Homily Prep July 27

-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 and 11:00am Sunday.

Church Matters!

Is that a description of details about church life or is that a declarative statement of a truth about our lives.  Does Church Matter?!  The parables of the Kingdom of God in this week's Gospel raise the issue of how important the Kingdom of God is in our lives.  Does God matter? 

Isn't the Catholic Church famous for a rather anonymous christianity....aren't we proud of the fact that we can walk into a catholic church anywhere in the world and "be at home" there?  As I get older I would like to see us be less happy about that satisfaction.  Would that all of us at St. Albert for sure, recognized the personal meaning that worshipping in our community has for us. 

Does Church at St. Albert the Great matter?  Why does your worship of the Holy Eucharist at YOUR parish matter?  What does it mean?  Are we making a conscious decision to "go to God together" as friends, members, family, Body of Christ, Communion? 


The pearl of inestimable value is the presence of Jesus Christ "in the midst" of those who believe.  Do you find it anywhere in the world? 

Homily Prep for July 20

-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 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday.

Mixing It Up!

Jesus, for the second Sunday in a row, is preaching from the 13th chapter of Matthews Gospel and he is commenting on the use of the "parable".  Last Sunday I introduced this situation as concluding that there are two types of people that Jesus is ministering to - those who "get it" and those "who don't".  Those who "get it" are the ones with faith.  They hear and see Jesus as he is - the Son of God, the messiah and Christ.  Those "who don't" are those without faith who need to receive the Good News in parables - a preaching that subverts their closed eyes, clogged ears, hard heads and hardened hearts. 

Jesus again refers to the need to use parable in some cases.  The parable of the weeds in the wheat is a story about this very reality:  In the world some people use their freedom to choose God while others use that same freedom and cling to the evil one.  What is startling is that those people of two very different stripes, like the weeds and the wheat, can at one time occupy the same space, they can appear very similar in their behavior, while all the time being very opposed to one another in intention.

It takes a graceful and discerning heart to see "whose who" and to put some distance between the weeds and the wheat in life.  

How firmly are you set in the ways of the Gospel (wheat)?  How discerning is your eye to recognize those among you who are not for you (weeds)?  How confident are you in separating yourself from the broken and often sinister(selfish) intentions and pathways of many people around you (media, workplace, social life, family)?

Homily Prep July 13th

-There was no homily last Sunday cause I was on vacation😀
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am and 6:00pm

Free to See(d)

I am most attracted to St. Paul's letter to the Romans in which he speaks of the gift of faith which is liberation from slavery and freedom of the children of God.  This liberation or this freedom, this believing is what empowers and enables St. Paul to see "I consider all the sufferings of the present age to be as nothing."

What I like about that is that faith, believing in the love that God has for us does not cause us to deny the difficult and painful realities of life. Rather, faith is the freedom to see through those sufferings or better to see those sufferings as what they truly are, "nothing".

Faith like St. Paul's enables us to transform reality.  Faith empowers the believer to change or morph the difficulties of the present age into an experience of transformation in the light of the age to come. Someone has said to me that, by faith every moment, person, situation, or incident in my daily life has become either "lover" or "teacher".  What that says to me is that a believer, by faith, can "see" every feature of daily life as either the consoling presence of the love of God or a helpful or growthful opening of ones eyes to better see the love of God present.

This teaching connects  St. Paul to the Gospel text for this weekend, inasmuch as the presence and love of God (which is the reality of life) grows only in the "healthy soil" of a life built on faith.  Where there is no faith, the power and the love of God cannot enter into the human heart. Are we creating in our selves, our spouse, our children, our parish the culture of faith, an environment that is "susceptible" to God's Word, the love and presence of God can produce 100-fold?

Opponents or Partners? The Whole Picture!

-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 Saturday and 11:00am Sunday

Feast of St. Peter AND St. Paul - Why Together?

You know, when we place two peoples' names in a title or on a marquee or in a song it legitimately raises the question as to whether they're competitors or partners?  David and Goliath, Romeo and Juliet, peanut butter and jelly, mom and dad, oil and water?

The title of this weekend's feast, St. Peter and St. Paul, is no exception to this conundrum. Are they competitors or partners? Do they compare or contrast? I think, as with  many of the mysteries of our faith, the answer to that question is "both".  What I mean is that St. Peter and St. Paul represent two sides of our beautiful Christian faith AND they represent the competing poles of our discipleship "head" and "heart", "pastor" and "teacher", "love" and "truth".  I am presuming that the icon of Peter and Paul is the invitation and the "target" of every baptized member of the church that we would all have the solid faith in the love of God that St. Peter represents and the zeal and eloquence for announcing that face like St. Paul.

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI wrote his fundamental encyclicals on love, faith, and hope. In the first of these, God is Love, the pope explained the need to keep the truth lovingly and to express love truthfully.  He warned there that to separate the two would be to empty both of their power and their God-likeness.

Maybe this feast of St. Peter AND St. Paul encourages us to what Pope Francis calls "missionary discipleship". What I think he means by that is that we should each have the love, friendship and attachment to Jesus Christ reflected by the witness of St. Peter AND the zeal and the dedication to spread the love of God in the world witnessed by St. Paul.

Probably too many of us pride ourselves on being Christian by "loving everyone" (while we avoid the difficult and necessary confrontation with falsehood, evil, and sin). Others of us are tempted to live as the righteous followers of Jesus in the church claiming to be right and justifying our alienation from others because they are wrong. The head and the heart in competition.

Let's allow this feast of Saints Peter AND Paul to help us to adjust our roadmap to holiness. From whom do we need to learn most today so that "our witness" in the world might be the whole picture of missionary discipleship in the world?

Becoming What You Are Celebrating

-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 on Saturday, 9:30am and 12:30pm on Sunday

Turn Around Time

That expression "turn around time" is usually used by people that are attempting to get something done for us - they need "so much turn around time."  I am using it today because of the call to "conversion"  that is imbedded in the Feast of Corpus Domini, or The Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi. 

You see, "conversion" comes to us from the Latin word to "turn", thus turn around.  I am seeing in the Church's teaching on the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, in the consecration, that we believe this bread and wine is "turned into"(in its substance), the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.  Another word of "turning into" is transubstantiation. 

So, you can see why I have thought of the Mass every Sunday or everyday (transubstantiation) as "turn around time".  However, there is a second consecration in the Eucharistic Prayer that is prayed over the assembly at prayer - that they/we would become "one body, one spirit in Christ".  St. Augustine charged the church to "become more of what we celebrate", to be "converted", turned into.... turn around time.

Conversion, being turned into something that we are not quite fully yet - that's the fundamental journey for Christian believers in the Holy Eucharist.  That once again today, here and now, in the power of the Holy Spirit and by the prayers of the priest, I would be turned, changed in my very substance, from alienated, broken, isolated individual to the very life and presence of Jesus Christ Himself. 

So, again today for the Bread and Wine and for Little 'ol me and actually little 'ol US - it's Turn around time.  Be changed or die!

Trinity: Our Beginning, Our Calling, and Our Path! +ONE 2016

-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, 8:00am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Blessed Trinity: Renewing Our Communion!

The Trinity is our call and pattern for the life of faith - to love. Communion is the height of our worship and the path of our lives of faith.  I will speak at all the masses this weekend and present the liturgical engagement survey as the beginning of our quest to renew the life of communion at St. Albert and to widen that communion to include 6000 worshippers.

Pentecost - June 8th

-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, 8:00, and 12:30

Forgive or Forget It #8 - Spiritual Forgiveness

On this Pentecost feast our gospel text returns us to the upper room and Jesus' commissioning of the disciples BY forgiveness FOR forgiveness. What we need to see in this final Homily of the Easter season is that our practice of intellectual forgiveness and emotional forgiveness can lead us into conformity with Christ-the forgiving Redeemer - spiritual forgiveness.

As we are convinced of the rightness and the truth of forgiveness in our spiritual lives, we begin to take on the likeness of Christ. This likeness can be construed or seen as a "spirituality".  A spirituality is the tone, color, characteristics, habitual manner of relating to God and neighbor. When we intentionally take on the spirituality of forgiving we can claim to be practicing spiritual forgiveness-our way of being like Christ is in imitation and participation with his forgiving mission.

I don't think most Catholics have thought about becoming known as people who are living a life or a spirituality of forgiving. This is fundamental to our baptismal faith and to our happiness in the church and the world. Could you see yourself as a child of God who employs forgiveness as the primary, principal, and most often chosen means of living life in communion with God and neighbor?

 As you have heard in these homilies over this Easter season, I am convinced that those Catholics who prefer a "spirituality of charity", being loving and kind, getting along with everyone, of necessity must first adopt a spirituality of forgiving. Forgiveness is the fuel for charity, forgiveness is the gateway to authentic Christian loving. Are you ready to adopt a spirituality of forgiving? Spiritual forgiveness. I am trying.

Homily Prep June 1st

-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 9:30, 11:00 and 6:00pm

Forgive or Forget it! #7

May 25th 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 12:30 on Sunday

Forgive or Forget It #6

A holy Thursday Homily/"I have a dream"

This Homily is transcribed from the holy Thursday Homily that I delivered. It is being referred to as one "the morphing Homily", "the bat homily" or the "I have a dream" Homily. Someone asked that I publish it here

Throughout my priestly life I have had seven different assignments and in each case I had to live in the quarters that were provided to me. In one of those assignments I lived in a very old house. Maybe similar to the farmhouse where Fr. Winters lived on this property many years ago. The features of this old house were  that it was not only old but it had a third story walk up residence in and among the eaves of the house surrounded by the attic.

What was important about this living arrangement was ....by the way, did I tell you that I am deathly afraid of bats?  One night when I was asleep in my bed I heard the fluttering of wings which I presumed to be a moth. However, this fluttering of wings was so powerful that it was moving the plastic rod that hangs down from the miniblinds that you turn to open the blinds. I realized that the wings of a moth could not produce such movement-it was a bat. 

I quickly slithered off the bed onto the floor, pulled the comforter down off of the bed on top of myself, and then in rather "commando style" on my belly elbowed and kneed my way out of the room in a panic.

Of course, the next morning I pleaded with the pastor to take care of the bat problem. He called the exterminators and they quickly informed me that bats coming into the attic of the house during the winter months to prepare for childbearing is nothing easy to stop. I asked if they could plug up the openings through which the bats were entering. They informed me that when bats desiring to  get into the house for the purpose of having their babies they can reduce themselves, morph themselves, as small as one tenth of their body mass-maybe the size of a cigarette or cigar and fit themselves through a dime-sized hole. That was some new and horrifying information for me and of course it did not make me very happy.

"Morph"  it is a Greek word that means "shape or form". We are familiar with the term from our science classes - metamorphosis, the changing of shape or form.

Brothers and sisters this notion of morphing, of changing the shape or form or appearance, is central to our experience of this Easter mystery - this most solemn Triduum. Our God from the beginning of time has been driven by a singular mission or purpose and that is to be in communion, in love with us, his creatures. God formed  humanity as the only creature "for himself alone".  Throughout salvation history God has continually striven to "touch our humanity with eternity" - his love. God's method of reaching out to us has been emptying himself, throwing off his glory, assuming the lowly, humble, yes even human, accessible form - morphing into the effective form so that he might touch us and save us in love. 

This is most beautifully revealed to us in our Christian Scriptures and especially our gospel text today in which Jesus assumes the shape or the form of a slave and washes the feet of his disciples. It is a most poignant example of this mission of our God of morphing so that humanity might be touched by eternal love and thus transformed itself into love alone.

Of course the most famous morphing of our God is in the womb of the Virgin Mary where he casts off his glory as the author of the Hebrews tells us, "in the fullness of time, he lowered himself and took on our human nature, he clothes himself in our humanity". He morphs into an effective agent. He abandoned his divine glory and embraced our humanity, humbling himself so that our human nature could be touched and given access to eternal love.

This mission, this means, this mode of saving us -this lowering himself, coming down, condescending as the theologians tell us, was so beautifully expressed in this past Sunday's, Palm Sunday's great Philippians Hymn, in which St. Paul writes "that he did not deem equality with God something to be grasp at rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave being obedient even to death, death on a cross." This is the divine method, the mode, and the means of our salvation - God throwing off his glory and taking on, morphing into, "humble servant love". Kenosis is the word - to empty. 

So in this Gospel today, as we commemorate this greatest night, this institution of the holy Eucharist, this commissioning of his disciples as priests, is just a most brilliant example of God's method of saving humanity - "humble service in love".  Jesus stands up and takes off his garment, throws aside his "status" as teacher, master, Lord and he assumes the shape, or the form, he morphs into his preferred appearance as the humble servant in love.

Of course this gesture of washing feet, this servitude in humility and in love is just a foretaste of his greatest morphing into the sacrificial lamb on the cross. However, in the holy Eucharist which we commemorate on this most holy night, is yet another example of this morphing from greatness into the little, the least, the most accessible "he took bread, broke it , blessed it, and gave it to his disciples and said "this is now me". So that the bread that you eat and the wine that you drink is now no longer that lowly basic simple food but it is the accessible, attainable, ingestible, humble divine touch of eternal life - the salvation of our humanity. 

Morpheus, as you probably know, is the Greek god of dreams, the maker of shapes and forms in our sleep. (I was discussing this at dinner with the Priests this evening and when I said the name Morpheus the youngers said - yea, he's the character from the movie Matrix. I had no idea of that) Morpheus comes to mind in this reflection of God morphing himself into accessible "humble service in love" because of his role as the dream maker. He reminds me that I have a dream and it is a dream about morphing- a dream for our parish ministry. Morphing like God. 

Pope Francis has been teaching, especially in his great and first document to the church "The Joy of the Gospel", that we are called to be missionary disciples, a missionary church. What the holy father is indicating to us is that we must be always focused on this mission of God's I mentioned at the beginning which is to present His eternal love to the world through humble service. Emptying ourselves for the sake of eternal love. God's mission can change enslaved humanity into the freedom and joy of eternal life. 

My dream is that we as a great Parish would be morphed into this God-shaped Mission as "humble servants for the sake of love" and that we would allow the eternal love of God to touch and change the human lives in our midst by this humble service. St. Albert is a great Parish, no doubt, but we are called to morph into a missionary parish. This would begin of course with our own lives being touched by eternal love here, like the bread and wine, and be turned, each of us and all of us, into humble missionary parishioners. 

And what this dream of mine entails is that we would each be morphed into God's humble serving love in the world for just one person. We each know that brother-in-law, that sister-in-law, that neighbor, that father-in-law, that coworker, who would be so opened to the eternal touch of God's love IF it would come to them through your humble and tender concern. It is by our humble service in love that God intends to save the world one heart at a time. Each of us and all of us can be morphed into these effective, humble servants-missionary parishioners

Join me in considering this fundamental means or mode of God at work in the world - morphing the divine glory into humble service in love for the sake of changing human lives that are dead, empty and hopeless into Christian lives of communion in faith, hope, and love.

This is our calling, this is our opportunity, this is God's mission and purpose, this is the purpose of the church, and this could become our purpose-morphed into a missionary Parish. This is the commissioning of the disciples by Jesus at the Last Supper.  Yes, this is about the sacramental priesthood - but it is more deeply about the Body of Christ, the life of the Church.  We are to become the priestly missionaries off baptism - morphed into God's humble servants in love - missionaries to the world that the world might be touched and transformed from hopelessness and slaves of death into joyful servants of Christ in freedom and eternal life. 

Help me in the days and months ahead to realize this dream, this morphing of our individual lives and our parish life, that we might become the very "humble servants for the sake of love" transforming the world one life at a time into a holy Communion of Christ's missionary disciples.

Why not?

Homily Prep May 18

-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, 8:00, & 11:00

Forgive or Forget it #5: What Forgiveness is Not

Homily video prep May 11

-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

Forgive or forget it! Part IV

May 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 at 12:30 Sunday

Forgive or Forget It - Again

"Forgive or Forget It"

-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, 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

Sent to Forgive

I am entitling this homily "sent to forgive" because I cannot decide which of these things is more pressing-that we are sent or that we are called to a mission of forgiveness. I am thinking that the mission of God (to be in communion with his beloved human creatures) would vote for:  forgiveness. What I mean is that Jesus' great work was reconciling humanity with God(that involves the forgiveness of sin). Because of our Godlikeness and our Christlikeness we humans cannot be reconciled with God without being reconciled with our brothers and sisters. There is the forgiveness piece.

I am reading a new book entitled "facing forgiveness". Evidently, those who are happy identify forgiveness as the quality most associated with their happiness.  This forgiveness/reconciliation is the crux of the Paschal mystery that we have just celebrated in the Lenten/Easter event.  

Forgiveness is also the most troubling and difficult act/mystery for Christians who are serious about their spiritual life. Forgiveness or mercy is certainly the least attractive or recommended virtue by our secular culture. We do not have good examples from public life of those who forgive or how to forgive or the benefit of forgiving.

Would you like to learn more about forgiving?

Holy Week Homily April 13

-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 on Saturday 8:00am and 12:30pm

 Holy Week?  Holy Spirit? Holy Catholic Church?

April 6 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

Do you believe in Jesus Christ???

March 30 -Fourth of Lent

-Last  homily is available by email 

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org

-I will celebrate Mass at 5:30 Sat and 9:30am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Is your believing "seeing"?

March 23, lent 3 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 PM, 8:00 AM and 12:30 PM on Sunday

Do you renounce Satan and all his empty show?

March 16 video 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 and 9:30 and 12:30

Have you rejected Satan, and all his works?

Do you reject Satan?-Sunday, March 9 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 11:00am Sunday

Do you reject Satan?

Homily Prep March 2

 -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00, 6:00pm.

Servants of Who?

Servant of the "Self". It may be just my perception rather than a fact but the message I hear in the public square is constantly saying that simply obeying the law (avoid hurting other individuals) makes us virtuous, paying taxes (with all of our legal deductions) is an unjust burden of having to care for the lazy poor, and being tolerant (no hate crimes) is the highest form of civility(being a good neighbor)

There's a few obvious problems with this.  One, it has resulted in a distorted sense of what it means to be human, especially in the young. Two, it is an understanding of goodness or morality(civility) that is imposed upon us - not chosen by us out of devotion to our beloved citizenship.  Three and most troubling, it has produced a very low functioning "collective" of individuals we call society. The participants int this collective busy themselves with adoration of broken heroes (that make us feel good about ourselves), celebration (with religious devotion and fervor) our annual "high holy days” of Superbowls and shopping frenzies, excitement in almost weekly fads (to dull our sense of loneliness) - all with an almost schizophrenic demand that the world "leave me alone"(privacy).

That's apparently who human beings are in American society.  Servants of the "self".  At least that is what our behavior and story line says. This Sunday's scripture call us to be something very different: the Servants of Christ.

In contrast to the worldly servants of the "self", the servants of Christ are formed into their identity by living with and among a community(not a collective of individual isolates), a living organism, a body, whose mutually dependent members (not privacy-demanding paranoiac's)  are dedicated to God our creator and redeemer as the beginning, center, and goal of life. What we learn from these children of God is that obeying the law is simply the beginning of righteousness (which is the cause of holiness), paying taxes is what others can demand of us and ultimately is all about our our survival ( having very little to do with our need to give ourselves away for the sake of love and the least), and tolerance is not loving at all and it is to be applied only to the unavoidable pain and losses of life so that through those, the wisdom of our Suffering Saviour, can increase in our hearts and minds.

As with the servants of the "self "in our society, there are a few obvious problems with the storyline of the servants of Christ. A huge majority of Catholics (75%) live lives in the world and in relationship to the church that say that the communion of the faithful is not necessary for a full and happy life. Even more startling may be that some Catholics who regularly celebrate the holy Eucharist do so from under this worldly delusion  or storyline. Jesus has identified this worldly attitude of the self lived by religious people as that of the Pharisees. Remember, that his sermon on the mount of this Sunday's Scriptures was begun with "your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees".

Which storyline is your life the product of? Which storyline is closest to your experience of church? Which story line is your life in the church communicating to the world?

Servants of who?

Homily Prep for February 23 - right?

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-his Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 12:30, and 6:00pm

Is being right, righteousness? Don't think so.

-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 Sunday at 9:30 and 11:00am


Is Right Righteous?

I think we might be in for a big surprise this weekend with the call to be righteous.  I'm thinking that we won't be able to respond to the call because our society has basically forgotten what righteousness is. Our society has replaced the call to righteousness(which by the way means right with God and neighbor according to justice) with the insistence with simply always being "right". 

This idea of being "right" all the time is the manifestation of our society's loss of humility and a sense of personal sin.  People today pretty much strive to always see themselves as "right".  What I mean by right is that I can never admit to any fault, sin, or wrong.  So that endless television programs and radio talk show keep presenting to us this line of thinking...."according to my self-created standards, I haven't done anything that anybody else can judge as wrong. In fact, no one has the right to judge me at all."

The fancy word fo this societal rationale is relativism.  It is at work in our daily lives.  Everyone has decided that no one else is allowed to judge them for believing what they believe.  And everybody is allowed to do or say whatever they feel/determine is best for them at that time in their circumstances.  And even if other people don't like it, that doesn't make it wrong.  That just makes other people cranky and judgmental.   The mantra of this "rightness" is "Only God can Judge Me(by the way they have created their version of God so even God won't judge them".


A Pharisee was someone who had achieve a certain level of righteousness (right order with God and neighbor), someone who also took created for it.  Just another self-centered, God-imitator.  Jesus says that we ought to be minimally as righteous as the pharisee - but exceed that to give God the credit.  It is tough being someone who plays by the rules in a world where everyone else is changing the rules whenever it suits them. 

So Jesus is calling us and empowering us to recognize laws that come from God, obey them as they are interpreted by the Church, and live them in humility and service to other who have no clue or interest in God, obedience, faith, Church, humility or love of neighbor?  That is righteousness. 

Homily Prep 2/9

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat and 8:00am and 6:00pm Sunday

"Revelation is Re-creation" or "Show Your Stuff"

Do you know that we lose 10% of our muscle mass for everyday that we lay in bed?  We must exercise the muscles we have to preserve them for tomorrow. The point of the scriptures this week is "use it or lose it"

The disciples of Jesus and the people of God for that matter are taught to be what they are. A light.  In fact, be what they are by shining (through good works) and you will become more of what and who you are. So, revealing who we are as the children of God makes us more of who we are. Revelation is re-creation.

I hear two challenges for contemporary believers.

1. Many of us are not convinced we are light in The Lord. That's a believing problem. So, we have to hear again and believe.  So, a lack of spiritual "self-esteem" is causing us to atrophy. Fake it til you make it would. E the advice for this crowd. Shine AS IF you  are light and your wound will be healed.

 2. Many of us believe that we must do good works in order to become light in the Lord. That of course is backwards and problematic because it denies God's power in us and for us. God and grace precede us in everything. Rely on God even in blindness and you will see and be the light.

Any thoughts from your life?

January 19th 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 Sunday

I Did Not Know Him

Is it possible that those of us who claim to be the children of God, the members of the church, baptized Christians, like John the Baptist "do not know him"? How could John, who is so closely related to Jesus, claim twice in the Gospel text today that I "did not know him"?

I wonder if this all has something to do with this "familiarity breeds contempt"? What I mean is, that we finally realize at the latest revelation of who Jesus is that we have "not known him"?  That's a pretty honest and bold admission for those who are so presumably close to Jesus.

I wonder if this is not the danger of being a church person? Meaning isn't not possible that we have clung to some knowledge or impression of Jesus and operated out of that impression and only to find out now that we "do not know him"?
What do you think?

Baptism of The Lord - get it?

-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 9:30 Sunday

Click here to find video prep

January 5 - the Epiphany

-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 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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-Christmas homily was lost in space
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Sat and 9:30 on Sunday

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?

-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 Sat and Sun 8:00am and 12:30pm

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

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

"What ought we to DO?"
"

Homily prep for Advent I, December 1, 2013

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

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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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Saturday and 8:00am and 12:30pm on Sunday

To Where Does Your Suffering Lead Others?

Nov 17th 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, 11:00 am and 6:00pm Sunday

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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat, 11:00am and 6:00pm Sunday

Where are you on the map? On which map?

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Oct 20 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, 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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am and 11:00am

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
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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

-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 5:30pm Sat and 12:30pm Sun

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

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Homily Prep September 22

-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 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

-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, 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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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4pm and 11am.

Sept 8 homily prep

Are you possessed?


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Homily Prep September 1st

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 -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
 -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
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email (Just request it in the comments)
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
 -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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-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
 -A missionary will be preaching at all the masses this weekend.

Homily Video Prep for July 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 12:30 and 6:00pm

Demanding Little Things!

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Homily Video Prep for July 21

-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 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

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

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
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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

-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 8:00am and 12:30

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Homily Prep for June 16th

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-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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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

-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

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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-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org

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

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

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 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Saturday and 12:30 on Sunday

Click here for Video Prep:
Homily Prep for Ascension May 12

May 5 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
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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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-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Saturday and 8:00 AM and 12:30 PM Sunday

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

-Last Sunday's homily is NOT available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat and 9:30 and 11:00 on Sunday

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

-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 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
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-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?

-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

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?