January 5 - the Epiphany

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Sat an 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM and the 6:00 on Sunday

Little Christmas

Back in Pennsylvania (where my parents grew up) my grandparents used to speak about "Little Christmas" or "Russian Christmas" which was typically January 6 the feast of the three Kings : The Epiphany of today. As I came to find out the ethnic groups from Europe brought to these little coal-mining towns the European custom of celebrating the Three Kings as Christmas or according to the Russian orthodox calendar. My grandmother always said that the Russian lady across the street always got her Christmas tree cheap because they celebrated Christmas two weeks late.

What does the feast of the three Kings, little Christmas, or epiphany hold for us. It is another Christmas "epi - phanie" = revealing to everyone. Do you see the star? Can you find the king? Are you looking still?

December 29th - Holy Family Sunday

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-Christmas homily was lost in space
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Perfect Family - Got One?

I'm thinking about the universal "neurosis" that I am thinking is the enemy to our good functioning and peace.....imperfect family/dysfunctional family grief.  The holy family is not a perfect family - in fact their family origins, relations, and agreed upon arrangement don't really fit into what I hear people longing for or the church recommending.

But the holy family has something better than family-systems psychology going for them.  They have their divine vocation dominant in their lives, consciousness, and daily living. To love god above all things and your neighbor as yourself is the divine vocation that drives them together and drives them through life unto death. No death bed regrets in the holy family. Why not? Because they all did what God was calling them to do before responding to what they might have preferred.

Think about the biggest sadness in your life. I'm thinking it is going to be the result of you or someone you loved or someone who was suppose to love you NOT doing what God was asking. That never happened in the holy family. Thus, no regrets.

The five regrets of the dying....all have to do with failing to do what God asks of us.

So, we can stop grieving over our imperfect families and stop insisting on perfect relationships in the family. Like the holy family we could start realizing that our joy will come in looking for God's will in our daily lives and striving to live it perfectly. The family relationships will fall into place. And then no regrets when it's over.

A new Spirituality. Want one?

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New Vision, a new morality, a new Feeling, and now a new Spirituality

Can this new vision that god has of your future be translated into a new habit of holiness?  Let's see!

December 15 Homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass and preaching this weekend on Sunday at 11:00 AM and at 6:00 PM

Can you feel what's new in God's vision for you?

http://youtu.be/2VKxK2jTSFs

December 8 homily prep

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"What ought we to DO?"
"

Homily prep for Advent I, December 1, 2013

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What's New?

New York? New Jersey? New Vision of your life with God!

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Video Homily Prep for Nov 24 - Christ the King

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To Where Does Your Suffering Lead Others?

Nov 17th Homily prep

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What is your suffering saying?

It is the manner of our suffering, the way we endure or persevere the tough stuff,  that speaks most loudly of our relationship to Jesus Christ.   "No whining on the yacht" is the classic line one of our parishioners has coined meaning that our complaining about discomfort is "oxymoronic" - doesn't make sense.   What our complaining does reveal is our level of or lack of connection to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

So, how's your suffering?  What is it revealing about your friendship with Jesus?  Or lack thereof?

November 10 video Homily prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 and 12:30

Do you have any resurrection in your Christianity?Click here

Nov 3 homily prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30 and 12:30

Where are you looking for the encounter with Jesus? 

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October 27 video Homily Prep

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Where are you on the map? On which map?

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Oct 20 homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat and 8:00, 9:30, and 12:30 Sunday(yes, it's a lot😃)

Hold Hands

I heard a doctor of sorts or some expert give a talk on marriage many years ago and his recommendation to married people was the they "argue or fight holding hands".  I realized then that the doctor was capitalizing upon the fundamental gesture of the Rite of Marriage which is "join your right hands and repeat after me".  The joined hands of husband and wife are a beautiful image of the "two becoming one flesh" and the mutual exchange of consent.

When I think about the recommendation to "fight holding hands" I think I get the point-that while we might be disagreeing about many things we are still united in love for one another.  It's the "holding hands" portion of the argument that really matters. Two spouses might be very far apart in their thoughts, words, and problems however if they are still holding hands they are communicating the security of their bond as one.

I must say that I have often seen couples doing various things while holding hands. Often a couple will be eating dinner in a restaurant and holding one hand across the table as they talk and eat. Obviously, people who are in love will hold hands while they're walking down the street, sitting in church, waiting in the doctors office, sitting in the hospital, attending the wake of a loved one, many different activities all carried out from the context of "the two becoming one flesh".

The Gospel parable of the dishonest judge and the persistent widow is set in the context of the "need to pray always without growing weary".  The parable ends with Jesus asking the question "will the Son of Man find any faith on earth when he returns?"  It seems to me that "praying" is to the life of faith lived in communion with God as "join your right hands" is to the marriage relationship.

Holding hands is not the solution to the problems of marriage, holding hands is the sign of the fundamental commitment of marriage in spite of the problems.

If you are a person of faith you must be praying. Too often we are concerned about the answer to our prayers. I seem to think that praying is the answer to faith's problems.  We pray not to get something from God, but because we have something with God-a relationship of love and trust.

Could you use this image and understanding of faith and prayer in your explanation of why you are a believer to someone who has no understanding of our Christian faith?  Let me know

Blessings and Blessor

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Are We Making a Costly Mistake?

No video prep this week. I just could not get it together.

Nonetheless, I am concerned with the temptation in our current secular culture to focus on blessing, blessedness, presence of Angels, spiritual wholeness, tranquility, compassion. All the wonderful stuff that I hear out of public officials, young people, and utopian-thinking "hippies".

Everyone, from our doctors, psychologists, television hosts, healthy living experts, is telling us that we simply need to focus on the blessing of life, multiply the blessing, promote the blessing, and celebrate the blessing. As if there is such a thing as "free-floating blessing" out there (that's a thinly veiled reference to "free-floating anxiety" of the 1970s).

What the Scriptures make clear to me today and this weekend is that there is (like "free-floating anxiety") no such thing as "free-floating blessing". Every blessing, goodness, miracle, Angel, has a "Blessor" = God.  Our secularized world refuses to acknowledge God. And even our religious world can become fixated upon the Blessing, getting the fix, being pleased in this life apart from the source of blessing, goodness, beauty, life = God.

The gift of the Samaritan in today's Gospel story is not that he realized he was healed, "all 10 realized they were healed". The blessing of the one, the unexpected one, the Samaritan, was that he recognized the God of his blessing.

Is it possible that we, in our pragmatism, have separated the purpose of our lives from the God of our purpose? Isn't it possible that we have become fixated on living the blessing (even in this present moment) while we fail to recognize the God of who blesses?  As if the blessing is about us rather than about God and God's kingdom, God's purpose, God's will.

What are you thinking? Does this connect with your faith life in anyway?

October 6 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm on Sat and 9:30am on Sunday

 Is faith the Opposite of Complaining?

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September 29 Homily Video Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm Sat and 12:30pm Sun

What's the opposite of love?   Clue: not hate

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Homily Prep September 22

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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat, 8:00 and 12:30 on Sunday

Handle with Care!

Do you have the experience of  tending or caring for something, a gift, that is or was obviously God's?  This is stewardship.  How did your recognition of that gift as belonging to God affect the way you "tended" to it?

What if you recognized more and more of your life and experience as gift of God?  You might more and more handle all of life as a good steward....with tender care.

September 15 Homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

Lost and Found - both at the same time

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Homily prep September 8

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Sept 8 homily prep

Are you possessed?


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Homily Prep September 1st

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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 12:30pm Sunday

Humility - the Hard Way

A wise man recently was quoted to have said that "your pain is the breaking open of the shell that covers your understanding".

There only one way to true humility and that's the hard way we can elect it or endure it painfully. Neither is painless.

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00, 12:30pm

Adult Disciples of Jesus OR Disciplined Children of Church

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Homily Prep August 18th

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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat & 11:00 Sunday

What has your discipleship or faith cost you?

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August 11th Homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 12:30 and 6:00pm

Like a New Mother's Sleep!
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August 3 Homily Prep

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 -A missionary will be preaching at all the masses this weekend.

Homily Video Prep for July 28

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Demanding Little Things!

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Homily Video Prep for July 21

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am Mass

What's Your Complaint?

And what is the price you're paying for it.  Is it worth it?

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July 14 Homily Video Prep

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How Free are You to Love?

I'm thinking most of us are under lock and key in the self referential dungeon! How about you?

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July 7 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is NOT available
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 11:00, 6:00pm

Shake the "stumbling blocks" off your feet

Jesus warns his disciple-missionaries that if they are not successful they are to "shake the dust of that town" from their shoes and move on.  What I hear in that encouragement is that the dust of "failure" cannot be allowed to stick with  us without it becoming "stumbling stones" in our path.

Remarkably, Jesus says the same thing about "success" in mission.  He admonishes his disciples to forget their successes on mission  "rather, rejoice because you are sharing in the communion of the redemption(saving work of God)." Allowing the glow of success to stick to your cheeks can also result in stumbling stones in a disciple's path.  

All of this tells me that a faithful disciple is one who practices the art and spirituality of detachment.  This attitude of detachment is not the stoicism of people who "just don't care". This is also not the emotional habit of "not sweating the small stuff".  Disciples must be enthusiastic and passionate about their mission.  

This detachment is not a separation from the feelings but from the Self. Our being distressed about our failures and impressed about our successes tells us how NOT detached we are. 

Jesus wants us to see ourselves as gifted and called to build up the kingdom of heaven here on earth.  Jesus has invited us to be a part of His team, the Kingdom team.  That's our mission.  According to our vocation (calling) and our occupation (the work we do in the world) our daily life is an opportunity to advance the Kingdom/build or to destroy the kingdom/crumble.  The pain of "personal failure" and the rejoicing in "one's successes" are the sure sign of a wrong-headed disciple.  Its not about you.  Suffering and rejoicing over "how one is doing" is all about YOU and not about Jesus' mission team. As the saying goes, there's no U in team.

This is true enough that we can assess the quality of our participation in the discipleship mission/team based upon "what we are suffering over and what we are delighted about". The suffering one is easiest.  What are we so upset about?  As a spouse, a parent, a church member, a student, a friend....what are we so upset about?  Our lack of success?  What are we so happy about?  All of our success?

Would that we might all be at peace for having contributed the very best of our gifts to the work of the kingdom today...and allow the whining and weeping and bragging and high-fiving to others.

Be detached. Our lives are not about us. Our Christian faith calls us to make our living about His Kingdom:love!

Make any sense to you?

June 23 Homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am and 12:30

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Homily Prep for June 16th

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 9:30, and 11:00

Whose Living in You?

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Homily Prep June 9

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 9:30, and 12:30

What's the Truth? vs. What's the Teaching?
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Homily Prep June 2 - Corpus Christi

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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 6:00pm

Break It Down

Click here - June 2 homily prep - Corpus Christi

Homily Prep May 26 - Trinity

 -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Saturday, 9:30 and 6:00pm on Sunday

Our DNA is Divine

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homily Prep May 26 - Trinity Sunday

Pentecost Homily Prep May 19

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Do We Believe? It Ain't Easy!
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Homily Prep for Ascension May 12

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Homily Prep for Ascension May 12

May 5 Homily Prep

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00 Mass Sunday

"God's in the House"

Homily Prep April 28

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Sat., 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

He's Got the Whole World......

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Carved on the Palm of His Hand

I hear the words of Jesus referring to the sheep of the flock as those who can not be "snatched from the Father's hand". It reminds me immediately of that Glory and Praise song, Isaiah 42 "I have carved you on the palm of my hand." I used to love that song on weekend renewals when people would experience the tender care and closeness of God in their lives. Tears always accompanied that song.

If there is a tragic feature to people's spiritual lives today that I notice it is the lack of being held in the palm of God's hand. Everyone seems so vunlerable and frightened, abandoned and on their own, forced to defend and protect themselves, against everyone else, fighting for a limited amount of God's blessings for themeselves.

That is a spiritual sickness in our generation. Very few people seem blessed by the Providence of Almighty God.

On this Good Shepherd Sunday I am praying that all of us might experience the conversion of heart that would reassure us that God has us carved on the palm of His hand, there is no snatching us away from Him. No matter what life brings us, we and God can manage it together.

As a pastor of souls, I would expect that believers would experience this providential, tender care in and through the Church. That was Jesus' idea and intention in establishing the Church. Communion (yes in the Sacrament and in the Church) is "to be safe in the embrace of our loving God".

Are you open to that embrace? Is that security expressed in your life by calm and peace? Can you trust the Church to imperfectly provide that embrace in daily life?

I'd be interested to know why or why not.

Feed My Sheep

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The lost sheep

In the context of this year of faith and the call to the new evangelization my thoughts have turned to feeding and tending the sheep, as Jesus commanded Peter, in regards to those who are currently"Lost".

Pope Francis has recalled for all of us the need to offer tender care, like St. Peter, for the sake of the love of Christ. I am thinking about all the Catholics who are baptized and registered in our parish alone who do not join us for Sunday Eucharist. I recently asked a group of parishioners as to why those 75% do not participate. The answers were varied.

We concluded that all of those who do not participate have received a message from the church that there is something "wrong" with them. Lapsed, fallen away, bad marriages, same-sex orientation, Contracepting, divorced, addicted, Or just for having a "mortal sin" for having missed mass.

Our message to them is that there is something wrong or irregular about them and that they ought to get their life right with Jesus and come back to church. I am not convinced that such a message is "tending or feeding the lambs". We need another message that precedes the current message. The message that they need to hear is Peter's answer to Jesus in today's Gospel, "Lord you know everything, you know that I love you."

How might the ministry of our parish church and our individual lives of faith express to our neighbors and the world that "Jesus knows everything and that we love Jesus?" Let's work on that and I believe we will begin to tend to the lambs and feed all the sheep So much more effectively

Mercy is "Believing" at Work

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Believe By Becoming God's Mercy

Theologian Ronald Rolheiser has described for me the legend of St. Christopher. I knew St. Christopher only as a "debunked" patron saint of safe travel. I was unfamiliar with the story of his conversion.

As a youth, Christopher was gifted in every way, except faith. He was a big man physically, powerful, strong, goodhearted, mellow, and well liked by all. He was also generous, using his physical strength to help others. His one fault was that he found it hard to believe in God. For him, the physical was what was real and everything else seemed unreal. However, he yearned to believe in God and deeply respected those who did believe. And so he lived his life in a certain honest agnosticism, unable to really believe in anything beyond what he could physically see, feel, and touch.

This, however, did not prevent him from using his gifts, especially his physical strength, to serve others. This became his refuge, generosity and service. He became a ferryboat operator, spending his life helping to carry people across a dangerous river. One night, so the legend goes, during a storm, the ferryboat capsized and Christopher dove into the dark waters to rescue a young child. Carrying that child to the shore, he looked into its face and saw there the face of Christ. After that he believed, for he had seen the face of Christ. The very name, Christopher, contains the legend. Christopher means Christ-bearer.

Are we not all at times like Christopher and like St. Thomas, weak in faith? We don't even feel like we believe. There are, for everyone of us, dark nights of the soul, silences of God, cold lonely seasons, bitter times when God's appearances to us cannot be truly grasped or recognized. The history of faith, as witnessed by the life of Jesus and the lives of the saints, shows us that God often seems dead and, at those times, the reality of the empirical world can so overpower us that nothing seems real except what we can see and feel right now, namely our own pain.

Whenever this happens, we need to become Christ-bearers, Christophers, honest agnostics who use their goodness and God-given strengths to help carry others across the burdensome rivers of life. God does not ask us to have a faith that is certain, but a service that is sure. We have the assurance that, should we faithfully help carry others without first thinking of ourselves, we will one day find ourselves before the person of Christ who will gently say to us: "See for yourself, that I am real, and not a ghost".

By living mercy we can become believers in the flesh! Help, Lord, our unbelief!

Non-condemnation - a spirituality

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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm Saturday and 11:00am on Sunday

Non-condemnation as a way of life!

Last week in my reflection on faith as a condition of the heart and unforgiveness as the hardening of the heart I think we may have been misled. What I mean by that is that the life of forgiveness or non-condemnation that Jesus displays today in the Gospel of the woman caught adultery, we see that, for those of us called to be the disciples of Jesus, non-condemnation is a way of life.

The call to be forgiving can be misunderstood, in my opinion, as the goal of forgiving particular persons for particular offenses. What I hear in the Gospel today is that Jesus is inviting us to a new way of being, "metanoia" which literally means "a change in knowing or mind. That we might on a daily basis adopt a new approach to loving and it excludes condemnation.

Think of all the people that in one day can disappoint us, frustrate us, offend us, insult us, disrespect us, look down on us, et cetera. We can come to the conclusion that all of them are condemnable. We can begin to live a life of self protective, condemnation- "all THOSE people". This attitude of condemnation colors our loving. In fact, our loving can disappear because we are dominated by self protective condemnation. Wow..

I recall a parent of a child with ADD, who said that every night she had to forgive her child and forgive herself, get a good night's sleep, wake up the next day and begin again - free. That is the formula that all of us can adopt if we are to live the life of Jesus-"neither do I condemn you".

Does this make sense to your life?

Homily Prep March 10

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am at church and 11:00 at youth retreat

Atrophy of the Heart: Unforgiveness

You may have called it "holding a grudge" or simply complained about it "I just can't forgive". In whatever way you speak about the unforgiveness of the Christian heart it is atrophy of the Christian life.

I know I have spoken about the relatively young father of my college friend who had a serious stroke at age 54. His experience of immobility of his right hand and his therapy in recovering from the stroke is for me an image of the unforgiving Christian heart.

There is a condition called "rigor" that a muscle freezes in a position as it has lacked stimulation of the nervous system or the blood stream. The Christian heart is such a muscle. When we refuse to forgive or find it difficult to forgive, our hearts experience rigor, or hardness, and they are frozen in the defensive position.

The Prodigal Father shows us how fluid and functional is the heart of one who forgives, over and over again. Unforgiveness, or rigor of the Christian heart, may be the most significant and impactful condition afflicting the Christian community in the world.

How proficient are you in forgiving? That would probably be a great scale by which to measure your discipleship? Harden not your hearts!

March 3 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00am and 9:30am

Wearing Your Heart (Faith) on your Sleeve

This week's parable of the unfruitful figtree, our Lenten psalm "harden not your hearts", our parish Lenten ministries of Souls on Fire/faith sharing and Parish Day of Service/Faith at Work all go together to prompt me to ask how do we reveal the faith that dwells in our hearts?

I believe the farewell speech of Pope Benedict gives us some insight into what is faith and how does it work:

Dear friends! God guides His Church, always sustaining her even and especially in difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true vision of the path of the Church and of the world. In our hearts, in the heart of each one of you, may there always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is beside us, that He does not abandon us, that He is near and embraces us with His love. Thank you.”

Do you possess this vision of faith?

Feb 24 Homily Prep

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am and 12:30pm

Enemies of the Cross of Christ!

Your witness and mine is the manner of our appearance in the world. Would that my life would radiate the cross of Christ! Instead, I fear that it may appear as an enemy of the cross. Hmmm.
His face became dazzling.....he appeared with Moses and Elijah.

Feb 10th Prep - what is your fishing boat?

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The Need to Give!

This Sunday during the homily time we will have the annual Catholic charities appeal

February 3 Homily Prep

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat, 8am and 12:30pm on Sunday

What Causes the Change?

What is it that turns the love we feel from and for someone into infuriating anger, or annoyance at least? Same person, same truth, one minute we're loving it and the next ....well we want to discard them from our midst?

In the case of Jesus and his "countrymen" in Nazareth it seems to be hard-heartedness. Jesus can hardly be accused of loving the the folks in one minute and then sinning against them in the next. No, he was telling them the truth in the first moment (which they found mystifying) and then telling them the truth in the next and they want to kill him. Hmmm.

I guess it's all about conversion, or the lack thereof. All of us are converted to a certain level of comfort with reality and the truth. When reality starts speaking a truth to us above or beyond our level of conversion - it no longer feels sweet, it hurts.

I saw this on the beach on my vacation. A father and child were interacting joyfully at the water's edge until the child attempted to walk farther away from the father than the father was comfortable. The father called out to the child to save or secure him and the child responded in tears and rage. Same two people, same loving activity, a smart expression of love and concern from the father,a perceived limit upon freedom, and the whole thing turns into an emotional meltdown. Loving turns into hurting very quickly.

This is the experience of the Garden of Eden written small. How do you see it operating in your daily life, spiritual life, family life, church and world?

January 13 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, 11am and 6pm Sunday

Take my hand

My mom and I went to see the movie Les Miserables a couple of weeks ago. It was a great film presentation of the often told story made famous by Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. My favorite song that is reprised several times is the death scene in which the actors sing "take my hand...."

This gesture of taking one's hand is a familiar human concept that is referenced in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah on this feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Here the expression or a gesture is described of having "grasped you by the hand". It speaks of the mystery of this Christmas season which we call Incarnation.

When we take someone by the hand, request their hand in marriage, offer our handshake in commitment, or hold hands as we are walking down the street - in all these ways we are committed to one another, we enter communion with the other.

In the incarnation of God, Emmanuel, the birth of Jesus we are grasped by the hand of God. God has thrown his lot in with our human condition. God has picked us up, taken us by the hand. As adults we often times accompany children in public and as we approach the intersection of a busy street to cross we naturally reach for each other's hands for security, for protection, for solidarity confronting something intimidating.

This is a concept of faith. When we conceive of our God taking us by the hand in life we know that we are not alone, we have no need to be afraid, we can walk securely in the face of intimidation, danger, strife. God has grasped us by the hand in the incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us. He is our redeemer, our vindicator, our protector, our guide, our friend, our father. Sweet.

Homily prep for Epiphany - January 6

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Saturday and 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday

Star Quality!

We use the word "star" to indicate somebody in our culture who is very bright and attractive. So we have rock stars, Olympic stars, movie stars, rising stars in politics, etc. Like the star of Bethlehem, these cultural stars are bright and attractive-they draw our attention and we are drawn to them with affection and affirmation.

Unlike the star of Bethlehem, the cultural stars are drawing us and pointing our attention and affection to themselves. The light and attraction of the Star of Bethlehem was appreciated, not for its own sake, but for that to which it was pointing. The star of Bethlehem was drawing the Magi to something greater than its own brightness -to God himself, The light of the world.

The first reading today speaks of the city of Jerusalem as beholding the light and becoming transformed by the light into the light itself: you shall become radiant at what you see. The birth of Jesus Christ as a little child is the revelation of the light of God's love. In faith we become radiant at what we see.

By faith and baptism we are enlightened by Christ and we become the very light of Christ, as St. Paul tells us we are "light in the Lord". But, like the star of Bethlehem, we are called to shed our light in the world and by attraction draw others, not to ourselves, but to Jesus Christ-the true light of the world.

So, we are to become stars: bright lights in the Lord drawing others from afar to closeness with Christ our Savior. Is there any radiance of the light of Christ in our lives as individuals and as a community? Can we, in this year of faith, grow the light of Christ enkindled in our hearts by baptism? Can our faith community become a draw for the nations to come close to Jesus Christ?

Simple, Hardly Easy

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 and 11:00am

God is doing nothing new!

While God is always new and ever new, the Christmas mystery and the revelation of God in the human person of Jesus at Bethlehem is nothing new, it is not a new message. In fact, it is so purely and simply the same message that we have heard from God from the beginning.

In the beginning, God made them male and female in his own image and likeness and he charged them to love, to become one flesh, and to be fruitful, multiply - as in be co-creators with God. To be human: mother, father, child.

The Christmas mystery revealed today especially in the Holy Family - husband, wife, child-is the same message: our God enters our human existence and reality not as a powerful angel from on high nor as an otherworldly creature but as a helpless child of innocent and committed parents. The message is the same as that first creation: that I am love, I have created you as humans in love, I have placed my mode of loving into your very bones/humanity, and I am calling you to simply love as human beings do.

As Fr. Chuck said on Christmas eve, "God has chosen to not only create us in his image of love, call us to his work of loving, but shown us how to live in love in Jesus."

It's simple, but it ain't easy! We certainly have complicated our basic task. Mother father and child. Husband, wife, family. How far have we gotten from our Nature and our mission? How might we reconnect through the gospel with both? In simply being and loving as we were called, created, and redeemed, to do... We could find peace.

Simple! Hardly easy!

Dec 23 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30 Sunday

Live it

Mary has just had the most powerful religious or spiritual experience of her life - the annunciation. That closeness and intimacy with God. She has been longing for God her whole life. She believes that God has visited her. She is on fire!

And what does she do? Evidently she did not run to the synagogue to share with the rabbi or the scribe this great spiritual phenomenon, evidently she did not call her spiritual director. She did not meet up with her small faith sharing group.

No, she went to verify the message of the angel, she went to confirm this spiritual experience in the real life of her kinswoman Elizabeth. She went as a contemplative of light radiating the presence and love of God and she manifested the meaning of her religious experience by caring for another.

It seems easy for us to long for a connection with God in faith. We want to feel religious. We are seeking spirituality. Some of us are frustrated and not experiencing enough. Others of us claim to experience this depth of religion but we do not confirm it with compassion.

The tell tale sign of true communion with God in faith is compassion for our neighbor. We cannot escape this demand. Mary shows us the truth. To encounter the loving and living God is to conceive of that love in and through one's life. There is no true love of God that is absent of a true compassion for one's neighbor in need.

I believe we can work this system in reverse as well. This is the recommendation of Jesus. Let us love one another, for God is love. We can deepen our religious experience, our spirituality by extending our compassion and love for others in the moment, here, and now, in the simple, in that which is most common, close to us, available to us, accessible!

So, if we are longing for communion with God, a deep spiritual experience.....love!

More than a happy feeling

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30 and 6:00pm at St. Albert the Great and at 12:15 at the cathedral with our confirmandi and families.

It's about what you do!

All the people coming out to see John the Baptist to be baptized were experiencing religious fervor, responding to the invitation of God but very possibly seeking only a feeling. Enthusiasm and spiritual desire are an important part of our spiritual conversion. However, they cannot substitute for it. Feeling fine is not not being saved.

The remedy for this possible misunderstanding is remedied by the firmness of the Baptist. John the Baptist reminds everyone who comes to him in response to his Holiness, his fervor, his invitation.... "here is what you ought to do".

In Catholicism we call this "incarnation". Is your faith more than a feeling? Is what you seek simply better feelings? On this Gaudette(rejoicing) Sunday it is possible that we might conceive of the goal on our religious life as feeling joyful, happy. Joy is the symptom of our faith and conversion, however, it is righteous, truthful, and holy living that is the means to that joy. And the faith and knowledge that the Lord is near is the cause of our joy?

Is our faith and our religious life a cyclical and frustrating pursuit of feeling bad and then better? Or is in a response to the gift of Emmanuel?

Ears versus mouths

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 and 8:00am

Brand New Ears!

My father was famous for saying to me that "when I died my ears would be brand new and my mouth was going to be worn out". I've heard another version that says "the reason God gave us two ears and one mouth is that we would listen twice as much as we talk".

I am struck by the prophetic vocation of John the Baptist. It begins "in the desert" and the Scripture says the "Word came to John". I don't believe that I have ever noticed this pattern in one who is called to be a prophet. One must receive the word of God before he or she can pronounce the Word of God.

I have always thought of prophetic activity as words or actions that are saying something. I have always understood the prophetic function of the church as the teaching and preaching function. What I am realizing with John the Baptist and of course Jesus himself (both modeled on Moses) is that the essence of being a prophet is "listening".

Therefore, before I accept the role of prophet of the Lord I must consider my qualifications: have I listened.

In fact, the whole Church through baptism is called to a prophetic life in Christ. Have we nurtured this essential prophetic qualification? Have we heard? Have we listened?

I am embarrassed to say that I am shocked by this insight but I can't resist being honest. How about you?

Advent 1 - Dec 2 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm and 11:00am

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

This end times and last things gospel text from Saint Luke proposes two options when confronted by calamity: die of fright or cling to the Lord. I am certain that the gospel recommendation is to keep your eye on the Lord, stand erect, lift your head, your redemption is at hand!

There is a lot of handwringing going on within the church and within the society about the end of the world, the end of life as we know it, the end of our western culture, the end of the American experiment. I will admit that there are a lot of frightening indicators in our world and our church that suggest painful and problematic times. Nonetheless, I believe this is Jesus' point.

What is Jesus's point? That when we hear of these things, when we see these things, when we experience these difficulties, and these pains, these frightening circumstances, we are not to turn away, turn to self, turn to defensiveness, turn to protectionism, turn to Isolationism, give up on relationships, abandon the community, build a fort, hide ourselves away, enter the bomb shelter!

No! We are called to stand up and lift our heads and fix our eyes on the redemption of the Lord that has been poured into our hearts. It is the light of Christ, the eternal life, the springs of never ending life, the restful waters, the indwelling, the power coming on the clouds of heaven - these should overwhelm us and keep us firm on our mission, on our path, in our peace!

Really?! That is precisely the point! If we are not going to cling to the hand of Jesus in the face of calamity then what good and what use is faith at all? To stroll along the sunny path of life? To celebrate the joy and the success of life? I don't get that impression from our crucified Savior.

The whole point it seems to me is that we have been given a Savior, we have received the Holy Spirit, we have been joined to the Body of Christ, precisely because we were going to need courage and clarity of vision (read: the truth) when things get stormy. If we lack faith in the stormy times-there is no point of faith at all.

So, see some storm clouds on the horizon? Standing erect, lift your head and believe

November 25 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 6:00pm Sunday

"You're not the boss of me"

That expression coming from somewhere in our preschool/early years, rather sums up the proposition of the church on this feast of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Are we subjects, can we subject ourselves to anyone - let alone Jesus Christ?

The only way that one can submit or subject him or herself to the will of another is if that other is perceived as True, More true than our own best idea. The question for all of us on this feast is to what extent have we encountered the truth of Jesus Christ and subjected ourselves to it?

The human condition and thus the "average Joe" cannot see or hear or perceive the truth of others because of the infantile, defensive demand to be free(In charge of himself). "You are not the boss of me" is the expression and the attitude of the independent, autonomous, headstrong child within each of us. "You are not the boss of me" is also the subtitle of the original sin in the garden of Eden. While they are created as the first man and woman they end up choosing like the first little two-year-olds!

As the church celebrates the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, king of the universe we can all have our "autonomous, independent, free-thinking" wounded little children alarmed. Before we get our "backs up" let's be reminded of Jesus in the garden. He has won the title of universal king by being the first and best, humble subject. "Your will, not mine, be done" is the motto of this kingdom.

Are you safe and secure enough, like Jesus in the garden, to hear and recognize the truth of the Lord Jesus and to subject your life to his? If not, why not? That is the point of our faith and our salvation!

November 18 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat and 8:00 Sunday

Passing Away

I can't help but retell the story of a couple of weeks ago about my attending the wake of a deceased parishioner. I found a four-year-old great-grandchild of the deceased sitting alone next to a laptop computer staring at a video of his deceased great-grandmother...they called her "Mutti".

With my most compassionate intentional smile and showing concern I said to the little boy "is that your "Mutti"?" He answered "yes". I said, "I am sorry that she passed away." He looked up from the video and turned to me puzzled and said "oh, she didn't pass away, she died."

That little boy was 100% right. no sugar-coating his reality. She died. We use the expression "pass away" to say "die". Jesus uses it to communicate the very nature of things...those permanent and those transitional, if you know what I mean.

Jesus says that everything is "passing away" except, of course, his Word will never pass away. It seems that faith may be this clarity of vision: the ability to see, know and understand what is "passing away"(transitional) and what is enduring forever(real).

I am interested as to what in my life and in your life are we called to see clearly as "passing away"? If you are like me I often get my heart set on the transitional or on the unreal and I see it as reality, not passing away. I need, like that little four-year-old, to get real and see things as God sees them. The ones that are made to "pass away" and those that are intended to endure.

And, what could be the providential and graceful purpose of this "passing away"? What is the good of it except to "make way" for God's real life and reality now?

November 11th Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat and 6:00pm Sunday

Give it Up!

While we are celebrating the 32nd Sunday in ordinary time, we at St. Albert the Great parish are celebrating the solemnity of our patron, St. Albert. We will be reflecting, however, on the Scriptures for Sunday.

Jesus points out to his disciples the poor widow and her generosity to the temple treasury as an "object lesson" about something much more fundamental than tithing to the Sunday collection.

The Jesus secret! I have expressed my appreciation of this "object lesson" of Jesus as the "Jesus secret" because it is the central mystery of our Christian faith and it is the principal mechanism of Jesus' revelation to the world of the love of God and the Kingdom of God. I am speaking, of course, of the Paschal Mystery.

What the poor widow shows the disciples of Jesus is that being poor in this world's estimation and giving all of the littleness of one's life (poverty) for the sake of the mission of God is the path to holiness. In the Incarnation and most poignantly in his self offering on the cross, Jesus has not only revealed the wisdom of the kingdom but accomplished the salvation of the world. We, his disciples, are invited to employ the same mechanism (the cross and resurrection) in our lives in order to announce the kingdom of God and to share in the salvation won for us.

So, what is the poverty of our lives, specifically the area of life in which we believe we are insufficient or suffering from "not enough"? If we identify this area of "not enough" we will have put our finger on the place where we are vulnerable. Vulnerability is an uncomfortable and unattractive condition for us Americans of the 21st-century. By claiming in our spirituality this vulnerable aspect of our lives we can begin the connection with the kingdom of God: we are needy! We are, like the poor widow, in this vulnerable condition, called to give ourselves away, exposing ourselves completely as having nothing but trust in God alone. (That's called holiness) it's a secret...from the world.

Its a secret (in the world) because the world says that you can find happiness only through your strength/winning and by taking what you need for happiness even from God (remember Adam and Eve). That is the invitation to self-sufficiency and death.

How might your poverty, your vulnerability be the key to your salvation. Instead of hating our poverty, weakness or vulnerability - we can use it to offer ourselves to God. That's the Jesus Secret. That would be a plan for holiness and a source of salvation, freedom, and life.

November 4 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend on Sat. 4:00, Sunday 9:30 and 11:00

Nailing Jello to the Wall!

I am convinced that keeping the love of God and the love of neighbor together and integrated into one Christian life is as difficult and as challenging as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. It is as if the wounded or broken human condition (read: Original Sin) is, of it's nature, inclined to one or the other of these virtues...but not both at once.

In fact, the competition between love of God and love of neighbor may very well be the specific manifestation of original sin. I am, of course, talking about the popular or customary understanding of what "love of God" looks like (read: devout, holy, pious!) And, of course, "love of neighbor" in our popular understanding is to never offend anyone else, tolerance, if you well.

Pope Benedict, in his first encyclical as pope, "God is love" tried to bring this point to bear. He said there that there is no such thing as love of neighbor that is not true (in the line with The love of God). Conversely there is no love of God, truth, that is exclusive of the love of neighbor. The Pope had to make this point because of my suggestion above that in the world today one cannot cling to the truth revealed by God and "appear" to be "loving" according to the standards of this world (read: tolerant).

Therefore, many of us are challenged today to be faithful to the love of God or the truth about God (who is love) and at the same time deal with the perceptions and the feelings of others who do not find the truth revealed by God to be loving.

I believe in popular culture we call this today "tough love". To know the truth and to do it in love in spite of the pain that it might cause us and those we are loving. I don't think there's any way around it. And it seems that all of us, who are planning on being faithful to the Gospel, have to go through it. It is as challenging as trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.

In a world whose greatest value is tolerance, how can we cling to the love of God (who is truth revealed) and avoid this pain in our emotional lives? Can't be done-check with Jesus on the cross. For me and my household, we will obey the Lord!

Homily Prep Oct 28

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sat 5:30 and Sunday 8:00am and 6:00pm

Faith is all about the approach!

In order to connect with my thoughts about the homily this week it's necessary to recall the gospel story from last Sunday. If you recall the Sons of Zebedee asked the Lord to "do for us what we ask of you". Contrast this approach to the blind man in this week's gospel who is asked by Jesus "what do you want me to do for you?"

Wow. These two stories right next to each other in the scriptures and in our liturgy beg for comparison. They instruct us in the process of faith and discipleship.
1. You must recognize Jesus as Lord and Messiah - both did that
2. You must be convinced that being close to Jesus can make a difference in your life - got that!
3. You must desire what Jesus desires not what you desire for yourself. Oops.

An act of faith by one who presumes to be a disciple of Jesus of necessity requires that you desire that Jesus do something in you that will further HIS life NOT that Jesus do something to guarantee the build up of your self/ego or esteem. Secondly, faithful discipleship obviously demands that you strive to see things the way Jesus sees rather than that you get Jesus to see things YOUR way. Duh.

I know it's obvious but obviously from the time of Jesus and even among his closest followers we've not been getting this. Maybe even today Christians think that faith is a process of trying to get God to see things our way (prayer, petiton, devotion, storming heaven)rather than growing into the gradual and graceful way of seeing our lives the way God sees them. Hmmmmm.

Unless and until we have our hearts turned by faith so that we begin to see Him and His way as the answer to life's question - we are going to remain blind and worse arrogantly imposing our short-sightedness upon God and of course following our own best ideas rather than Him.

Faith...seeing myself as he sees me. hmmmmm!

October 21 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat and 11:00 Sunday

Faith - access code

It seems that this year of faith, this political season, and the Scriptures are presenting me with the invitation to an essential connection with God for the transformation of my life and the world. That connection is accessed by faith first, faith essentially, faith alone.

It is by faith uniquely that we gain access to communion with God, God's great mercy, the throne of grace, the truth. It is only by faith and in authentic communion that one can be transformed from death to life, from isolated, nominal, Catholic to responsible conscientious voter, from simply observant Catholic to fully alive member of the body of Christ, the church.

Maybe I am starting to sound like Martin Luther with this faith alone stuff (you know the Protestant affection for the five alones), however, I think that this fundamental act of believing it is the inescapable foundational principle of our living life to the fullest in Christ. If you don't have faith - you cannot have a full human life.

Therefore, the question remains, "do you believe?". Yes, Lord, I believe, increase my faith!

October 14 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 and 12:30 Sunday

Pusillanimous!

Small souled! That's what pusillanimous means. To be of a small soul. Magnanimous means to be of large soul. The condition of the rich young man is a oxymoron. He is large in this world's standard of success, But small in his capacity of soul.

We are beginning the year of faith, can we be enlarged in our soul? Jesus was clearly trying to grow the soul, increase the faith, stretch this good, young man.... of small soul.

Can we see the smallness of our soul? Are we interested in re-igniting our faith? I'm not sure we need it? I'm not sure we want it? I'm not sure we're capable of allowing it.

Wow.

Oct 7 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Saturday

Are You Disappointed in Love? Of Course!

The troubling and heartbreaking mystery buried in the text of this Sunday's respect life scriptures is that God has planted deep within us an unquenchable thirst for communion. In our broken human condition, there is no quenching that thirst. We are called to "settle".

The problem in the blindness of our broken human condition is that we have never accepted the inability of human fulfillment of love on this side of heaven. Therefore we romantically seek and don't find satisfaction in the relationships of this world. Whether it is in marriage, in the family, in the church! We go seeking that which is not promised to us. Only God can fulfill the hunger he has placed with us for communion.

Too many of us in the world spend our entire lives disappointed in the lack of fulfillment in love. We never accept in faith the limitation of our human condition and the fulfillment of our desires in God alone.

This is a tremendous waste of time, effort, and energy. Let us take a new look at the hunger of our hearts and accept the limited satisfaction that our human loving can accomplish and turn our desire to God alone.

Make sense? We don't have to be happy about it!

Someone Asked for this Quote

In the homily on Faithful Citizenship September 30th I read....

"Yes, America, all this belongs to you. But your greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person: in each man, woman and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter.
For this reason, America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take towards the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness in the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones.
The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! All the great causes that are yours today will have meaning only to the extent that you guarantee the right to life and protect the human person:
– feeding the poor and welcoming refugees;
– reinforcing the social fabric of this nation;
– promoting the true advancement of women;
– securing the rights of minorities;
– pursuing disarmament, while guaranteeing legitimate defence; all this will succeed only if respect for life and its protection by the law is granted to every human being from conception until natural death.
Every human person – no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society – is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God.
This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival – yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenceless ones, those as yet unborn.
With these sentiments of love and hope for America, I now say goodbye in words that I spoke once before: "Today, therefore, my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become - and truly be - and long remain one Nation, under God, indivisible. With liberty and justice for all."
May God bless you all.
God bless America!”

–Blessed Pope John Paul II
Farewell Ceremony from the United States
Detroit Metro Airport
19 September 1987

Prophetic Citizenship!

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 on Sat and 8:00 on Sunday

Be not just "faithful, but Prophetic!

The Scriptures for this 26th Sunday in ordinary time as well as the context of the political season brings the question of "what is God doing in our midst and who is accomplishing God's will in our presence".

The role of the prophet is not to "announce the future" but rather to "reveal God present" - literally, to "speak for or on behalf of" God. The question presented in both the first reading and the Gospel text today is the issue of "who" is presenting God's truth or wisdom. Both Moses and Jesus teach and instruct us that the "who" is not the important question. The "what" is of the essence.

Therefore, in our Catholic life we might stop looking for a prophet and begin to search for the "prophetic" within the church. That would demand that we stop considering the person and start considering the message, the truth, the movement of the Spirit of God in our midst.

Our Catholic teaching and ecclesiology does not contribute to this understanding of prophecy. We, like the followers of Moses, are convinced and taught that certain persons, office holders, consecrated people speak on behalf of God. The office of Pope, for example, has swirled for centuries about infallibility: when the pope speaks. Our notions of obedience are referred always to the office holder or the authority figure who speaks on behalf of God.

We have not been trained or instructed to expect the prophetic action of God to come through just the ordinary believer. In spite of the instruction of Jesus and Moses, we give too much credence to person rather than prophecy.

If the truth be told, even the Holy Father or pastor or superior or head of the household must not be obeyed if what they say is not in conformity to the truth of God. That demands discernment by the people of God. Do we have such discernment?

If, in fact, we have all been anointed like Jesus as priest, prophet, and King at our baptism can we not and should we not expect the prophetic action of God to be at work in each of us and in and through all of us as a communal manifestation of the Body of Christ in the world? Should not the Catholic Church as a body be prophetic for the rest of the world-revealing the truth, speaking on behalf of God?

When we hear the call of our church leaders to be engaged in the democratic process of this year's election, we should hear the invitation to be prophetic. Rather than "faithful citizenship" I am hearing the call for "prophetic citizenship"! What I mean is that for a Catholic to discern and hear and know the truth and then to cast a ballot based upon that truth is to be a Catholic prophet to the nation. A vote is the most effective voice that an American citizen has in our democratic society. To vote as a Catholic Christian based upon the principles and values taught by the Church, the call to justice, especially the defense of life, the truth of the gospel, is to speak on behalf of God, which is the definition of prophetic.

Can and will you be a prophet for God, a prophet for the truth, a prophet for life, a prophet for justice, a prophet for freedom, a prophet to the nations? Vote as a believing, living Catholic - that is prophetic. Would that all God's people would be prophets!

September 23 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, and 8:00 and 12:30 on Sunday

Tea Leaves

Folks I don't think we are reading the tea leaves correctly. At least not the way Jesus recommends. I am struck by the comment from Jesus in last weeks gospel "you are thinking not like God does but like human beings do".

What I am referring to is this business of "assessing success or greatness". My experience tells me (and my own temptation and proclivities suggest to me) that we are reading and estimating greatness, quality, success, etc. according to or through the lens of this world's values. The driving motivation of most everyone in the church and outside of the church Is to avoid losing, being last, failing, serving and to succeed in this world, to win at the game of life in this world.

My question is "has our Christian conversion made an impact upon our judgment?". Maybe you will agree with me, even the religious and pious people have a temptation to conclude or judge that when they are losing in the world that God has abandoned them.

What this tells me is that we have not adopted or been impacted by Jesus's "inside out" revolution on humanity's journey in the world and in the kingdom. Jesus says "if you want to be great you must be the least, last, servant of the rest". That sounds fine and well until it starts to happen to us. When we start to lose, when we fall down, when we are persecuted, when we are frustrated, when it looks like we have been defeated, we turn to God and pray that He would turn it around for us. That doesn't seem to me to be Jesus's message.

What God is calling us to, what God-thinking is all about is that we are assuredly going to lose in this world, we are definitely going to die, we are going likely to be downtrodden, persecuted, and disparaged. When those things happen to us we should rejoice for the kingdom of God is at hand. I don't think we're getting it. We are not reading the tea leaves correctly.

Maybe we have been confused by the notion that if we VOLUNTARILY become the last, if we choose to lose or serve or die THEN we can see it as a path to greatness in God's eyes. This is kind of like the Mother Teresa mentality of being holy and religious "if I elect to give up on success" then my failure is a sign of closeness of God to me. But when losing, littleness, last-ness, death, servitude, etc. is imposed upon us BY life and BY others THEN we don't get it. We don't read those tea leaves so clearly as the fact that we are great.

Is it possible that this success-in-the-world routine and standard of success is the reason that the Gospel has been so unsuccessful in changing the world? Maybe?

September 16 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am

Working: definition 5 : being in use or operation

The type of faith that St James is describing and Jesus is witnessing to is "faith that works". What I mean is that the effect of faith on one's real life is a "faith that works" - it is accomplishing the effect in life that it is intended to do.

When Jesus asked his disciples who people say that he is, he is asking if in fact his faith is effective, is it working? He also explains the need to allow faith to work in your life which is manifest by the cross. If the faith that Jesus has come to give us is working in our lives then we will pick up our cross and follow him. Losing our life is the symptom of faith at work in our lives.

Like a fever, laying down your life, detachment from life in this world, a lack of reliance upon success in this life - this is the symptom of a lively or living faith-as St. James would call it.

So, do you have works of faith in your life? Are there observable symptoms of a living faith in your life? Is the dying and rising of Jesus evident in your daily life? This is faith.

September 9 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, (Sat), 8:00 and 6:00pm

Wince:
-to make pained expression: 
to make an expression of pain with the face because of seeing or thinking of something unpleasant or embarrassing
-to move body back slightly: 
to make an involuntary movement away from something because of pain or fear
-an expression of pain: a facial expression of pain or fear.

It seems typical for our broken human condition to squeeze our eyes firmly tight claiming that God is absent - rather than open up our eyes in faith and see the God who is with us.

Life hurts and can be startling. It makes us wince. Wincing is a reflexive squeezing of the face and eyes In the response to some threatening event. Did you ever wince in fear of something you perceived was coming after you or at you but then you realized there was nothing really there? Like being the passenger in a car of a driver who is reckless, we can live life jerking at every turn with our foot pressing against an imaginary brake pedal.

Pretty "uptight". I think that's the way we walk through life...eyes closed in a wince against the threatening appearances of the world. In that posture or disfigurement we cannot see what is because of the fear of what we see.

Today we hear that for people of faith, there is no need to walk so fearful and contracted. In fact, such contracted, uptight, posture is precisely the thing that blinds us from seeing the answer to our fears - the God who has come to save us.

Can you ease your heart, mind, your body and your eyes by faith? If so you will join me in seeing the God who has promised to be with us always. It is not that God is absent, it is our self-defensive misconceptions that blind us to the God who saves us in every moment. Emmanuel.

September 2 Pomily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sunday 11:00am

Litmus test!

We live in the era of empiricism and scientific method. We are all familiar with the analysis that can be done on anything: a liquid solution, the particulate matter in the air, the radioactivity in an object or area, the sugar in one's blood, the lumens of light in a room. Such analysis has called our attention to the invisible yet ascertainable quality of things.

St. James seems to have applied such discernment or empiricism to the quality of our faith and the efficaciousness of the Word of God. People of faith can discern, judge, or ascertain the efficaciousness of the word of God by examining the morality, righteousness, justice, goodness of one's works.

Some have suggested that this attitude of St. James is a corrective to the disengagement or dismissive attitude of St. Paul to the law and his emphasis on the freedom of the Spirit.

This has certainly, from the Reformation onward, been a great debate among religious people: the connection of faith to righteousness, morality, ethics, community, good works. Can we do an analysis of our faith and detect in it justice, righteousness, ethical behavior, compassion, peace?

Can our Christian lives be tested, "testify" to the effective work of the Word of God in our lives.? Is the litmus test of the Word in our lives a life of justice and compassion?

August 26 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org >>>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 6:00pm

No Reservations!

I believe the actors in the movie entitled "No Reservations" were Sandra Bullock and child-star Abigail Breslin . It was a rather tender story about the call to love-to self-Sacrificing love. This call to love was manifested in the movie by the "requirement of love" which is to lose everything for its sake and to gain everything by it's Grace. the reservations in the movie had to do with a meal. Interesting.

Our fifth and final homily in this series on the "bread of life discourse" presents us with that precise invitation, opportunity, and challenge. Jesus says to his listeners, his disciples, who murmur against him out loud and have silent reservation in their hearts "will you leave me too?". The entire homily that Jesus has been sharing in dialogue with his followers has been about the new and powerful life available through intimacy with Jesus IN his body from the living Father. When it has become difficult to understand they find it threatening to their sense of self and they leave him.

They are very interested in the miracles that Jesus works, they are very interested in the truth about the Father that Jesus proposes, they are very desirous of this bread for which they will no longer hunger, but they have serious reservations about a life of intimacy with God lived in Jesus' body. They protest. They like all the self-benefiting ideas about Jesus, the miracle worker and the man of faith. But they have serious reservations about his offer of communion.

The faith of the Catholic church, the power of Jesus' Eucharistic presence in the bread of life, our lives of faith in the church are complicated by these same reservations. The incarnate, fleshy, actual, real life complications of belonging to the body of Christ, the church, is actually the only problem or reservation that we as Christians have. Everybody loves Jesus, everybody is inspired by the word of God in the Bible, everybody is looking forward to living forever with God in heaven. It's the church, the vessel, the Body of Christ in which we are called to live our daily lives of faith that gives us pause-reservations. We find it "hard" and we are tempted to walk away. Even if we don't externally walk away, we dwell in and among the church believing, belonging, participating as if we are not IN communion with the body. We are "reserved".

St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians (that has been accompanying the bread of life discourse throughout these five weeks) comes to a culmination today in the image of life with God as a marriage. The embodied communion of two lives, no longer two but one flesh, is held up for us as a goal for our life of faith. The minister asks the engaged couple "have you come here freely, without reservation, to give yourselves to each other in holy matrimony?" No reservations.

That is the level of communion that the faith requires of us as Catholics. Communion is not simply intimacy with Jesus in the sacred host. It is a life of faith lived IN communion with the body of Christ, IN the church. It is a shared life with relative strangers. It is not a cozy fellowship of friends-it is rather a communion of faith-filled members! It is a process of clinging to one another under the conviction that our communion in faith reveals and possesses the grace necessary for salvation. That doesn't always feel like friendship-it is more like marriage or family for sure.

This is a hard teaching, we are tempted to "walk away". It does not always feel like a friendly relationship with Jesus. Will we protest against the embodiment of Christ in the church, the Catholic Church, the imperfect church called to holiness? We are tempted to walk away from what feels threatening to good-feeling self preservation. We are called to have "no reservation"! Are you in?

Bread of Life - August 19 Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-YThis Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00am, and 11:00am.

Thriller and Sr. Helen Prejean!

Do you remember that first full-length TV music video entitled thriller? It was Michael Jackson's title song from his album in which a bunch of zombies, the living or walking dead, come to life and dance to Michael's music. I am recalling it because the bread of life discourse brings us to the question of, although we are walking (or even dancing) around, "are we really alive?" Our ancestors, Jesus says, "ate the bread from heaven but died nonetheless". We are offered and have eaten the living bread from heaven-but have we come to life?

Are we truly alive in Christ Jesus? This question of life in Christ, living, is the challenge of this fourth homily in a series on the bread of life. Is it not possible that we who have been baptized and have fed upon the living bread come down from heaven are nonetheless not alive? It is deceiving, because we seem to be alive as the Jews in the desert - we are surviving. To what extent is what we call our daily life surviving or truly living? How much of my daily existence is alive?

Is it not true that through sin death entered the world? Our ancestors were cast out of the garden, experiencing death, but they were still living in the world. They were challenged to work by the sweat of their brow and the labor of their childbirth. This death that entered the world was not human dying, meaning the cessation of respiration only, this death was separation from God and life lived for self. Dead men walking!

The life that Jesus offers us in himself is communion with the living father and a life that is given away(even when our hearts stop beating). We become "life livers" inasmuch as we are "life givers". So that is the litmus test - I am alive in as much as I am giving life to others. Living for self is a zombie experience, the walking dead.

Are you alive? Are you giving life? Have you eaten of the living bread? Are you a walking dead man? "It is no longer I who live, but Christ living within me!"

Bread from Heaven - August 12 Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org>
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 12:30 Mass

Hungry?

As we continue this series of homilies regarding the bread of life discourse, the third theme that we have identified is "bread from heaven". The first theme( the gathering assembly) and the second ( table fellowship) bring us to a fascinating aspect of St. John's Gospel: the double entendre. St. John's Gospel in its entirety and then in particular scenes and sections is using the language and imagery of one reality or level while it can be interpreted and should be completely on a second (a court trial vs. revelation of salvation; this world vs. the kingdom; light and darkness; sight and blindness; you will live vs. they are dead)

In the bread of life discourse we hear this type of speech and interpretation used by Jesus. Especially around the notion of hunger and feeding. In today's theme of the bread from heaven Jesus is using imagery and reality from the Hebrew Scriptures. As the Jews ate manna in the desert, bread come down from heaven, they died. His followers have pursued him not because of the sign that he worked but because they have had their fill of the bread-the loaves. That means that it is entirely possible to be eating the bread from heaven, who is Jesus, and to eat in the wrong way-Thus, to die

For what are we hungry when we come to table fellowship with Jesus? If in fact we understand the Eucharist to be miraculous bread from God only, we may be hungering and desiring it for an incomplete reason. Hungering for miraculous grace from God might be a very self centered religious activity. as usual, with us human beings, it is all about "me".

Following the themes of this series we would be encouraged to see, rather, that we the Body of Christ ourselves head and members gather and constitute the "whole Christ" coming to offer praise and sacrifice to the Father in the power of the Spirit. In that sacramental meal we find and receive communion with God's life and love and we are deepened in our communion with eternity..

In this case then the bread from heaven, is not something we hunger for in order to remedy our personal, worldly concerns. Rather, the bread from heaven is that graceful pathway to knowing ourselves in God AS the Body of Christ and remaining IN God as we journey in the world. We do not hunger for and consume the bread from heaven in order to have a successful, pain-free, problem free life in the world. Rather we come to celebrate and eat the bread from heaven so that we might know and cling to the hand of God which is extended to us in Jesus Christ now and unto eternity - a path to communion with God's saving love

So, for what are we hungering? Relief in our troubles, to fill our bellies with God's miraculous antidote? Or are we hungering for heaven itself and recognize such "communion" in the bread we eat who is Jesus Christ?

Do you come to church hungry at all? Have you ever come to church expecting and demanding to be fed for the wrong hungering?

Sharing a Meal

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sat 4:00, Sun 11am, and 6pm(during the picnic

Sharing, a Meal!

There really is supposed to be a comma in the title of this blog entry. By inserting the comma after "sharing" we can see that the notion of meal defines or conditions or interprets the act of sharing. We are invited and challenged as the disciples of Jesus to recognize that the importance of a meal is not so much the content or "what" is being shared, in this case bread, and much more that "sharing" itself is the mode of our salvation.

In these five Sunday sermons on Saint John's bread of life discourse we at St. Albert are reflecting on various aspects of the holy Eucharist. Last week we began with the "gathering or gathered assembly" and reflected upon the real presence of Jesus in the assembly and members of the Body of Christ. This weeks theme or subject is "table fellowship". As with the real presence of Jesus in the assembly/Body of Christ gathered, the context of the Eucharistic celebration as "table fellowship" is not our customary understanding or our first interpretation.

Most Catholics of a pre--Vatican II formation, are focused on the context of the Eucharistic liturgy as sacrifice: the sacrifice of the mass. Since the second Vatican Council, however, we have been encouraged to recognize the equally valid context of the celebration of the mass as a meal, table fellowship. The connection to Passover and the last supper, both of which are ritual meals, is the source of this expanded understanding. The fact that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross is communicated to the church as bread "blessed, broken and shared"(a meal) is a fuller understanding of what it means to live a self sacrificing life.

So, like the Jews in the Gospel text, Catholics today can be more focused on the bread that we eat-having our fill of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and fail to recognize that it is the self sacrificing sharing of God's life that the Eucharist makes really present- its a meal. Another word for fellowship is participation, sharing, "agape" -the love of God.

Can we benefit from expanding our understanding of the mass to include table fellowship or the self sacrificing sharing that Jesus communicates to the church in the form of bread and wine? He is the lamb who was slain on the altar of the cross for our salvation and our sins forgiven by the outpouring of his blood. The sacrifice of the mass. However, Jesus chose to make that sacrifice perpetually present to and in the church, his body, by a meal shared in the company of his disciples the Body of Christ - the gathered assembly.

Are we at church, then, with the obligation to witness an unbloodied sacrifice and to receive the miraculous bread from heaven only? Or are we called to be the Church, the Body of Christ present and sharing the self-sacrificing meal of love which is God himself? It has to be both!

Present! Homily prep for July 29

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 12:30 only

The "bread of life discourse"

We begin a five week series of gospel texts from St. John called the "bread of life discourse". It is a multiplication miracle story with a theological explanation by Jesus in the form of a discussion if you will. The priests of St. Albert have decided to collectively approach these five weeks with an agreed-upon focus.

Underneath the five weeks of homilies is the liturgical and sacramental truth of the four presences of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy. The gathered community, the priest-presider, the Word proclaimed, and the consecrated Eucharistic species are the four presences of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy. This first week in the series will focus on the gathered assembly.

How do we gather? I am trusting that a majority of Catholics are convinced that they, sinful and unworthy, are required to come to a Catholic church in which a validly ordained priest will say the mass validly and they will fulfill their obligation and avoid sin by showing up. They will principally participate in that mass by being present for at least the Gospel, offertory, and consecration. If properly disposed, they will encounter the only real presence of Jesus within that event by receiving the consecrated Eucharist- take Communion.

How, rather, do we as the individually baptized members of the church constitute the very Body of Christ, head and members, in our assembling for the Eucharistic liturgy? Other than touch the water in the mini-fonts at the doors of the church, do we recognize and offer reverence to the body of Christ in and among the members of the assembled community? I didn't think so.