September 4 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30pm on Saturday and 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday

"I can SEE you"

Remember Miss Barbara on Romper Room when we were kids?  She did that crazy thing at the end of the show when she help up a mirror and then pretended to be able to see through the TV screen into the living room and she would call out everybody's name.  "I see Bobby, and Susie, and Ricky, and Eddie..." ok, well she never said Eddile, but you remember.

I think this pretending kind of messes with our minds.  Here we thought we could look into the TV and see her and she turned it around on us and appeared to be looking "in on us".  Transparency - to be able to see through.

I believe Jesus' challenging saying in today's gospel is the invitation for us to peer through the created realities of our lives and to see God in all of it and under all of it.  To love and serve and celebrate life BECAUSE God is under, beneath, behind, and at the end of all of it.  Life must become more transparent for the disciples of Jesus.

The danger is to love, serve, or celebrate andthing in life as if it were an end in itself.  Opaque.  To see people, plans, things as goods inandof themselves is to be deceived.

What do you think?  Do you see through the most important things in life, like Miss Barbara, see through them as if they were transparent and see God's behind them

August 28 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by emails
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.pariskhlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4:00on Sat and 8:00am and 12:30pm on Sunday

What are you up to?

In both teachings of Jesus this weekend the basic question put to disciples of Jesus is this: what are you up to?  When one accepts the invitation to a banquet what are you doing as you enter the banquet. Are you there for your host and his occasion or are you trying to accomplish something for your own ego- satisfaction?

Same thing with your invitation/hospitality.  Why are you generous to others?  What are you doing?  Loving or building your reputation?  Wow.

Just asking what is your motive in every choice you make?  That's what is eternal.

August 21 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4pm on Sat and 9:30am on Sunday

What makes the gate narrow?

I cannot help but think of the gospel passage about the camel  passing through the eye of a needle. That camel is burdened with all the luggage and the goods of a beast of burden. Because of that heavy bulky burden the animal cannot fit through the opening.

When Jesus mentions the width or the size of the gate that leads to salvation I am anticipating that  the "size" of the individual is what determines the width or the narrowness of the gate.  So, the invitation or the opportunity for salvation is not the restriction. The restriction on who will be saved completely lies with the girth of the individual.

 One can change the width or narrowness of the gate that leads to salvation by conforming his or her life to that of Christ.  Trim the fat, lighten your load, lose the excess, dispossess, detach, and you will fit just perfectly

 Remember the old playdoh machine in which you placed the Playdoh and then a fixed pattern or a dye to the front of the machine? We pushed the Playdoh down and it took on the shape of the pattern on the front. The playdoh was conformed to the "gate" rather than forcing a immalable mass through a definitive opening.

 The material must be conformed to the pattern not the pattern changed to accommodate the material. Salvation is in Christ and through Christ and the way is only narrow to those who have not laid down their lives in imitation of his.

August 14 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30 on Sat and 11:00 on Sunday

Division

This summer the people of the world and especially we in the United States have been bombarded by the divisions among us. Holy War attacks by ISIS, violent racial conflicts, personal rancor between politicians, guerilla warfare executions of innocent law enforcement, gender-confusing impositions upon our school children......that's enough. All of it reveals and reminds us of the radical divisions within the human family. In fact, re-reading these sentences gives me a new understanding of the biblical image of the "tower of Babel".  People are not engaging in passionate debate and dialogue, they are living on philosophical islands exchanging violent missiles in order to annihilate their enemies.

What's funny is that all of this division is born of a beautiful sounding concept: tolerance. Tolerance is a Socio-political Trojan horse, the love child of radical relativism and plain old sin.   Sin is the devil's work of separating individuals(no longer human creatures) from God and one another. Relativism is the  declaration and embrace of the notion that there is "no objective or revealed truth" beyond any one individual's perceived needs.  

So, tolerance  is the plan sold to us reasonable minded people. It appears to be the only way to survive. Tolerance demands that everybody identifies their own needs, identity, and pathway to personal fulfillment , happiness.  Nobody, no God, no church, no laws can judge me (judgment is the only crime in relativism). Tolerance is the obligation of everyone to accept your feelings and stay out of your way in making yourself happy.   After all, "the pursuit of happiness" is the American way, it's my right.

 The way of diversity, tolerance, and relativism has broken our families, countries, and world into "Division".

Jesus prophecied  that he Would bring such division on the earth in this weeks gospel.  He knew that the appearance of "truth and love" in the flesh would be met by the powers of this world and they  would annihilate/eradicate it from the face of the earth.

 The resurrection of Jesus Christ over death and division – (remember my againstness homily) is the only path to healing the world. Division = death.  Unity= life.

August 7 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
 -check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 8am and 6pm on Sunday

Pop Quiz

 Remember the thing called a "pop quiz" back in high school? You walk into the classroom and the teacher says "take out a piece of paper for a pop quiz."  Ugh.  The pop quiz is very different from a midterm or final exam.  The exam is scheduled, explicit in its subjects, and the professor often provided study guides even.   An exam measures the ability of the student to become familiar with a certain material (called "cramming") and to regurgitate it according to the professors requirements.

 Not so, the "pop quiz"  you may say.   The pop quiz, we may complain, cannot be prepared for.  However, that is a delusion. If we think about it the  preparation for the pop quiz really is known, assigned, published and explicit. It is called homework.  In fact, the pop quiz is a better measure of the quality of a student/learner than the exam. The pop quiz reveals whether or not the student is living a learning and obedient life, daily doing the reading  and the assigned homework.

 The Lord in the Gospel today is presenting us with two styles of discipleship( A certain type of student).  On the first hand, those who are  not concerned about doing the daily and diligent work of study being only concerned about the final exam/personal judgment and hoping to  succeed in impressing the great master.  In the second case, the style of discipleship which is regular and constant, obedience, steady, authentic learner.

 Remember the kid in school who, during a passionate rant by the teacher, puts his hand up and asks (much to the teachers chagrin) "is this going to be on the test?"

 Which type of disciple shall you be? The one counting on cramming for the exam or the one always prepared for the quiz-so it doesn't pop?

July 31 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4:00 Saturday and 12:30 on Sunday

Call to Give

This week we have a missionary speaker for 2016 representing the Franciscan Mission Service.  So I will not be preaching.  Thanks for your generosity. 

July 24 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
 -I will be celebrating mass at 5:30bon Sat, 11:00 and 6:00 pm on Sunday

Not what but how

I think Jesus is pretty clear about the format and the content of prayer. What is challenging is the attitude, the goal and the purpose of praying. Why do you pray?  The how you are praying should reveal to you the Why.

July 17 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org -check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4pm on Sat and 8am and 11am on Sunday

 Are you in it or just doing it?

 The Gospel text of Martha and Mary is a classic and it has been the center of some serious debate about the spiritual lives of Catholics.  For centuries the life of Mary has been the model of the "contemplative or religious life". Martha, to the contrary, has been the model of the "active life".

 The problem with this stark distinction is obvious inasmuch as one might presume that all the "active" people do not have a sensitive heart listening to Jesus while all those who have a listening and sensitive heart to Jesus cannot be active.

In the latest generation I am pretty much convinced that the answer is not either/or but both/and - those who have an active life have a deep connection of a heart attached to Jesus and those who have an explicitly contemplative life/religious life  must have love and service to one's neighbor.

So the question for each of us regardless of our life style or vocation must be asked, "are we "in it" or are we just "working it"?  Whatever your "it" is, are you in the communion of God who is love?

 Let me know how this sounds to all of you Marthas and Marys!

July 10 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 11:00am on Sunday

Compassion as the telltale sign of the Kingdom

Are you kind?  I won't ask you to raise your hand but I'd like you to answer that question in your heart.  Are you a kind person? People who work in the area of kindness education tell me that most of us would respond to that question by raising our hands.

The next question that I'd like to ask us is "when was the last time you were intentionally kind to someone with a kind act?"  What we're the circumstances of that kind act?  What prompted you to make that kind gesture?  Was it sympathy? Pity? Empathy? Compassion?

That sensitivity, that alarm bell indicating to you that someone needed comfort, relief, mercy, help, a kind word, a hot meal....that is what the Lord calls the Kingdom of God within you.

How often does that alarm bell go off in you?  If I were honest I might say that a different alarm bell goes off in my heart way too often: insulted, frightened, threatened, sad, offended, disgusted, condemning, criticism, etc. Those alarms do not call us to kindness, mercy, patience, love.

Might we need to sensitize our consciences

June 26 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at Sat 4pm, and Sun 8am and 6pm

No Home Allowed

Two years after declaring that he was coming home and promising to bring a championship to his hometown, this past  week LeBron James fulfilled that promise. At the celebrations  of that victory this past week LeBron frequently reminded the crowds that he's "just a kid from Akron Ohio".   Somebody very nicely made a video of all the kids that were at the parade on Wednesday and had them say the same line "I'm just a kid from…" but filling in their hometown.

 As we know, there is "no place like home". I'm presuming that's why the teaching of the Scriptures today especially of Jesus in the Gospel is so hard for us to take. How can Jesus deny our attachment to home?  But that's what he does. He holds himself out to his disciples as an example of one who does not have a home in this world. Where is his home? Well in the heavenly Jerusalem toward which he has resolutely set his sights.

 I think this discussion of home and Jesus' discouragement from over attachment to our earthly home is an invitation for us to examine our priorities. Another teaching of Jesus  comes to mind in this regard, "where your treasure lies so also your heart."   Jesus is inviting us to follow him, to become his disciples, in fact to become his very voice hands face and heart for the world. That cannot happen as long as our deeper commitment is to family, self, comfort, satisfaction, and home.

This is radical teaching and it strikes at our natural over attachment to this world's treasure. Can we live in the world but be not of it? Can we be free to love others  and the good projects and stuff of this world all as secondary to our love for God and our longing for heaven? It seems rather unnatural.   But it is the invitation of Jesus and the call to conversion in our lives.

 Can we, like Jesus, live and love in this world without dislocating our love for and desire for eternal life, life with God, life in heaven?  Is there any detachment from our earthly and worldly "home" that allows for a deeper and more profound love of God and eternal life?

June 19 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 9:30am and 12:30pm on Sunday

Who I am is who you Are, hopefully!

Jesus' conversation with his disciples about his identity and the path to discipleship in this Sunday's gospel reveals something "secret" about not only who Jesus is but who we are called to be in him and like him.

Usually in our democratic system, people elect or support a candidate for leader who is LIKE them and because that leader is promising to DO something for the followers.  Jesus, as messiah, is revealed in  The Gospel today as one who is very unlike his followers and promises that by us making him our leader ( becoming his followers) we will become like him as different as he is.

Even more complicating, the way that Jesus is going to be Messiah and leader for us is by suffering and death on the cross. So it is revealed that the only way for us to be authentic followers of him is to take on a cruciform shape of daily life   We are not necessarily called to be crucified LIKE with ( on the wood of the cross of Calvary) but by our embrace of this cruciform approach to life, dying for the sake of others.

 Would you vote for that?

Homily Prep June 12

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30 on Saturday and 6:00pm on Sunday

Did you get that?

 The gospel scene observed by Simon and the others of Jesus forgiving the sinful woman is a reminder of the gospel text last Sunday of the raising of the widow's son. If you recall,  when the people observed Jesus's miracle of raising the dead man they announced "a great prophet is among us. God has visited his people".

 This week's Gospel story of Jesus forgiving the sinful woman produces almost the identical reaction, "who is this that forgives sin?"   Both of these public acts of Jesus "reveal" who Jesus is.

This Sunday's miracle and revelation of who Jesus is strikes at a more personal note to all of us. It is by the forgiveness of sin  that others come to see "who Jesus is". He is the savior, Joshua, who will save his people from their sins (as the angel said of him and his conception.)

Have you ever experienced the action of God in your life that has revealed to you that God is for you? Have you ever experienced the great mercy of God or forgiveness that prompted you to say "this is my God"?

June 5 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 8:00 and 12:30 on Sunday

Resuscitation is Revelation

God hates death. All those who live in God are the enemies of death. Who is responsible for your dying?  Why doesn't Jesus and His Church resuscitate all dead and dying people?  What role does dying have in your eternal happiness?

Restoring dead people is a miraculous revelation of God's prophet. Listen to him.

May 29 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30 on Sat and 9:30 on Sunday

Corpus Christi: mirror

 Great Saint John Paul I I wrote a document called the Church of the Eucharist in 2003. His point is that the Church takes its life from the Eucharist and the Eucharist is the fruit of the Church's life.  In other words, for Catholics the church and the Eucharist are mirror images of one another.

My question is .do we as church look into the Eucharist and see our life and calling?  Likewise do others look into the church and see the Eucharistic mystery in our living?  If not, why not?

Do you see the Eucharistic qualities of you life?  Take, bless, break, give?  Do you see the presence of your church in the mystery of the Eucharist you celebrate?

Wondering....

May 22 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30 on Sat and 8:00am, and 6:00pm on Sunday

Trinity in Love

Last week I spoke of who we are as being determative of how we are - the DNA example. Well, I believe this feast is calling us to the same reflection: who God is determines who we are in the church.

Might not be new, but it's important.

May 15 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4pm on Sat and 11am on Sunday

Who you are is What is Sent!

 As I began mentioning on Easter Sunday, while Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, it is for us all about baptism. And baptism  is the means of our individual and collective conversion to life.

 We have begun every Sunday celebration in this Easter season with the recalling of our baptism and the sprinkling with water. In the waters of baptism,  we become a new creation. My question this Pentecost Sunday at the conclusion of this Easter season is: have we become who we are?

 Does our identity as the children of God, cause us to "walk always as children of the light" as the rite of baptism says?  Has our identity as members of one body, communion, caused us to enter this church today  recognizing ourselves as "temporarily separated and now re- constituted" members of an organic body in Christ  rejoicing in our communion and fortified to do what God has called us to do as one?  Does our identity as the body of Christ invigorate us to "go" and bear the life of Christ in our bodies  to every person, place, and situation we will encounter?

Pentecost is the celebration of God's chosen method (transforming unity) to turn individuals born and separated in sin into one face of mercy for the world and in the world. Have you seen His face on us? And do you see your face in us?

May 8 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 11am on Sunday

Us in God, God in Us

Ascension theology draws us back to last Sunday's gospel. Jesus revealed that glorified humanity resides in the heart of God. And God resides in the heart of humanity.  This week St. Luke in Acts says "see what Jesus did up to the resurrection..Now see what Jesus is doing in the church.

Be witnesses!

May 1 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4:00 PM on Saturdayand 12:30 pm on Sunday

When you're in love, where is that?

You in me and I in them....communion.   We are celebrating first communion this weekend at the 12:30 PM mass and I am aware of how we understand that Jesus gets into our first communicants. My question is how are we in Jesus?

April 24th Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 5:30 PM and 11:00 AM on Sunday

What has God Done with You lately?

There are many reality TV programs on nowadays.  Many of them are competitions between contestants that are chefs, or furniture designers, or business entrepeneurs.  In all of these the contestants are presented with some "stuff" (either food, wood, metal, money) and they are challenged to "turn it into something" desireable.

In the first reading from this Sunday's Mass, the Acts of the Apostles says that Paul and Barnabas "called the church together and reported what God had done with them."  I couldn't help but notice this use of a phrase.  Paul and Barnabas are clearly being presented in the story as "instruments in the hand of God."  The verse prior to this "done with them" comment the bible says "in Antioch... where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now accomplished."  So, in the hand of God, operating under the grace of God a great deal can be "done with us".

I often speak to engaged couples is this way in order to express what the purpose of the sacrament of matrimony is all about.  I remind them that God has called them "for" each other so that through the joys and vicissitudes of married life, they might be turned into a greater image of Christ.  The spouses are instruments of God's grace for each other.  The number one job of a spouse is to get their spouse to the holiness of heaven.

Often at a funeral mass I will be impressed with what God "has done with one simple life".  When we live life or view life through the lens of this "instrumentality" we can see very clear expamples of God's power and grace working through simple human living.  The practice of "daily examen" might be recommended for all of us.  At the end of the day we take a moment to have our eyes opened to where and how God has used our daily journey for the building up of the Kingdom.  We, like Paul and Barnabas can be impressed with what "God has done with us."

Do you think most people see themselves as instruments in the hand of God?  Or do we too often think of our time and talent, our relationships and accomplishments as our tools for self-fulfillment, success, etc?

April 17 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM on Sunday


Rich Little It

When I was a kid Rich Little was the greatest impersonator in the world. He could make himself sound like anybody and everybody. I think he could even sing like famous people. I think the invitation on this good Shepherd Sunday is to make our voices sound like Jesus. I think Jesus is voice sounds like mercy. i'm thinking about calling it "rich little it".

Fr. John, Fr. Joe and I are all talking about the same thing this week. We stole the idea from Fr. John. He is talking about my dog buddy and how Buddy responds to the sound of my voice whenever I walk in the rectory. Fr. Joe desperately wants to make friends with Buddy and saw he has resorted to "imitating" my voice when he comes in to the Rectory to try and fool body into responding. So Fr. Joe has taken to impersonating me so that he can get a rise out of body.

I'm sure you can imagine how funny this is especially with father Joe's very distinctive voice. Fr. Joe thinks that he is able to fake out the dog. He says when he imitates me the dog will lift up his head with interest and then when he catches a glimpse that it is really Fr. Joe and not me the dog puts his head back down and goes to sleep.

 What is funny about this whole thing to me is that I don't think Fr. Joe's impersonation of me is credible at all even to the dog. He of course doesn't agree. And Fr. John has had to observe all of this. Fr. Joe and I also do other impersonations. For example, Fr. Joe's best impersonation is of Austin Carr commentating on the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball games when a three-pointer is made and Austin screams "downtown".

 Anyway, all of this has prompted the three of us to hear the words of John's Gospel today about the sound of one's voice. I am thinking that we might hear the call to be mercy as an invitation to impersonate the Lord Jesus in his voice,  in what he has spoken to the human family on behalf of God.

How might we make our lives a more credible impersonation of Jesus the good shepherd? Maybe the priesthood and ministry is an excellent example of impersonating the Lord Jesus.  Let's pray for all the ministers of the church and for vocations to ministry.

April 10 Homily Prep

-Last  Sunday's homily is available by email

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

-check out this weeks LinCletter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com

-I will be celebrating mass 4:00 PM on Saturday, 8:00, 11:00AM and 6:00PM on Sunday

Come, follow me

Divine Mercy Sunday family prep

ast Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass 5:30 PM on Saturday, 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM on Sunday

Easter Sunday Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this Easter Sunday at 9:30am in the hall and 11:00am in the church

Jesus Embraced Violence and Death so that Reconciliation and Peace might Live

The effect of the sin of Adam and Eve was isolating violence among God and God's creatures.  Cain and Abel are the next generation and they manifest the isolated violence of envy and mistrust that results in death.

What God did in Jesus is to extend Himself to the most violent and hateful experience of human dying precisely so he could reveal so humanity that God is even there.  He liberates humanity from their addiction to self and to violent and separating imposition of self upon others.  Jesus' disciples, according to the broken human system, deserved the wrath of Jesus upon his resurrected return.  But he offers them peace.

His message and power is the liberation from our slavery to self and our "againstness" toward God and others.  We didn't know we could survive by loving as God loves.  We thought we were doomed to violtent, isolating, competition, envy, rivalry, resentment, dog-eat-dog survival.  God created us "for others"  - we broke it by being "against" everyone but ourselves.  Yuk.

Can we accept the liberation from the slavery of "againstness" and be seet free to be for God and others?  That is the resurrection.

How can I say that to C&E christians?  Any examples?

March 20 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 9:30am and 6:00pm

Enter in...

March 13 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am and 11:00am

The Misapplication of Faith

The Pharisees, who are the teachers of the Law are not the least bit concerned about this incident of the sin of adultery in their community.  The Pharisees, who are the public keepers of the Law, are not at all concerned about ridding their community of such adulterous people. The Pharisees are not using their religious faith and authority to grow and protect their flock from the wolves of sin and error.

What the Pharisees are doing is using their considerable religious knowledge and their authority as teachers of the faith to destroy their brother rabbi, Jesus', credibility among their people.

The question for all of us who believe may be: are we misusing our religious faith in an effort to protect ourselves from something that is threatening our position, our standing, our comfort in the world?

What do you think?

March 6th Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm, 12:30pm

Which Son Was Not Living at Home?

This famous and beautiful story of the Prodigal son has always focused upon the runaway son and the merciful father, and rightly so.  Few of us have committed such a hideous abandonment of our elder's love and trust.  However, the figure of the older brother and his relationship to the father's love is classic and repeated in all of our lives to a certain extent.  We have been so busy avoiding the behavior of the younger son that we may have missed the imitation of the older brother.

What exactly is the older brother guilty of?  Not living our lives.  While he "apparently" remained faithful and hardworking on his father's plantation, the older son was not really alive to his father's loving embrace, he never really lived the life of a son.  Although he was giving the impression of a faithful son, his heart was hardened against his father and his brother.  He never felt appreciated by his dad.  He was not living on the land as if it all belonged to him.  Which it did.

Aren't many of us living a life of hardened hearts.  Suffering from the imperfect parenting, sibling rivalries, wounded egos, disappointed dreams.  We are just living lives of quiet desperation with no real meaning or blessing in our lives.

Let's wake up.  Let's recognize that our lives are not about us.  Let's receive the gift of life as from the merciful Father's hand.  Then we can really live life as IT is rather than as WE are.  Who in your family is really not living at home (although they are occupying the property)?

February 28 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm, 11:00am and 6:00pm

Got mercy?

 A living tree without fruit is not alive!

 I am reading the parable of the fig tree in a different way than I ever have before. Jesus' point, it seems, in describing this fruitless figtree is to point out that the tree has no value except  in its fruit. The gardener, in contrast, seems to think that the tree is a living and valuable thing regardless of no fruit.

 I cannot help but think of all of those people in the world that I encounter who claim to "love God" but have no association with God's values, God's son and God's church. I guess it's like the passage from St. James, "Faith without works is dead".  The office it is an interesting thing to consider "good works without faith are valuable". At least those good works contribute to the benefit and the blessing of community.

 I think in this year of mercy we might apply this teaching to the two features of God's mercy. One who relies upon  and claims to have received the mercy of God for his sins and healing but does not show Mercy to others may very well have not authentically experienced the mercy of God in his heart.  This would be the point underlying the Lords prayer "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others."  So that if I am not forgiving others in my life I cannot claim and am not experiencing true forgiveness of God for my sins.

 So the Christian who is not demonstrating the works of mercy in their life may very likely be considered a barren tree. In fact, we might be able to say that the faith  of such a fruitless or merciless person has no value before God or within the Church. Such a one is dead. Remember the parable of the final judgment in Matthew 25, those who have not shown mercy to the least of my brothers and sisters will go off to eternal punishment.

Got mercy?

What do you think?

February 21 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 8:00am and 12:30pm

Do We Really Need a Change?

 The experience of the transfiguration, the biblical story for this Sunday's mass, raises the question more than once as to whether or not we believe that this change about which Jesus is speaking ( repentance) is really necessary. Jesus of course announces his program/mission as "repent, the kingdom of God is near".  But we must acknowledge and submit to his changing grace in our lives.

This word repent  could be defined as "changing the direction in which you are looking for happiness". The fundamental word in that definition is "change". The Pharisees, the disciples, and we, the contemporary followers of Jesus, cannot believe that change is really  necessary.

This lack of "repentance" ( The conviction and the affection for change) ties into the great year of mercy.  We cannot experience the mercy of God until and unless we acknowledge our need of mercy. Do we really need to change?

In our parish vision for "every one add one" the first step of accomplishing that vision is "renew". Do  we see the need to be renewed in our faith? To change or grow the way that we find fulfillment and happiness in our faith as Christians and Catholics in our parish life and communion of St. Albert the great

 This idea of "repentance" or as we might say "change" or as Jesus discusses in the Gospel today transfiguration - changing in the shape of our appearance as the children of God-  is at the heart of our ability to change. If we do not see the need to change ( repentance) we can  not respond to God's call to change.  God and God's grace does the changing but our acknowledgment/repentance is necessary for God to accomplish this change.

 I know God is all-powerful however he will not change us without our inviting that change in our lives

Feb 14th Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 6:00pm

Got Mercy? Need Mercy?

This lent we are attempting to walk the "way of Mercy".  This Lent is the annual check up on the quality of our believing.  Faith in our good God can be (and has been described by Jesus) as "loving God and our neighbor as our self."  I am suggesting that we examine our love of God and our love of neighbor against the measurement of mercy.

As Jesus was tested by Satan in the desert, so we might test our relationship with God.  Is there any mercy in God's love for us?  Do we need his mercy?  Do we recognize our need for mercy?  If not, let's start.

Secondly, in our love of neighbor (and I presume we are all loving some neighbors) is this quality called mercy present and active?  Isn't it possible that we have been "loving" someone(s) for a long time (at least we thought we were loving) but we have no mercy on them, for them?  So much of our loving is "tough love" as they called it in the 90's.  No tenderness, no kindness, no empathy - just the hard true love(this is going to hurt me more than you....type).

So, is there any mercy in there?  That's what I'm thinking about this Lent.

February 7th Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 12:30pm

What's Your Fishing Boat?

In this Sunday's Gospel, Jesus gets in or better, invades not just Peter's fishing boat - but his very livelihood. Uninvited, Jesus asserts himself into Peter's world, his stuff, his expertise, his space and he takes over.  And Peter lets him.

That "invasion and surrender" is what the Lord wants to do in all our lives.  So, two questions!  What is your fishing boat?  Will your surrender?

What is your livelihood, your life's work, your expertise, your realm in which you operate and lead in life?  Maybe we each have more than one.  Do you know that Jesus wants to get in there?  Are you prepared tto surrender to him there?

Some of these boats are great things like work, art, athletics, exercise, parenting, relationships, etc. some of these are less good - leisure time, sexuality, entertainment, alcohol, etc.  Yes, Jesus is invading there too.

In as much as we perceive his invasion and surrender to his values, friendship, guidance, insertion, grace - to that extent the real living in freedom can begin.

I think most of us stubbornly and jealously hold onto control of our boat.  Not even Jesus can insert himself in that realm of our lives. We prefer that Jesus stay in church and let us worry about life.

Homily Prep January 31

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

Loss is Life in Christ, or vice Versa!

I am thinking that the Nazarenes are rejecting the truth that "loss is a part of life with God". I struggle with that same truth. How many people have turned against the church because our church preaches Jesus crucified?  How many Catholics have been lost to God because the church DIDNT preach "loss is the path of Christian life"?
Wadayathink?

December 13 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm and 11:00am

 Look me in the eye…

 The official logo for the Jubilee year of mercy is a Christ figure, the good shepherd with humanity straddled on his shoulders. Uniquely, while there are two faces there are only three eyes.  The designer of the image as presented these two faces with a shared eye in the center to indicate the need for Christians to see one's neighbor as Christ.  That means we are to see our neighbor as the way Christ sees them and that we ought to see the neighbor as Christ to us.

 You know doubt recall the last judgment of Matthews gospel chapter 25 in which the Lord says, "when you have done these things to the least of my brothers and sisters, you have done them to me." John the Baptist's prophetic teaching to various groups in the society is the advent call to be merciful. The last judgment of Matthew 25 and John the Baptist today in this year of mercy call us to  The concrete expressions of mercy which we traditionally know as the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

 Do the corporal and spiritual works of mercy challenge you in your daily life? How many of these "works" do you practice on a weekly basis, for example?

 Let's make this year of mercy and this adventure time of Christian charity concrete-let's look at our neighbor especially the suffering one (remember Misericordiae) "in the eye" and with the "eyes of Christ".

Advent I - Nov 29 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 8:00am and 6:00pm

Walking the Line, standing on the threshold

The meaning of the word Advent (appearance) has special significance this Advent because of the Jubilee of Mercy that will begin on Dec. 8th.  What it is that is appearing every year in Advent, of course, is the reign of God.  The jubilee image of the Holy Door seems to me to be a great place for us to look to find the reign of God appearing.

You remember the tent or dwelling place that Moses built was a series of partitioned "areas" divided by curtains.  No one could enter the holy of holies and visit with the Lord but Moses.  The temple in Jerusalem was built on this pattern, a set of concentric rooms, separated by gates, doors, curtains.  God's presence was veiled. 

You recall when Jesus was crucified, the veil in the temple was torn in two.  Also, recall the the Lord himself says that I stand at the door and knock. As if your heart and mine is the holy of holies separated from the Lord, on the other side of the door.

I think we are called to live in this era as if the door has been remove and the "opening" the threshold is before us.  In faith we are called to see that the dividing wall between heaven and earth has been destroyed and heaven is right at the threshold, the reign of God is just at hand and we are to live and move in contact with God's Kingdom.

 Is that how your faith operates?  Standing on the threshold of the reign of God.

Nov 22 Christ the King Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available Click Here: S
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 12:30pm

One in Truth

I am remembering Jesus words "You call me Lord, Lord but I say to you, I don't know you".  So there is something greater about Jesus' kingdom than Jesus' name, claiming to be a friend of Jesus. It's deeper than that.

How about the teaching that "there is no other name than that of Jesus" or "no one can come to the Father but through me". The Kingdom of Jesus has got to bigger than our speech, our name, his name. Jesus even said "righteous Father, I made known to them your name"  Using the name of Jesus or claiming to be his disciple as a Christian, making the sign of the cross on oneself or NOT cannot be what it means to belong to Christ's Kingdom. Is bigger than that.

To belong to the Kingdom of Christ our King must mean that one "belongs to the Truth" as he says in the gospel today.

The "coin of the realm" of Christ the King is Truth. That's capital T Truth, as in an objective reality out there that we know is THE Truth! Recall that Jesus promised his followers the Spirit of Truth "who will remind you everything that I taught you".  And again, "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth" (not to Jesus?????)

 With all the hate, violence, terror, in the name of religion going on in the world today it is impossible by listening to people's words to identify those who are of the kingdom of God. One must really put on the "ears of the Spirit" and look for the truth. 

All who belong to the TRUTH listen to Jesus.  In fact all who belong to the TRUTH belong to Jesus. 

Are you of the Kingdom of Christ our King? Do you belong to the TRUTH? How can the world tell?

November 15 Homily Prep

This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinCLetter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend on Saturday at 5:30pm and 11:00am on Sunday

Ready, set.....

This apocalyptic scriptures call our attention to how things are going to "end for us". The typical question in this regard is "If you were informed that you had a definite time of life left on this earth, what would you do differently?".  St Thomas Aquinas is quoted to have answered "I'd finish this billiard game?"  In other words, those who live life in obedience to God's will don't need to amend anything.

St Pope John XXIII is famous for some very funny remarks. One was in response to the receptionist calling and saying, "there is a man here who claims to be the Lord Jesus Christ, what shall we do?"  Supposedly the Holy Father answered "look busy."

Our patronal feast day of St. Albert might encourage us to answer this question as a parish?  If the Lord was arriving this afternoon, what would we do differently to improve the Lord's encounter with us?  "Every One Add One" of course comes to my mind.

How might we start living our parish life more closely in line with the way we want the Lord to "catch us"? Live "ready"!

Nov 8 Homily Prep

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinCLetter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend on Saturday at 4:00pm, and 8:00am (12:15 at Cathedral) and 6:00pm on Sunday

Those Pharisees!

 So often the widow's mite gospel text that we have this weekend is the opportunity to talk about the sacrificial nature of our lives. We church people especially like to reflect on tithing or financial support of the church. I don't know if I would do that though.

 Back in the 1980s a scripture scholar put this story of the widow's mite into the context of the previous episodes in Marks Gospel when Jesus was being critical of the Pharisees. From that perspective the widow's mite is not recommended practice for Christians but rather a critique of the Pharisees who are willing to put heavy burdens on other people's backs without lifting a finger  to help them.

 You recall Jesus is criticism of the "marketplace mentality" of the temple life. He was upset with the "quid pro quo" of buying and selling in the relationship with God.  Why would we have a situation in which everyone "must" make an offering at the temple into the treasury if they don't have anything to live on? I'm wondering how are we carrying out this "marketplace mentality" in our practice of  catholicism.

 I'm thinking particularly of the difficult responsibility of Christian parenting where in some cases parents put the obligation and expectation, for example,  upon their children of receiving first holy Communion and Confirmation while not  living a life in communion with the church or under the influence of the Holy Spirit in their very homes.  Children often feel the burden of having to be a better catholic then their parents are willing to be.

 In what ways do we fall under this criticism by Jesus of pharisaicalism? It is the "hyper legalistic self-centered marketplace"approach to life with God in religion?

October 18 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinCLetter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 9:30am and 12:30pm on Sunday

There is something I want God to do for me!

The approach of the disciples to Jesus in this Sunday's Gospel does, oddly, sound like a lot of my prayers and maybe yours.  In fact, I'm afraid for many people this petition or request or intercession is the only way that God is addressed.

I know that this doesn't sound that strange to a lot of parents.  In fact I often hear folks say, "the only time that kid calls me is when he needs something."  This "need-fulfillment" basis for a relationship is one that raises some serious questions about our prayer life.

I recently was asked by someone, "how do I know that God is talking to me?"  After making sure the person wasn't hearing voices, I clarified the question and realized that what was really being asked is "how do I listen to God?"  That is a refreshing approach to prayer - listening to God.

In last week's homily I was speaking about our attachment to the survival mode of living that makes it difficult to choose real life.  Someone asked me during the week "how do I get out of the rat race and start living life?"  My answer is this homily today.  Being free from the survival mode of existence begins with our re-imagining who God is.  And our prayer habits are the quickest way to understand who God is for us.

Like the disciples, the way we address God reveals what we think of God.  I'm wondering if you would be able to create a "profile" of your God based upon your habit of praying.  You say, "I don't pray at all outside of Mass"?  That is certainly an understanding of God that says you don't need God in your life.

So, what is your habit of praying?  What does that tell you about who God is in your world?  Let's look at the prayer that Jesus taught us.  What does that prayer tell us about who God was for Jesus?  Could our God start to look more like Jesus' God?  I bet we're all going to have to change the way we pray.

October 11 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 11:00am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Freedom for Life

The young man in the gospel is not free to accept the gift of eternal life. To what is your heart attached so much so that you would choose it over the offer of real life?

October 4 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm, 8:00am and 11:00am

A vocation to life

Pope Francis addressed the bishops of the world gathered in Philadelphia for the World Meeting on Families and he spoke to them about their vocations as pastors (www.http://abc7.com/religion/pope-francis-remarks-to-bishops-in-philadelphia/1004471/). He said, "You must first pray.  Secondly, you must preach." The pope continued by instructing the bishops as to what their prayerful preaching ought to be to the young: become holy through family love and life - marriage!

The understanding of marriage/family as God's call and path to holiness was then explained as the vocation of the young, a vocation to life and love. From the beginning God has revealed this human vocation, "cling to your spouse and build a family home with your children".  This vocation to life and love is the only path to true happiness in this world and unto eternity.

The pope explained to the bishops that young people today are afraid of marriage and the self-sacrifice of family life. Many young people are convinced (and intimidated) by the spirit of the world that tells them that "happiness" (not marriage and family) is the human vocation.

This self-centered spirit of the world says that one must first be satisfied as an individual, be fulfilled first as an individual, be competent as a grown up, get your life in order SO THAT you can be happy. Is it any wonder that sociologists tell us the adolescence now extends into the 40's - everyone is being encouraged to put off adulthood (our human vocation to "leave your mother and father and cling to your wife), to focus on self-fulfillment and thus prevents one from our only real path to happiness = our vocation to life and love - family

Only such happy people according to the vocation of the world should look for a spouse. The number one "job" of that spouse is to keep this very self-centered human creature "happy"  according to the vocation of the world . And those of you who are married know better than I that marriage cannot keep a self-seeking adult creature happy.

The  whirly vocation to happiness then tells young people that after being happily married for awhile, getting to know each other, maybe travel, advance in your career, get a suitable house THEN possibly think about "having kids".

 This approach to our human vocation is a strategy for emptiness. The biblical vocation of marriage and family life is the only  authentic road to happiness in this world and the next. The world is working hard to separate happiness from family life. All of our social problems begin  in this delusion. Can we resurrect the God centered vocation to life and love, the natural law, the image of God in the human family and culture?

Let's see

September 27 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm, 8:00am and 12:30pm

With Us!

 Jesus' teaching in the Gospel today declaring that "those who are not against us are with us"  seem to touch upon the gift of the presence of Pope Francis in the United States and the world family gathering in Philadelphia this weekend.  The connection seems to be "with us".   It all centers upon God's invitation for us to be one, together, communion.

The most startling example of this call to communion was the celebration on Friday at the 9/11  memorial with Pope Francis and the representatives of the world religions. In addition to it being an absolutely beautiful prayer service it was an even more beautiful image of God's children gathered around the call to love and compassion in the face of the world's aberration of religious violence and division.

 The disciples of Jesus like Joshua in the first reading are approaching life in the church as a privileged position to which not everyone is invited.  John's assessment of those who were casting out demons in the name of Jesus but  "they do not follow us"  exposes the role that judgment, competition, and self-promoting desires and perceptions play in  our understanding of communion.

 This judgment of John in the Gospel text today is something that we experience often in our families, in our church, and in our society.   In fact, the differences or the lack of conformity is for some of us the first thing that we notice when relating to others.   The difference in the way they dress, they pray, they live.

 When this type of "looking for the difference" strikes our marriages and our families it is particularly destructive. When members of the family begin to judge others as "unlike"  ourselves the destruction of the relationships is not far behind.

 We see this "looking for the difference" most vividly and regularly in our political lives. This notion of "polarization" is the philosophical and political expression of this "looking for the difference"  affliction.

 What Jesus and, like him, Pope Francis seem to be calling us to is the other end of the telescope, to stop noticing the difference or the imperfection and to capitalize upon the unity, the same in us, the common good.  This will require for most of us a change in approach since this "looking for the difference" is a habit of the mind and heart that comes from our broken human condition. The grace of communion is the ability to find and capitalize upon what makes us one,  One creation, one human family, one married couple, one family, one community. This common calling is nothing other  than the imprint of God our Creator and father of all.

 May we crucify our "fear of the difference" and be raised up and transformed into this community of God. It would be noticed  in our simple and regular affirmation of the goodness of others before we notice the imperfections in them and the differences among us. As Jesus prayed in John's Gospel that "all may be one".

September 20 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Receive

In the gospel this Sunday Jesus teaches us about faith. He says, "become like a little child". In child-like faith we are called to receive everything from our Father - including most importantly, our Father. For too many it seems, believing or faith has failed to receive our Father, the communion of the Blessed Trinity. So that many very adult-like Christians do not have God dwelling within them.

Such adult-like faith would therefore be experienced as intellectual assent to the truth about Jesus and eternal life but not welcoming the presence of God in adult life.  So a Catholic could spent their entire adult life believing in God and not receiving God's kingdom into one's heart and life. This adult-like faith that does not receive God into the heart of life would be noticeable when daily life is perceived as painful and failing. In moments of suffering the intellect is often blinded - we can't think things through - and thus God is absent from our experience. We most often described this "I feel like God has abandoned me, he's forgotten me, he fails to hear my prayers".

Child-like faith has received God into life and in fact has received life from God. Believing that God will never let go of my hand, I experience God's secure presence in all of life's moments. Like a child, as long as mom or dad is with me I am not afraid.

Of course this is why Jesus continually challenged the adult faith of his disciples by asking, why were you so fearful? Why do you have such little faith?  Did I not tell you that I am with you always?

Receive him and believe. Emmanuel.

September 6 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am on Sunday

Are we interested in the powerful and real God that Jesus offers us? Or, only in the miraculous and powerful works Jesus does for us?

 I will confess, even as a very young child, to being very interested in and attacted to the TV evangelist  Ernest Angely, or for that matter Benny Hine, and even Oral Roberts.  What attracted me most were the miraculous healing services. I loved it. I'm not sure I believed any of it - but I loved watching these miracle services. I was certainly interested in their typical by-line "Gaaaawd has a miracooool for YOUUUUU!"

Ernest Angely was the best, though, as he withdrew his hand from the afflicted spot on each person's body he'd say "in the name of JEEEEEzus"...I loved it.

People flock in the thousands to such miraculous healers - as to Jesus in the gospel text today. What we have discovered however and we will hear explicitly from Jesus in next Sunday's gospel - Jesus did not come to miraculously heal the sick and raise the dead. Jesus came, rather, to reveal and extend the perpetually present and life-saving love of God.  Jesus came to heal and cure the affliction called "death" so that earthly dying would no longer command us - but instead eternal life might begin in us today.

Wow.  Jesuit Father John Foley writes

"Jesus moves toward the events that will show God’s solidarity with us in our suffering, our rejections, and in that famous event which each and every one of us will face sooner or later: dying. Beyond cures, which are wonderful yet partial, God gives us companionship within each instant of our life.

This Sunday at Mass, let us ask ourselves whether the intimate presence of God is part of what we desire in our own lives. Do we know that Christ is deeply involved with us? Do we let his love flow into us and through us to others, or must it fight its way around us?"

August 30 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday, 9:30 AM and 6:00PM on Sunday

Etiquette

 A fraternity brother of mine (who's wedding I celebrated 28 years ago) has a daughter who is about to be married this fall. She of course is insisting upon a beach wedding, in Florida, where none of her family or friends reside and all the guests have been informed that the proper dress for this event is "resort evening attire".   In a conversation with her father, I discovered that he is breaking the dress code and is going to wear a suit. He said to me "Eddie, I am not walking my daughter  down the aisle( which of course made us both laugh at the mention of "an aisle") in a pair of khaki pants and a Tommy Bahama shirt".  What a curmudgeon, eh?

Etiquette - the collection of external behaviors that we believe to be socially appropriate and polite.    Etiquette-a thing of the past. As my beach wedding story reminds us, there is not much etiquette required of us in our self-referential society. The code of conduct is really just whatever "I am comfortable with".   The notion that you would hold the door for a woman, take your hat off inside the house, stand when you are introduced to an elder,  don't put your elbows on the table, don't talk with your mouth full, or wear a proper suit of clothes for your daughter's wedding - are all things of "social dinosaurs".

 We get the word "etiquette" from the French and it literally means ticket or label. We get its connection to our social behavior from the application of a label on the outside of the box or package that reveals the contents.   By definition then the proper etiquette is the external indicators that one is a properly trained member of society.

 The loss of etiquette and its demands upon our social behavior is a sign of our  relativism and self esteem society which has forgotten about our membership in a group or our accountability  to the standards of anyone other than our  liberated, self-satisfied, individual, quirky egos.

 The reason we have lost this sense of social etiquette is at the heart of the sayings of Jesus today in Marks Gospel.  Pharisees (a class of Rabbi in Judaism at the time of Jesus)  are accused by Jesus as observing the externals of the law but having no internal devotion to the law which is of course love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself.

The term Pharisee has become synonymous with what we would call Phonies - those people who know how to behave in social settings and present themselves in appropriate ways in public but have no quality of character on the inside.

 This concern about etiquette, phonies  and Pharisaism  is recognized in our current day in the separation of the notions of religion and spirituality.  The pharisaical practice of religion by many people (observing many things of church etiquette) without proper personal faith in their hearts has caused people to distrust the etiquette religion if you will and search exclusively for spirituality.


So we end up with the nondenominational church that gathers in a  downtown Cleveland comedy club on Sunday mornings and advertises themselves as the place where you can wear your sweats, bring your coffee, and be able to tell  your mother that you "went to church". No ritual, no ordained ministry, no celebration of the Eucharist, no rules, no laws, no sacred space, - but you went to church and nurtured your spirituality.

We have to avoid the pitfall of the pharisees in the sense that we externally manifest religious appropriateness  while having no real love of God or neighbor in our hearts.  The challenge, however, is to avoid the other extreme: having no external or social expressions of the sincere love of God and neighbor in our hearts. What they call today, spiritual but not religious.

What the Lord is calling us to is an authentic and deep faith in our hearts that clings to the hand of God and is intimate with God in the depths of one's person ( what we might call around here a deepening communion with God who is love) and a beautiful, kind, self-sacrificing human and social expression of that faith within and among the life of the church.  What we call a widening of the communion  of the faithful in the church.

 For example  knowing ourselves to be a communion of the faithful related to one another in faith, hope and love in the Church would be properly manifest in the liturgical etiquette of standing and singing until all the members have received holy Communion.  So the external, religious, behavior matches the internal and intimate reality of our relationship to God in the church.

Have we lost something? Maybe we are dinosaurs!

August 22 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 AM and 11:00AM on Sunday

 Do you want to leave me too?

 I am often reminded that only 30% of the registered baptized Catholics in our parish attend Sunday Eucharist-consuming and being consumed by the bread of life. I am also aware that upwards of 80% of the  mega-church Christians are "former Catholics". I wonder how is it that so many Catholics have walked away from the Eucharist?

 These weeks of the bread of life discourse have reminded me again and caused me to conclude that the only way one can walk away from the bread of life is if one has never truly consumed and really been consumed by that bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus.

Why have so few Catholics made the choice to surrender their lives to the life and living bread which is Jesus Christ?  Is it possible that we have exposed them to this choice at too young an age? Is it that they have never understood and been exposed to the living bread that consumes us as it is consumed? Is it, possibly, that this reality of Jesus' resurrected and consuming presence and the offer of eternal life is just "words that are too hard" and that the hardened hearts of broken humanity just cannot accept this teaching, this Truth, this way?

 I believe all the above are true. It is our calling in this age in this day to present or better, re-present the concrete experience of communion that is the Truth of Jesus Christ the living bread, Resurrected life, that desires to be consumed and to consume us so that we no longer live but Christ lives in us.

 Those are hard words. What do you think?

August 16 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 PM mass on Saturday and 9:30 AM and 12:30 PM on Sunday

 Living Bread is Bread alive!

 Are you consuming simply them miraculous bread or are you being consumed by the life that is that bread?

"To approach Jesus in the Bread of Life is to be ready to consume the whole of Jesus’ teaching, life, passion, and death. It is to begin to enter a whole new way of living. Living no longer our own lives, but living the very life of Christ in us, changing us, transforming us into his very self. Jesus’ language in this gospel passage is meant to confront us with the dramatic absoluteness of Jesus’ claim."

August 9 homily prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 and 6:00pm on Sunday

 Can you stomach this?

 We use many idioms regarding consumption and digestion when speaking about learning, listening, and living knowledge and truth. "I'm going to have to chew on that for a while", "I can't stomach one more word from him", "She drank the Kool-Aid on that", "just hold your nose and swallow", "I devoured the novel", that's a subject I could really sink my teeth into", "I've had it up to here", etc.

 Our God, apparently in the biblical revelation, has put these two features of faith in human life together from the beginning. If you recall the knowledge of good and evil was a fruit on the tree that Eve just could not resist. The Passover sacrifice, The manna in the desert,  and the Word that came forth from the father and took flash among us was laid in a "mangerr" (a feeding trough for animals).   And of course in the Gospel today the truth about who Jesus is as the one sent from the father is bread that you must eat  in order to truly live.

 In our parish we have been called to deepen and widen the communion of the church. This word communion is used in two fundamental ways, the Eucharistic communion (consecrated bread and wine  as the body of Christ)  and the church communion (the unity of life and love that we share in the body of Christ, the church). These two realities come together in the communion procession of the holy mass, when we process forward as an ecclesial communion/church communion, one body, to receive and consume the Eucharistic communion.  We manifest and express this to-layered consume communion by standing and singing as one body until all members have received. So I guess what we eat and how we  eat it are two very important aspects of our faith and understanding.

So the truth about our ecclesial communion is received, consumed, and celebrated in the Eucharistic communion. Right? Rite?

Homily Prep August 2

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 and 11:00am on Sunday

The Hunt!

 A scavenger hunt may be an apt image of the frenetic pursuit of material gain for the wrong reason that Jesus condemns in  this Sunday's portion of the bread of life discourse.  In our daily lives can we be guilty of this empty hunt?  In our religious lives can we see the "scavenger hunt" mentality at work as well?

 What might need to change in either case to reclaim our lives with meaning, purpose, and satisfaction?

July 26 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am and 12:30 on Sunday

 Are you in the Eucharist? Is the Eucharist in you?

 As we begin the "bread of life discourse" we welcome a missionary preacher at all the masses this weekend. This missionary is a sign and a reminder to all of us of the communion of the faithful that we share in  throughout the whole world.

Homily Prep July 19

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 9:30am on Sunday

 What's the difference between personal prayer and private prayer?

 Are we ever "in private"?   I know we hear a lot of talking in our society about a  "right to privacy" but in our Catholic spirituality there is no understanding of private.   Having been joined to the body of Christ, incorporated. through baptism we are "never alone".

 In fact, it has often been said that the hymn Amazing Grace is not really a good Catholic hymn. It is a song sung in the first person, I, it's all about "me"  and what God has done for me. Catholic hymns are sung as a "we". We are never a catholic alone.  That's communion theology, right.

 We are celebrating our adoration chapel's 10th anniversary of dedication this weekend and the call of Jesus to "come apart by yourselves" may cause us to be rededicated to personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament as participants in the prayer of Christ, as his body in which we exist.

July12 Homly Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Here We Go Again!

We often think of the greatest witness(witness = martyr) that one can give is to die for the love of God. Martyrdom is the word we use to describe those who have died in defense of the faith in pure imitation of Jesus.  The gospel for this Sunday reports the sending of the disciples (apostoloi = those who are SENT) to save the lost of the House of Israel.  It is possibly a more fundamental witness and a more "difficult" one.  Jesus describes himself as the One whom the Father SENT.  He also says, "as the Father sent Me, so I SEND you".  So, to be sent by God to witness to Jesus' saving love may be the best way to imitate Jesus = witness.

My experience of the faith and my life in the priesthood seems to be an unbroken chain of days on which I have BEEN SENT.  There is an important quality to being sent.  One who is sent does not "come in his own name" rather the one sent represents the other.  In this case God.  Or is that true?

The area for growth among those who see themselves as SENT is the purification of this awareness and the faithfulness to the ONE sending. I can look back on my chain of days as one sent and I can see seasons during which I was not really representing the One Who sent but I was asserting the one sent: the self-separate.  Jesus has described these variously as the wiley manager, hired hand, whitewashed sepulcher, unfaithful steward, foolish virgin...all of these have forgotten the SENDER and imposed rather the SENT.

All the baptized must reclaim their identity as missionaries.....disciples who are SENT to the lost of the household of God. "Every One Adds One by 2016" is calling us to see ourselves as SENT, apostles, with a mission to grow the church-communion through participation in the Eucharistic-communion that we celebrate here.

So, here we GO again!

July 5 Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 on Saturday and  11:00  and 12:30 on Sunday

What, what?

 I was in the barbershop this week and the barber said "Father, a lot of my Catholic customers are unhappy with the churches response to the Supreme Court decision last week."   Since I was reclined in the chair and the barber was holding sharp objects I couldn't escape and I did not try avoid the conversation.

I thought the barber's description of the problem was interesting. He didn't say that the Catholic customers were upset with the Supreme Court decision, he said the customers were upset with the church in their response.

This Fourth of July weekend and the scripture text of this 14th Sunday of the year do seem to be a graceful coincidence and opportunity to reflect upon the mission of the church in a democratic free society.

The mission of the church is perfectly laid out for us as that of the role of "prophet". Ezekiel before him and Jesus in his home town are being witnesses to what God is doing through the church in the world. To be prophetic is to speak on behalf of the other, in this case God. As the first half of the word pro-phet is the root of our English word "proclaim".  To proclaim God's marvelous deeds is the role of Jesus and thus the church in the world.

The world to which the church is called to proclaim God's love and mercy is described in the scriptures today as one that is hostile, at least suspicious of the prophet among them.  This attitude of hostility or suspicion is one that fits our contemporary situation as Americans who breathe free.  Today's culture in America is often reminding us of the freedom OF religion in our constitution but more aggressively today a freedom FROM religion which is tragic for society.

This hostility or suspicion of religion and prophets in America today has the same effect upon God as it did in Jesus' hometown.  He could not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.  If we poll Catholics in the pew about these very difficult subjects the polling numbers tell us that the majority of Catholics have rejected the church's prophetic stance on many issues over the years.

The church has been clear and truthful in its teaching on human sexuality and marriage. The church has been brilliant and prophetic in its reflection upon he dignity of human life and persons.  I am afraid, however, that our society's desire to be free from religion has pretty much rejected this message from God. Even among our greatest Catholics.

So, Catholics today are upset with the pastors' response in the Supreme Court decision.  So what would faithful Catholics like to hear?

June 28th Homily Prep

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday and  9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday

Raised for Life

Faith in Jesus Christ and life in the communion of the Church is presented by the gospel this week as a "raised to life".  In fact the gospel uses the same word for the raising of the dead girl as it does for the raising of Jesus from the dead.   We see in the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage that Jesus is "power of God for life".

 Is your faith experienced as resurrection, power, freedom for life?  Do you need to be raised to life?

Homily Prep June 21

Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00am, 11:00am and 6pm on Sunday

Why are You so Terrified?

The apostles in the boat crossing over to the other side is an image of the spiritual journey that all of us are called to make in faith.  Jesus has taught us and is with us - but the journey to new and eternal life is not instantaneous, nor trouble free, nor easy, nor ever complete in this life.

How do we know that we are off the path that Jesus is walking with us?  Fear!  How often are we fearful in daily life? In daily prayer? In daily relationships?  How dominant is the fear factor in our journey?  That's the thermometer of faith in the Gospel!

Do you not yet have faith?. That's why you were so terrified.

Homily Prep June 14

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday, 9:30 & 11:00 on Sunday

What's My Line?

 This game show back in the 60s and 70s was fun and interesting.  People who had "weird" or "unexpected" careers and occupations came on the show and the panelists tried to figure out what they did for a living.  "What's my line" has to be considered a colloquialism to say "what is my line of work".

I'm thinking of "lines" today after Jesus' use of and the instruction about parables in the Gospel. I'm thinking "what is your line" as meaning what is your story. You know in a book or movie the central message is the "storyline".

In our parish vision "Every One Adds One by 2016" the byline is Renew, Reflect, and Reach Out.  It was thought that every worshiper would become an inviter of another. That kind of reaching out can only happen if our faith is renewed and alive and that we reflect upon the meaning of our faith in our life. That's my line.

So what's your line?  If you had to tell a loved one what your faith means to you and why it is essential for your happiness in life, what would you say? That's your line.  What is the parable of your faith, your storyline, as Jesus has shown us?   If you don't have a parable or a story, or a line it might be because you have not reflected upon your faith.

Let's use this important time in our parish life to renew our faith in the holy Communion of the church, reflect on its meaning and importance in our life, and then let's prepare to reach out by sharing our story with a loved one whose away from church.

What's your line?

June 7 homily Prep: Body and Blood of Christ

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm on Saturday, 8am, 12:30pm and 6pm on Sunday

Church, priesthood, Eucharist = real presence!

Unique among the Christian churches, the Catholic and Orthodox belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is the consoling Truth that Jesus is with us always, until the end of the ages. Really WITH us. Not just spiritually, personally, mysteriously, symbolically, but REALLY. We have fought some long hard battles over this belief.  It has been challenged over the millenia so much so that the Real Presence of Jesus int he consecrated "species" of the Eucharist has become the "tip of the spear" for Catholic apologists and, in some cases, to the exclusion of the other REAL presences of Christ in the life of the faithful.

Do you know where Christ is really present in addition to the consecrated Bread and Wine?

May 31 Homily Prep - Trinity Sunday

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4;00pm on Saturday, 12:30pm on Sunday

The DNA of Believers

DNA is the substance of our bodily development and the pattern of the full flowering. Any disturbance or defect in the embryonic DNA is observable in the bodily manifestation of the full grown adult. Conversely, the genome project has helped us to see that all the DNA are discoverable in the basic genes of the adult human body.

And also with our spiritual lives of faith lived in the Body of Christ, the Church  = Communion!

Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr has written

"The Christian belief in the Trinity makes it clear that God is an event of communion. God is not a noun nearly as much as a verb. We’ve always thought of God as an autonomous Supreme Being, rather than as Being itself, as an energy that moves within itself (“Father”), beyond itself (“Christ”), and drawing us into itself (“Holy Spirit”). When Christianity begins to take this pivotal and central doctrine of the Trinity with practical seriousness, it will be renewed on every level.

All of creation is a perfect giving and a perfect receiving between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, with no withholding and no rejecting. St. Bonaventure called God “A Fountain Fullness.” Once we begin with outpouring love as the foundational pattern of reality, and love as the very shape of God, then everything somehow has to fall into that same family resemblance. If this is the Creator, then somehow this must be the DNA of all of the creatures."

Pentecost Homily Prep - May 24

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30pm on Saturday, 9:30am and 6:00pm on Sunday

Mission Impossible vs. Commissioned in persona Christi

This is the last homily in this Easter series on believing/unbelieving. I have identified the lingering symptoms of unbelieving  that remain part of our lives as those claiming to believe: fear of death/clinging to material life, isolated individualism, autonomous control freaks, judging competitive monkey mind, clinging to the past and the unreal, and today, secret agents of a distant God.   Each of these symptoms of unbelieving or slavery to sin and death has a complementary or opposite symptom of believing in communion with God and others: in the world not of it, member and child, mutual submisission in love, friends in the Lord, making room for the true, the new, the real and today, called together as God by God!

You remember the Sunday night program in the sixties: Mission Impossible. A central character begins the show each week receiving a tape recorded proposal from someone in charge.  The voice on the tape is anonymous, the listener is challenged to accept this top secret mission and the tape self-destructs after it concludes so that there is no way to connect the agent to the one who has engaged him.

That is an image for me of the way most "believers" approach life in the world. We show up to church on Sunday, we hear a challenging call from a rather "distant" God, yo go out into our daily life  to succeed by our own resources, representing no one, not indicating that  anyone has called us, sent us, or is behind the craziness of life.

Pentecost proclaims a radically different notion of believers engaged by God, on a mission of truth and love, under the banner of Jesus Christ and formed as a member of a team formed by the Spirit. COMMISSIONED -  ambassadors of the COMMUNION which is the Love who is God.

Does this resonate with your believing?