November 10 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 8:00 and 12:30

Do you have any resurrection in your Christianity?Click here

Nov 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 9:30 and 12:30

Where are you looking for the encounter with Jesus? 

Click HERE to view video prep

October 27 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 4:00 Sat, 11:00am and 6:00pm Sunday

Where are you on the map? On which map?

Click HERE to see October 27 video prep

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

Click HERE to view Video Homily Prep

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

CLICK here to view video prep

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

Click here to see Video Prep

Homily prep September 8

-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 4pm and 11am.

Sept 8 homily prep

Are you possessed?


Click HERE to view Video Prep

Homily Prep September 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 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

Click here to see Video Prep

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?

Click here to see Video Prep

August 11th Homily Prep

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

Like a New Mother's Sleep!
Click here to see "Video Prep"

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!

Click here to view Video Prep July 28

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?

Click HERE to view Video Prep for 7/21

July 14 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 5:30 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?

Click Here for July 14 Video prep

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

Click here for Video homily Prep