Homily August 24th Prep - New Link to Last Week's Homily!

-Last week's homly is now available at this link; August 17th Homily Audio
-The Scriptures for this coming Sunday are available at Sunday's Readings
-I am preaching this weekend at 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday St. Albert Website


Can You Say It?

Last week I was asking if you can "see what I'm saying" emphasizing the need for us to have a picture of ourselves as "a communion of the faithful" dependent upon one another for our connection to God's Kingdom.

Jesus' question of his disciples this week reveals a more powerful aspect to this picture-thing.  What if the person next to you at worship asked you the question Jesus asked the disciples....."who do you SAY that I am?  Remember how God allowed Adam to "name" all the creatures on the earth.  He had relationship with them, dominion over them, he named them.  Remember Moses asking what God's name was - if you knew someone's name you could claim a relationship to them.

So, how is your relationship with the Body of Christ - right next to you?  Do you see them and can you SAY that they are your brother and sister in Christ?  Can you SAY that they are important to your relationship to God?  Can you SAY that you have some power over their ability to meet God in this Eucharist?

There are four ways that Jesus wants to be recognized in the Holy Eucharist. In the Assembly, in the Priest, in the Word Proclaimed, and in the Sacred Species of Bread and Wine.  The FIRST place is in the community gathered.  Can you SAY who we are in Christ?  If you can't SAY it then you canT claim to know it.

Who do you SAY that I am?  That says a lot about who you SAY you are.  This is powerful stuff.

Homily Prep August 17th

-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 6:00pm Sunday

Exercise! 

Everybody is encouraged to exercise.  Especially those who are preparing for a big contest.  Practice or conditioning is what we might call that.  So what all of these things are is an "exertion" of energy, effort, and discipline that apparently "doesn't count".  It's like a pre-season or scrimmage game - it's a lot of work but it doesn't really count.

All of these physical exertions are difficult but not real, they are not the "game" but they are essential to the game.

Apparaently, Jesus was putting this syro-phoenitian women through a bit of "testing", a scrimmage, an exercise that not only revealed her faith but it deepened her faith.  

Do we ever experience confusing challenges to our life plan as the preparation for the real game?  I think I have had this experience....I was led into a challenging situation in life and ministry for no apparent reason.  In fact, it felt almost "unreal" at the time.  I really couldn't understand why this particular thing was happening to me and why I was enduring this challenge.  But I hung in there. 

Then, years later, I encountered something very real that required the precise grace, skill, wisdom, perseverance, etc. that I had gained in the earlier testing.  It was then that I realized the good God at work in me "back then" Who was responsible for the success or perseverance now.

I think that's what the daily dying to self involved in spiritual discipline and devotion does in our faith lives.  Like the treadmill everyday - I can often times "feel" as if I'm going through a repetitive and disconnected exercise - only to discover that it was precisely the preparation I needed for the real struggles in life. 

Recognition vs Seeing

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

You Wouldn't recognize it if it Bit you on the Nose!

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and he is alive for us.  Jesus Christ is not only risen and alive, he is present and active in our midst. This is the fundamental truth of the Christian religion.  No one is arguing about the truth of it.

What we are admitting all the time is that we do not recognize him AS HE IS.  Jesus breathed upon the apostles and pledged to be with them always. And yet we do not recognize him AS HE IS - in the Body of Christ the Church.

Many of us who claim to be "in the church" manifest our blindness to him because we are lacking in the unity he created and we are afraid of others, afraid of vulnerability, afraid of death, afraid of life.

Many who are "outside the church" secular-shaped hearts and empiricist minds observing the church from outside fail to recognize Jesus AS HE IS in the imperfect communion that he has chosen to establish(the Church).

Within the church we reveal our blindness to Jesus in our midst by our individualistic drive for control of church tradition, clinging to private devotion, and judgment and distrust of others. We're like the disciples in the storm-tossed boat. Petrified and every man for himself.

Within the society we look a lot like Peter, demanding that if Jesus (faith and religion) is really calling them to life he better prove it beyond the feeble proof that is the Church ( the only proof. Jesus prefers to give).

So, we have a church community blinded to the presence of Jesus dwelling powerfully within their mutual communal love - where and how he said HE WOULD BE. And we have a suspicious world not at all impressed by Jesus' feeble display of presence in his chosen vessel, the broken Church.

Save us, Lord!

But look who DID recognize him - the sick, the lame, the rejected, the dying.  How can you tell?  They came to him and allowed him to be strong in their midst.  No fear - all acceptance AS HE IS!  Maybe the recognition of Jesus has to do with the condition of the beholder rather than the manner of Jesus' appearance AS HE IS.

Homily Prep August 3

-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 6:00pm Sunday

Tempted to Isolate!

What is your gut reaction to violence, hatred, opposition, ridicule, persecution?????  Do you welcome the comfort of others, do you seek the consolation of friends, do you look for, long for and appreciate pity???  Or do you flee from, shun, and run away from human companionship?

Withdrawal(either physical, psychological, or spiritual) is the triumph of the evil one.  Withdrawal is different than retreat - the rare and intentional spiritual exercise or the conscious choice to seek God in solitude. Withdrawal is not the choice to seek God but the fear-driven lack of trust in anyone other than the self.

Jesus hears of the violent death of his precursor and kinsman John the Baptist and he "withdraws". He is tempted, just as he was in the desert, and this time to get away from the companionship. As in the desert,  Jesus is saved from this temptation to isolate, to withdraw from companionship, by angels -  those more needy than he who sought his companionship...he was rescued by empathy.

His empathy pulls him out of the temptation to withdraw and drives him outward into communion with those who longed for him.  This temptation of Christ is a sign to all of us to resist and reject the strategy of evil (withdrawal) when life frustrates us.

The. Letter to the Romans is clear - nothing should separate us from the communion with God that we have in Christ Jesus.  Easier said than done.  How many of us when we fail - first think of hiding from others?.  How many of us when we are diagnosed are tempted to hide - withdraw, not to burden others with my pain.  How many of us when reflecting upon our death have this temptation to be disposed of - not wanting others to "be looking at me"?  It's all isolation, hiding, evil.

We revolt against the pity of others who genuinely love us. We allow a lot of stuff to separate us from the love of God. A spirituality of unity or communion calls us to reject the temptation to isolation and to move into empathy, consolation, solidarity, community.

It's natural to our broken humanity - withdraw.  It is natural to our divine likeness - communion!  

Homily Prep July 27

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

Church Matters!

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

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

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


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

Homily Prep for July 20

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat. and 9:30 and 12:30 on Sunday.

Mixing It Up!

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

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

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

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

Homily Prep July 13th

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

Free to See(d)

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

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

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

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

Opponents or Partners? The Whole Picture!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Becoming What You Are Celebrating

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday, 9:30am and 12:30pm on Sunday

Turn Around Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessed Trinity: Renewing Our Communion!

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

Pentecost - June 8th

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 8:00, and 12:30

Forgive or Forget It #8 - Spiritual Forgiveness

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

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

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

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

Homily Prep June 1st

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at Sat 4:00, Sun 9:30, 11:00 and 6:00pm

Forgive or Forget it! #7

May 25th Homily Prep

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

Forgive or Forget It #6

A holy Thursday Homily/"I have a dream"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not?

Homily Prep May 18

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00, 8:00, & 11:00

Forgive or Forget it #5: What Forgiveness is Not

Homily video prep May 11

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

Forgive or forget it! Part IV

May 4 Homily Prep

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

Forgive or Forget It - Again

"Forgive or Forget It"

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

Sent to Forgive

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

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

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

Would you like to learn more about forgiving?

Holy Week Homily April 13

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday 8:00am and 12:30pm

 Holy Week?  Holy Spirit? Holy Catholic Church?

April 6 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email

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

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

Do you believe in Jesus Christ???