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?

Ascension Sunday May 17th

-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 4:00pm on Saturday and 8:00am on Sunday

"Always" and "Never"

These two words are the signs of slavery to death and sin.  Freedom and life in the resurrection of Christ are "here" and "now".

What do you think of that?

Easter 6 - May 10 homily Prep

-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 12:30 mass only

"I'm special"

This positive message resulting from the self-esteem efforts of the last 20 years is a first symptom that we are still living under the powers and principalities of the slavery of death and sin.  When we notice the difference between ourselves and others, that they or he or she is not like me or I am not like other people, we can be sure that we have are suffering from the hangover from our slavery to death and sin. My separate-self, monkey mind, that is constantly comparing myself to others, resenting their success and grieving over my failure is a sure sign that we are suffering from a hangover from our slavery to death and sin....that's a sign that we have been unbelieving.

 I'm tempted to this sin of judgment, condemnation, competition, separate-self slavery mind.

Jesus  by his triumph over death and sin,  has re-created us not as competitive separate-selves but friends.  Friends are the ones for whom we lay down our lives.

At-one-ment!

Easter 5 - Homily Prep May 3

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email request
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at  4:00 PM on Saturday and 9:30 AM, 12:30 PM and 6pm on Sunday

Resurrection Check up: symptoms of death and symptoms of life?

This is a series on the spiritual signs of freedom and life versus the worldly signs of slavery to death/sin.  I began with fear of dying, then individualism, autonomy and today it is minimalistic and entitlement members.

I am wondering if we have really believed in our incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church?  Too many of us are interested in the perks of membership (what's the minimum I must do to get the desired benefit?) Is my incorporation in faith putting me into a dynamic relationship with God and Church/others? That is the "perk" that resurrected life offers us.

So,  are there any signs in your life of the blessing of incorporation/relationship to others?   Or are there signs of the stingy approach to life which is seeking the least investment to obtain the desire benefit?  That is a symptom of death. Minimalists concerned only about self-centered entitlements.

Easter 4, homily Prep April 26

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

Resurrection Check up: symptoms of death and symptoms of life?

This is a series on the spiritual signs of freedom and life versus the worldly signs of slavery to death/sin.  I began with fear of dying, then individualism, and today autonomy.  I am wondering where in our lives do we submit to others' will?  Where and to whom are we obedient out of love?

As the children of God, we are called fundamentally to submit our will to the will of God.  For most of us mere mortals this is a daunting task. Submission to the will of God is a symptom of freedom and life. Like Jesus we must freely submit out of love, not obey out of fear of punishment.

In our worldly existence we long for independence and autonomy: symptoms of death/sin. Commitment phobia is probably a subset of this symptom. The sacrament of matrimony is the most often chosen path of submission - for those who are married in Christ.  So much of the trend to cohabitation is a symptom of autonomy in relation to others = symptom of death.

The church and our call to holiness insist that we practice submitting to the will of God by our practice of obedience to others for the sake of love.  To whom do you submit? To whom are you obedient?

Easter III - 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 Sat, 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

If Death is conquered, then why am I stuck in death's Valley?

The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the victory OVER death. Death has been conquered however not extinguished. We are now free from death's powers, however, death's powers and principalities in this world are still available for the asking. So, self-centeredness, envy, jealousy, hatred, lust, resentment, grudges, prejudice, violence. Even the children of the light can pick up any of these weapons of death when they doubt the power of life

The Resurrection is the triumph over death and the initiation of real life.  Life is available for the asking with its powers of love, joy, peace, patience, etc.

This week I am considering lack of trust, competitiveness, and the drive for material success as the most common symptom of death we see in  and among the children of light.

April 12 homily Prep - Mercy Sunday

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at Www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30, 8:00 and 11:00

Not a Miracle, but a Conquest!

Jesus' resurrection is more than a miracle, it is more than an apparition to his disciples, it is the powerful conquest over the powers of sin and death.  Death no longer has power over those who believe.

I don't think we have been believing in the resurrection.....even though we say,

"I  Believe in the Holy Spirit who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophetsg. I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the deadI believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. and the life of the world to come. Amen."

I am beginning a season-long reflection upon the powers of death that reign in the world ans eh life and liberation that is now unleashed in Christ risen in triumph over death. You believe in the witness about Jesus' resurrections?  Really?  Maybe we don't recognize death and its powers. Likewise, the power and freedom off life in Christi might eluding us us as well.

Under which "power" are you engaged?

April 5 Easter Sunday Prep

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-I will be celebrating Easter mass this weekend at 9:30am in the Hall and 12:30 in the Church

Triumph over death

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is not only a miracle revealing Jesus as the son of God but it has changed the powers and principalities reigning in our world. Death and the powers and principalities of death reign in the world. In Jesus Christ risen from the dead we have triumphed over death, Death has no more power over us, and we now can live in his life which is freedom.

Have you been released from the powers of death?

Mar 29th - Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at Sunday Readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at LinC Letter
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 and 11:00am

Don't stand there waving your palms, follow him

Some might be of the mindset that we are, in this holy week, reenacting the historical events in the life of Jesus. That would be real failure in the call to "fall, conscious, and active participation". We are not enacting history we are opening Mystery. 

Do not stand along the side of the road and wave your palm branches at Jesus as he goes by in the person of the church. Rather get up from your timid, individualized, isolated state in life and mind and follow the church by faith into the Mystery of the saving love of God.

Lent V Homily Prep March 22

-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 and 9:30am

 If you're not changing you're dying!

That title could be turned around by today's Gospel, "if you're not dying, you're not converting". The preaching this weekend is going to be focused upon an adage that I read that said "before you die you better die so that when you die you won't die".

If the grain of wheat remains just a grain of wheat and does not die it does not fulfill its purpose, it's mission, or goal. The same can you say about the disciple of Jesus. By giving oneself away in love we accomplish the dying of Jesus that we see in baptism. The death and resuscitation of Lazarus is A great image for all of us to do this "preliminary" dying or necessary dying while we are still living so that we might come to the fullness of life in Christ in spite of death.

This "dying" is what is at the heart of the Paschal mystery, the Easter mystery, the font of baptism, the holy Eucharist, and discipleship in general.  We must acknowledge the existence of the false self and the need for its ongoing and continuous death, in this way we will make room for our new life in Christ begun in baptism fulfilled in confirmation, deepened in the Holy Eucharist, and experienced/expressed most perfectly in self-sacrificing love of discipleship. We call it communion. 

So are you dying? Or are you living a defensive, strategic,'s false self protective death?

Let me know how this figures into your call to discipleship

Lent IV, March 15 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available
-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 6:00pm

 Is it a sin?  Well, is it a "work done in God"?

This lent we have been hearing the call to be "Reconciled as +ONE". This call has raised the topics of sin and forgiveness. Our Lenten mission part II this Thursday night will pick up the notion of "forgiving:a key to a life in communion".

I am often asked, "Father, is this a sin?"  It is a strange but pretty regular question. I think the Gospel this Sunday gives the best answer as to whether or not something ought to be confessed. If we bring an action of ours into the light of honesty we can pretty clearly see whether it is a "work done in God" or whether it is a work of the dark that remains in the dark.

Maybe this litmus test for our Christian lives would be helpful as we respond to the call to be reconciled as ONE.

March 8 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 and 11:00am

Why are you so angry all the time?

That phrase is the reframe to a country music song but it might be the best question we could ask this Lent.  Some of us are "angry all the time".all of us are angry sometimes. Our Lenten mission speaker Bro Loughlan Sofield, at last week's mission part I discussed with us what makes us angry and the role that anger plays in destroying our communion.

The question might be first asked what made Jesus angry? Do you and I know what to do with our anger so that it becomes part of the remedy of our broken communion rather than the source of it?

Let's see...

Second Sun of Lent Mar 1st

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-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, 9:30 and 12:30. We have a guest speaker at all  masses

Homily Prep February 22

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at Sunday readings www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter Www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 Sat, 8am, 12:15(at cathedral) &6:00pm

My only message this Lenten time: definitely put down something in your life to which you have too tight of a hold. But, my goodness, don't fail to pick up something that the Lord has in store for you.

February 15 Homily Prep: Don't Tell Anybody, but We Need Healed!

-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 www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00pm on Saturday and 12:30pm on Sunday

 Don't Tell Anybody, but We Need Healed!

The title of this homily is obviously an attempt at a play on words regarding the gospel text.  Jesus in Mark's gospel has this dueling banjos messaging:  He is the very announcement of the presence and power of God in the world AND he doesn't want to be represented to the world through misunderstood expressions.  If you and I go around telling everybody NOT what Jesus did for us but who we think he might be - that would cause a problem.  That's why Jesus in Mark is always telling people (and demons) to be quiet about him.  Jesus prefers to speak for himself. 

I would say that this is the reason that every Christian needs to learn about Jesus from personal direct encounter.  We have to meet Jesus where and as Jesus presents himself.  That fact is at the root of the sacramental church - "don't trust my description of God's mercy - meet and drink deeply of the merciful Lord yourself."

That's why those of us who are his disciples need to resist the often condescending and guilt-inducing preaching that attempts to get "people to go to church".  So many of us so often are trying to tell others (especially younger people) why they need to go to church.  That reason is because we have judged them to be lost or broken and church would go a long way toward "straightening them out"!  Yuk.  I hear Jesus saying to all of us presumptuous preachers, "don't tell anyone about me, just go and show yourselves to be healed" and that will be enough proof for them. 

So, the charge of those of us who have been healed by Jesus is to live a life of health and gratitude to God and all the people in the world who are lost and sick will follow us to church. 

Jesus and the Leper break every law on the books in this story today.  One who was uncleam came to one who was clean and the unclean was made clean and the clean was declared to be unclean, worthy to be hung on a tree.  Wow.  So the laws of Jesus' reign are not about "isolation" and "quarantine" but contact and communion - that's eternal life. 

Have you been willing to break the laws of broken humanity and to expose yourself to the Lord's power even if it means that you will die to this world's system, condemned in the court of popular opinion? 

The Leper need to first accept that he was in need.  He then had to break a few rules and beg for mercy (real men don't beg).  Jesus had to break a few rules (he had and showed compassion, he  touched him) in order to fix the system.  He had to be the victim of the system in order to transform it.  To lay down your life.

Do we have such courage?  Have we even had such an idea?  Not me - I'm a rule-keeper.  I'm in the system.  Look at pope Francis....he doesn't not allow the system and the rules to silence his call for compassion, mercy, contact with Jesus. 

Don't tell anybody, but we need healed.

February 8 Homily Prep

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-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 Sat, 9:30 and 11:00 on Sunday

Healed or Cured?

A scholars has expressed a distinction regarding Jesus' miracles and mission in Mark's Gospel that he describes as "curing" and "healing".  Basically, what Jesus does in the synagogue last week and in Peter's house this week is miraculous cures.  Physical, psychological, spiritual cures are astounding people and revealing Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God (story 1).   The symptom of these cures is pretty obvious - the removal of that thing that is afflicting the body from full function in the world.

But Jesus reveals that his mission and purpose is not to cure but to heal (the root word of which is "salus" from which we get the words "salve" and of course "salvation").

This healing that Jesus has come to accomplish is that of liberating humanity from the self-imposed prison of alienation, self-centeredness, autonomy, isolation, antagonism, from and with God and neighbor.  Jesus has come to heal us by restoring our relationships, humanity with God and brothers and sisters with one another. The symptom of this healing is self-sacrificing service (I have come not to be served but to serve).

Peter's mother-in-law is a perfect example of one who is cured AND healed, liberated and saved, because she gets up immediately when Jesus takes her by the hand and she serves.  Sel-sacrificing love is the symptom of salvation in God's reign.  Service is the coin of the realm.

This is world marriage day.  I think we have all kinds of marriages: broken marriages, sick marriages, cured marriages and healed marriages. In what category does yours fall?  How can you tell?

Have your ever experienced a cure?  Was it also a healing?  How can we tell?  Did it result in more loving service of God and neighbor?  There's your answer.

February 1 Homily Prep

 -This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at Www.usccb.com/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
 -I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00, 11:00 and 6:00pm

Do We Recognize Him?

The demons recognize Jesus as the holy one of God. They fear him because they recognize his "authority" - Jesus is the human face of God.  The disciples and enemies of Jesus do not recognize him as the incarnation of God, the son of God, Abba Father.  This lack of recognition limits Jesus' authority or power to heal them.

It challenges me to wonder whether I have recognized Jesus as the very Son of God. What really makes me wonder is the fact that God has not healed me from my isolation, sin, selfishness, sadness.  Maybe I have never really recognized Jesus' power as God.

The call to submit my life to Jesus' mission. - reconciling all people IN God - is offered over and over in and through the Church. Again this week I have the chance to see Jesus as he is - Lord and Savior. Will I take the chance?

Jan 11 Homily Prep -Bapt of the Lord

-Last Sunday's homily is available By email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at Sunday readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at LinC Letter
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 4:00 Sat, 9:30am and 6:00pm Sunday

Bluetooth Discoverability to Network Connectivity

Our God, through the Incarnation, has become discoverable to the Bluetooth ( longing for love and happiness) of all human beings - all nations.  That was last week's Christmas message.  This fifth and final feast of this great season of Incarnation, the Baptism of the Lord, is aptly described as the introduction to the network of Salvation - connectivity in the cyber world, incorporation into Christ in the Christian gospel.

Rather than God being made visible to human hearts, we see now that human hearts make God visible. Every human heart is called to be incorporated through Baptism into the mission of God-made-flesh, Emmanuel!  This is the flip side of sacramental thinking.

In sacramental thinking grace and faith make "the invisible visible". So that our God can be touched, seen, held, heard.  The grace of Baptism and the mystical Body of Christ is that we are transformed from the "material appearance of our lives into the divine face of God".  Each individual, isolated, separated human life is incorporated as one into the divine presence of the whole Body of Christ.

Incorporation into Christ through baptism helps us to know our identity (as members united in the network) and our mission (as access points/doorways of salvation in the world).

These words were spoken by Card. Greh before conclave that elected Pope Frnacis. "Let us listen to Augustine: "The apostles saw Christ and believed in the Church that they did not see; we see the Church and must believe in Christ whom we do not see. Adhering firmly to what we see, we will come to see him whom we do not now see. "

In Christ Alone, as members of one Body, as agents and instruments of the Kingdom, as human faces of divine Communion - we are the Church.

Woohoo!  Are you in?