a smack upside the head with the spiritual 2x4 when God calls us to face the painful truths about how we are carrying out our duty – and those messages are also important for our ongoing conversion.

Standing Orders
When sailors are trained to stand watch at sea, they are given “Standing Orders” which tell them what to do in case of an emergency. For the Jews, and for us the “Standing Orders” is the Law, the writings of Moses and the prophets that discussed what to watch out for and what to do. Living the Law trains us in how to love. Jesus often criticized the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they lived the law without love. St. Paul teaches us that the goal of the Law is to lead us to love. In his letter to the Romans St. Paul begins with “Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” What he means is that when we carry out our duty in our families, the law of love must always guide us so that our proclamation of the Gospel is living and effective.

Sounding the Alarm
So, shipmates, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.”

Sin is personal, it destroys relationships – either our relationship with God or our relationship with one another. Sin injures us, and it injures the one we sin against. Sin destroys the community – whether that community is the family (the Domestic Church) or this larger church community. When we witness sin we have an obligation to point it out – with charity. This means discerning the right place and way to communicate the fault so that healing can take place. This is why we need to be steeped in prayer and in love.

Seek the Truth with Love
Christ goes on to say that if this does not work, then take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ – bring in additional people – to see the truth of the situation – not to take sides in a war of he-said / she said, but to see the truth.

In order for this to work, we need to be rooted in love and humility, so that we can truly listen to one another and accept correction from one another. This is not how the world works. In business we have contracts and penalties and judges – we have the law. The law is based on a fundamental distrust of individuals. In the Church we have the law of love that calls husbands and wives to be humble with one another, to correct out of love and to accept correction with humility – in their hearts. Likewise, Fathers and Mothers evangelize their children by how they show their love to them – providing for them, guiding them as they are raised. As children we are called to imitate the love that our parents show us in how they love one another and how they love us.

What is our witness to the Gospel?
God desires a relationship of love with us, and so he has given us two families in which to learn how to enter into relationship with him – our families of blood; the domestic church, and our family of faith in the Catholic Church. In both families we have a duty to do, to watch out for one another’s safety. In the Gospel today Christ shows us the way to do this. Christ has placed a two-fold challenge before us this week – To recognize God’s hand when we are called to account this week and not harden our hearts; and to respond to Him with courage when he wants us to use us to sound the alarm. The question is - do we have the courage?

Time for work!

2008-08-20T08:30:00.001-06:00

20th Wednesday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Ez 34:1-11 Psalm Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6 Mt 20:1-16

What does guilt feel like?
When was the last time that you got caught doing something that filled you with a sense of guilt? Perhaps it was speeding on the highway, or as a kid getting caught in some very wrong behavior. I want you to take some time to think back to that sense of guilt that you felt.

[[PAUSE]]

Shepherds are being called to task
I wanted you to have that experience in mind today, so you could have solidarity with me – this is how I felt when I listened to the first reading this morning because whenever scripture speaks about shepherds our (we bishops, priests and deacons) ears ought to perk up – because God is speaking to us. I don’t know if you caught it, but the prophet Ezekiel did not have very flattering things to say to us, the clergy this morning. It might leave us feeling guilty about the poor ways that we have gone about living out our ministry as shepherds that God has entrusted to us.

All of us have flocks to care for
But we clerics are not the only people here today with a flock to shepherd, because as parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents, we too have those to whom God has entrusted us to shepherd. This means that all of us here ought to experience a certain amount of guilt when we listen to the reading from Ezekiel today.

In truth we cannot dismiss guilt
It is important for us to recognize our own sense of guilt. Modern Psychology has sought to remove the effects of guilt from our lives, because in its wisdom, psychology sees guilt as evil. One of the tools that is often used in this treatment of guilt is that of moral relativism which is the idea is that the truth can be what-ever I make it, so we make justify our behaviors in terms of what we do, and don’t worry about the guilt.

Responding to guilt leads to conversion
The problem with this is that all humans have an innate love of the Truth, and eventually these lies will unravel. Catholics have always viewed guilt as a good thing – because guilt leads us to examine our behavior in the light of the Truth – Jesus Christ. If we have an experience of guilt, then we have an opportunity for conversion, to change our ways.

Taking care of the flock means working in the vineyard
In the Gospel today, Jesus is describing the Kingdom of Heaven in the terms of a Master who is always going out of his vineyard to find new workers to help him in the harvest. It does not matter what the time of day is in our life, God is always coming to us and inviting us to work with Him in His vineyard. The challenge for us workers loafing on the side of the street today is how will we answer his invitation? What work is the Lord calling you and I to do today in His vineyard? How are we called to pasture His sheep?

Use your life to choose life!

2008-08-16T08:00:00.002-06:00

19th Saturday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Ez 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32 Psalm Ps 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19 Mt 19:13-15

God’s gift to man is Freedom

Today’s readings speak about the gift of freedom that we have been given. We have been given freedom to choose what kind of actions we can have in this life. The readings from Ezekiel today speak about the consequences of freedom in our lives. If we use our freedom to choose life in the way that we live then we will live. If on the other hand we use our freedom to choose death, then we will die.

What is true Freedom?

Freedom is not the ability to do anything that I want, but rather it is the ability to see the good, and then the responsibility to choose the good for my life and the life of my children. Ezekiel preaches this morning about the blinding effects of sin, pointing out that sin blinds us from being truly free and encouraging us to free ourselves from sin so that we can live.

Freedom is evidence that God wants us to make a choice (GWUTMAC)

GWUTMAC - This is why we have human freedom. We have an ability to freely choose our own actions.
GWUTMAC - Out of love, because only out of free choice can we choose to show God our love.
GWUTMAC - When we choose to be selfish, when we choose to be sinful, we choose to reject God, an action that separates us from the source of life itself. The consequence of this choice is death.
GWUTMAC - He wants us to choose life! To examine the choices that we have made, to act in a way that demonstrates self-less love – in that way we follow Christ.

In what way is the heart of a child ready for the Kingdom of Heaven?
Christ says in today’s Gospel that “The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these…” a child, who is raised in love, whose heart is open to correction, is one who seeks the good of God always. When we choose to have open hearts, then we choose life with our actions. When we choose life in our actions then our lives are filled with joy, happiness and peace. God wants us to make a choice, in our sinfulness we often choose death instead of life. How is Christ calling us to choose life today?

Got Love?

2008-08-02T18:00:00.001-06:00

18th Sunday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Got Love?

Is 55:1-3 Psalm Ps 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18 Rom 8:35, 37-39 Mt 14:13-21

This past week, my wife went and saw the new X-Files movie, and came back and commented to me that it had a very negative portrayal of the Church.

Hollywood gives the Church a bad rap
This movie (the X-Files) gives a typical Hollywood portrayal of the Catholic Church. Without giving away the plot it features two men, one is a former Catholic priest and convicted pedophile who has super-natural visions, the other is a Catholic Priest who opposes a boy from receiving a non-descript stem-cell treatment that the Church considers abhorrent. The movie embroils these characters into conflict with the Church and concludes that the teachings of the church are wrong, and ought to be ignored.

Does this really reflect our family?
In a certain way, I think that this movie is an attempt by the producers and distributors to portray the Church and her teachings as irrelevant to modern day issues, backwards, messed up and mean. It leads us to ask the question - is this an accurate portrayal of the Catholic Church? Is this how our community, our family really is?

Do we answer by making our own movie?
How are we as Christians to answer these serious accusations in the world today? We could on one hand, collect up all of our monies, and go and hire an great director and pay them to make a movie about the Catholic Church that portrayed her in a positive light – but would that be an effective use of our resources? All in favor of a second collection to raise money to make a movie to counter this accusation please raise your hands.

[[PAUSE]]

If not then how?
Don’t panic! I think that Jesus wouldn’t raise his hand either. Christ doesn’t want us sitting on our backsides in the pews, He calls us to answer these accusations by being witnesses to the Gospel. But where does the rubber meet the road? How do we do this?

The readings today give us some hints on how we as Christians, disciples of Jesus are to respond to this movie, and all other accusations against the Church. Let’s go through them one at a time.

All who are thirsty come to the water
Isaiah the Prophet invites all who are thirsty to come to the water. Are we thirsty? What are we thirsty for? We are thirsty for the same thing that everyone else in the world is thirsty for – we are thirsty for love;

not the kind of love we might have for ice cream or pizza;
not the kind of love that we experience from our brothers and sisters;
not the kind of love that we experience for our parents or our children;
not the kind of love that we have for our husbands or wives.

We thirst for a love that is greater than all of these loves – we are thirst for the Love of God. We thirst to know how special we are in His eyes.

All who have no money…

Isaiah goes on to invite those “who have no money to come receive grain and eat. Come without paying, and without cost”. If we were to literally engage with this passage of scripture we might dismiss it by saying that we have food in the pantry at home, or some money in the bank. What then is the money that Isaiah is referring to? The money that Isaiah is speaking of is the money of love – our ability to show love. He describes us as having no money, because we learn to love in response to our experience of being loved. Isaiah is describing our ability to love when compared to God’s ability of love. God has an infinite ability to love, we are very limited, and so we are poor in comparison to God. It is God who invites us into a relationship of love, to receive His love – to receive from Him freely.

Love illumines our heart – it reveals in us selfishness
Every encounter with the love of God illuminates our hearts. It is in the brightness of God’s love that we are confronted with the question – “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?” Where is my love directed? Where do I spend my time? My treasures? My talents? How does my expenditure of time relate to the love that I seek?

[[PAUSE]]

Sneaking out of town - imagine Jesus’ day in the Gospel

Have you ever wondered why it took Jesus all day to cure the sick. When I read this Gospel, I imagined that he got up early in the morning, grabbed the disciples and snuck out of town, only to find that when they landed the boat the crowds had followed him. On landing with his disciples, he had pity on the crowds and so he spent his day healing them. This gives us a glimpse of what God’s Love is like. Jesus could have healed them all instantly, but rather he spent the day healing them, by entering into relationship with them, showing them what the Love of God is like – it is relational. God’s love is relational, and when we experience it we are healed!

We are the disciples

Whenever we read scripture about the disciples, we need to pay special attention to them, because we too are disciples of Jesus, and we are called to imitate their actions in our own lives. The disciples come to Jesus and ask him to take care of a problem – feeding the crowd. They even have a suggestion on how God ought to solve this problem that they have (send them away). How many times have we taken our problems to God with a suggested solution?

Christ calls us to action by placing our gifts at His service

Jesus answers them in much the same way that He answers us – He challenges them to action. He says “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” To which they respond that they don’t have enough – five loaves and two fishes. This is where the Gospel and the reading from Isaiah fit together beautifully. We come to God because we are poor in our ability to Love, but if we allow Him, he will take our meager gifts and multiply them a thousand fold. What would the world be like if we placed all our relationships before Christ like the disciples did in today’s Gospel? How much love would we witness to our wives and husbands, our children and parents, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and friends and enemies?

Christianity is Fire – Christians are Arsonists
A 19th century philosopher once described Christianity as fire, and true Christians as arsonists.

The Fire of Christianity is Love. Love is the key to being united with God. When we allow the love of Christ to dwell in our hearts then our temptation to sin falls away, we live as St. Paul says – without anything separating us from the Love of Christ.

We are called to be like the disciples in the Gospel and place our meager gifts before God, so that He can take them and magnify their effect.

Love is our capacity to hold heat? How hot or cold are our hearts?
John Chrysostum describes our love as the capacity of our hearts to hold heat. Do we allow the love that we experience here with the Eucharist to remain in our hearts throughout this week? Are we hot or cold? Does our heart retain the heat of Christ’s love in a way that is living and effective, that changes how we live our lives? Are we being arsonists?

[[PAUSE]]

How does our family answer the accusations of Hollywood? - By sharing the fire of Christ’s love!

When we allow this fire of Christ’s love to penetrate our hearts we become a witness of the Gospel to our families, friends, neighbors and coworkers what true Christianity is about. When we do this in simple, practical ways by offering to mow the neighbors lawn, visiting the sick, those who are homebound or in prison, by holding the door for another, by taking care of the poor, the weak and the suffering. When we do one of these actions we spread the fire of God’s love into the world. This arson of Love is the anti-dote to the accusations made in the movie theater about the nature of Christianity and the Church. What fire is Christ calling you to spread this week?

Christ - The Inconvenient Truth

2008-07-12T19:00:00.001-06:00

15th Sunday Ordinary Time – Cycle A

Is 55:10-11 Psalm Ps 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14 Rom 8:18-23 Mt 13:1-23

Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize
Last year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to our Al Gore for his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” that chronicles the environmental impact of humanity on the planet. This movie is a call to all of humanity to clean up our act in how we are treating the planet – to become better stewards of the resources that we have so that our planet is around and livable for generations to come.

Impact of Environmental Sensitivity
The goal of his movie was to increase awareness of the damage that our modern, industrialized society may be causing to the planet, through pollution. Since “An Inconvenient Truth” was released countless websites have opened up to increase peoples awareness to their impact on the environment. On the Internet we can “measure our carbon footprint”. I have even heard in the news that the Democratic Convention here in Denver is gearing up an army of volunteers to have a “Green” convention – they want to have a “Carbon Neutral” impact on the planet.

Can we see the effects of our Sin?
In the Gospel today Jesus observes that people close their eyes and ears so they cannot see the love of God. Often we ignore how God is calling us in our hearts because of our addiction to sin.

The power of Al Gore’s movie is that it helped people to see the changes that are going on in the world today. A picture is worth a thousand words, when we see the snows retreating, pollution increasing and the world decaying, we become motivated to do something about it.

The readings today speak to us about the pollution that brings about corruption in our soul. The readings lead us to answer the question – What pollution is corroding away at my soul today?

Is it in what I choose over loving my spouse?
How I treat my family?
My friends?
What I watch, what I say what I do?

[PAUSE]

The American writer Upton Sinclair once wrote that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it”. What is the paycheck that we get from our sin? Why do we, why do I choose again and again to immerse my soul in this corruption?

[PAUSE]

How the Duomo in Florence might help us to see sin

In a certain way, I think that our culture suffers from an inability – a set of closed eyes and ears to the truth of who Christ is, and the truth about the state of our souls. If St. Paul were able to make a movie about the spiritual pollution that our souls are in he might choose the painting on the ceiling of the dome of the Cathedral in Florence, Italy. This dome is painted with this magnificent scene of the Last Judgment. At the bottom we see devils taking delight in torturing poor souls that are addicted to sin. This is one way for us to visualize the affect of our sin on our soul.

Christ is the Inconvenient Truth! – Why Inconvenient?

If St. Paul were to make a movie today, he might title it “Christ – The Inconvenient Truth!” When we live lives that are immersed in sin, we encounter Christ as “The Inconvenient Truth”. Christ is inconvenient because the light of his love exposes the ugliness of our sin. He makes it difficult for us to persevere in the corruption that we surround our souls with. In the Gospel today Christ invites us to become open to His word, that He might dwell in us and bear fruit. This leads us to ask the question – What kind of soil is the life I am living for the Word of God?

How do I accept the Word of God into my heart?
How fertile is my life for the Kingdom of Heaven?
Am I living a life that is liberated by the redemptive love of Jesus, or am I still mired and trapped by my sin?

[PAUSE]

Christ is the Inconvenient Truth – Why the Truth?

Isaiah reminds us in the first reading that the Word of God is effective, it has a purpose, and God sends it to accomplish that purpose. The purpose of God’s word is to cleanse us from the corruption and pollution of Sin that leads us to death. Our challenge is to open our hearts to be able to receive the Word of God. In his letter to the Romans St. Paul speaks of how all creation is groaning for the coming of God at the end of time. I think that often times the words of St Paul’s readings today strike us as empty words because we have lost sight of the power of the great gift of Baptism. So let us go back in our lives to the very beginning when we encountered God in our Baptism. In Baptism the Holy Trinity comes and makes His dwelling in us in our souls. This is a profound moment in our lives. If this is the gift that Christ has already given us – an opportunity to spend our lives with God, how much greater will it be when we come to see him face to face.

Baptism - Our First Fruit of Creation

Another way to reflect on this truth - All of us here today who are baptized have experienced the first fruits of salvation – our baptism; however we have such an impoverished sense of salvation. We are called to drink deeply of the grace that God has given to us so that we are truly groan for the coming of salvation. If we have a superficial understanding of the gifts that God has already given us (Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist) then we don’t groan with St. Paul and the rest of creation because the fail to recognize the treasures that we have already been given.

Decay = Sin / Growth = Life

When we encounter decay in our world, we are reminded of decay in our soul, likewise when we encounter growth in the world, we are reminded of our need to grow in our relationship with God in our Soul. We do this by living lives that are more and more closely in touch with our creator. The more in contact to the Word made Flesh that we become the more sanctified we are, and through us the world becomes. This is what our encounter with the Inconvenient Truth does – it transforms the world through sanctification.

Reduce your Sin Footprint so that God can increase His Grace Footprint

The readings today are chocked full of the imagery of nature, of rains, growth, seeds and life. Jesus speaks of the seed – the Word of God that is planted in our hearts is watered, takes root, grows and in its own time bears fruit 30 or 60 or 90 fold. We are called to live lives that reflect “The Inconvenient Truth” to the world. As humans, paying attention to our “Carbon Footprint” is part of our stewardship of the planet. As Christians, we have the serious responsibility of taking care of our “Sin Footprint” because we are not just called to be “Sin Neutral” but we are called to be “Grace Positive” – to change the world so that it is sanctified through our living out of the Gospel; This is why St. Paul says that “All creation groans for the salvation of the Sons and Daughters of God” – because when we allow Christ to redeem our lives, our world is redeemed, purified, sanctified with us.

Who do you say that I am?

2008-06-29T10:34:00.001-06:00

Solemnity of Peter and Paul

Acts 12:1-11 Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9 2 Tm 4:6-8, 17-18 Mt 16:13-19

Today the Church begins her one year long celebration of the Birth of St. Paul. St. Paul was born 2000 years ago in Tarsus, a small town in southern Turkey. His parents were Jewish and he was raised as a Pharisee. St. Paul was converted to Christianity in about 35 AD, when he was on the way to Damascus to persecute the Church. Pope Benedict declared that for the next year the Church will be celebrating the Holy Year of St. Paul – The man who wrote the bulk of the New Testament and helped to bring Faith in Jesus Christ to the Gentile world.

The principle question of the Gospel today is the question that Jesus puts to his disciples, and it is a question that he puts to us. Jesus asks us the question – “Who do you Say that I Am”? This is the most important question that we need to answer today because our whole relationship with God – the creator of the universe is framed by this question.

Jesus has been with his disciples for over a year. They have lived with him, witnessed the authority of his teaching. These men have seen him cure the sick, cleanse lepers, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk. Jesus asks them the question – “Who do you say that I am”.

First Jesus calls us to follow him

I think that it is important that we pay attention to the plan which Jesus used to reveal himself to the Apostles. In the beginning of Matthews Gospel. Jesus begins his ministry by calling the Apostles Peter and Andrew, James and his brother John. He says to them – “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of Men”. Then he sets about curing the sick, the insane and all who were afflicted by the devil. After being with Jesus for over a year, journeying with him, and being sent by Him to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God Jesus confronts them with this question – “Who do you say that I am?”

In our relationship with Jesus we witness who he is

Jesus did not show up on a street corner heal some sick guys and then ask this most important of questions, rather he invited the Apostles to follow him, live with him, enter into relationship with him. He led them to discover the answer within themselves, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit to come to know Christ as The Messiah, the anointed one of God. Jesus let his actions and deeds witness to the truth of who he was.

Those with a distant relationship with Jesus (The Jews). Who did they say that He was?

What did the Jews at the time of Christ think? - Some say John the Baptist, or Elijah or one of the other Prophets – a Holy Man to be sure, but nothing profound.

Do we have a distant relationship with Jesus? How do we answer his question?

There are still people today who answer Christ’s question in this way. If we are one of those who answer this question that way, then Jesus is not divine, and if we think about him seriously enough, then we will end up dismissing not only Him but our entire faith. If Jesus is just a prophet, then what do we think of his claim to be the Son of God? Later in the Gospel after Peter’s Confession he is revealed as God’s Son by the Father, and in John’s Gospel he makes that explicit claim. If we think that Christ is one of the Prophets, a holy man, but not divine, then he really ends up being a kind of religious nut – because we don’t take his claim to divinity seriously. He was a nice guy except for that whole son of God thing… He was a nice guy except for that whole drink my blood and eat my flesh thing…

What are the bonds / limits on our relationship?

There is another way that we respond to the question – “Who do you say that I am”? We place bounds on our relationship with Christ. What kind of bounds? The bounds of our sin. In this way we are like both Peter and Paul in the other readings today. In the first reading we see that Peter is bound in chains and thrown in prison. For him, the chains and prison were those of persecution, something the Church has suffered from the time of her founding. What chains bind us from fully proclaiming the Gospel, from witnessing fully to the reality of Who Christ is? In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles Peter is freed from those chains by an angel and led back to the house of Mark the Evangelist, (And Peter’s future secretary).

Who do you say that I am?

What are the things that limit how we can answer this question of Christ? What are the chains that are restraining our relationship with Christ?
• Am I afraid of this kind of relationship with him?
• Am I angry with Christ over my current lot in life?
• What am I afraid of learning if I let my relationship grow to this level?
• Do I fear what others will say of me if I have this kind of relationship with Jesus?

How often do we allow the world to distort our confession of Faith in Jesus Christ because we are unwilling to suffer persecution for the sake of the Gospel? How often is our confession of Faith chained by human expectation, or limitation! Today we can call upon Christ for the courage to witness to the Gospel, to be freed from the chains that hold us down from confessing true faith.

Who do you say that I am? – St. Paul at the end of his life

St. Paul answers this question for us as well in his letter to Timothy. This letter was perhaps the last letter that St. Paul wrote. In our readings today he begins by stating that his “life is being poured out as a libation” – This means that his life is being poured out as a sacrifice of love to the Gospel, to the teaching and truth of who Jesus Christ is. Like Peter in the first reading at the time when Paul is writing this letter he is in prison, awaiting his beheading by the Emperor Nero outside the walls of the city of Rome. Paul testifies with his life to the love and truth of Jesus Christ.

It is not too late to begin to run!

At the end of his life, just days before his execution St. Paul testifies that he has run the good race – his reflection on his life is that he did bear witness to the truth of Jesus. He is ready to go and be with God. He encourages us by reminding us that it is not too late to start running. It is not too late to be freed from prison. Let us today open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, so that He can use us to proclaim this week that Jesus is truly the Messiah, the Anointed one of God, the Son of the Most High. We do this when we live lives like St. Paul, when we allow ourselves to be poured out like a libation – a sacrificial offering to the Love of Christ in all that we say and do. In doing this, we confess with not just our lips, but with the actions of our heart and soul and mind that Jesus Christ is Lord!