This week we celebrate the ongoing legacy of a system of education that has been handed on to us as a treasured gift from past generations. Our Catholic schools continue to exist for one reason: to pass on the faith. This begins with outstanding teachers who form the minds of young Catholics in our great Tradition. Yet, intellectual knowledge of the faith is not enough. In a real sense, the faith cannot just be handed on; it must be caught anew by each generation. Our Catholic schools provide a wonderful environment for the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in our students. May God bless our dedicated educators as they work tirelessly to not only inform, but truly transform the lives of our children.

People are often confused by the meaning of celibacy practiced by those in religious life. Sometimes people think that priests are celibate because it gives them more time to devote to ministry. Sadly, sometimes people might assume that marriage is less holy than priesthood. Neither are the real reason for the celibate vocation. Rather, the celibate person serves as a prophetic witness to the reality of heaven.

Marriage and family are good, holy even. Celibacy is a sacrifice precisely because the priest or religious gives up something good. Yet, as good as this life is, it is not the greatest good. The celibate person is meant to be a sign reminding us of heaven. In heaven there is no marriage because it is as though we are all married to God. That relationship of love with God is so real that celibates forgo the early sign of marriage to point to the reality of the heavenly marriage awaiting us.

So, never feel sorry for your priests or religious, or wish for them to be married. We freely and joyful choose to give our lives completely to God. Pray that we may be good prophetic signs that point people to heaven.

Today we rejoice in the manifestation of the Jesus to world, symbolized by the arrival of the “magi” in Bethlehem. The journey of the magi began long before Christmas. In them we can find a model for our Christian journey. Through the light of reason alone, interpreting the stars, the magi know that something special has happened and they follow the star. Needing more than just reason, they receive the last piece of the puzzle from God’s chosen people and form the Scriptures. This leads them to a personal encounter with Jesus in Bethlehem.

Our lives are meant to follow this example. What signs is God giving us? Are we following and using all the tools available in the Church and Sacred Scripture? Have we had a personal encounter with Jesus? Hopefully we can say yes to these things. However, one more thing remains. The Gospel says that after encountering Christ, the magi return by “another way.” We too must follow another way after meeting Jesus. May this new year be a time when each of us encounters Jesus in a new way and follows him more closely.

We might think of Mary’s title “Mother of God” as saying something about Mary. Some even think that the title is too exalted for a mere creature, even the greatest of creatures such as Mary. Yet this title is important not so much for what it say about Mary, but rather what it says about the baby the Mary gave birth to in Bethlehem. Mary’s title answers the famous question in the Christmas carol, “What Child is This?”

Mary’s child is God. If we refuse to admit that Mary is “Mother of God” then we end up saying that Jesus was not God when he was born. The truth is that Mary gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is God. The title “Mother of God” is therefore not so much about Mary, but rather reminds us that this child born of the Virgin Mary is truly God in the flesh. This is what we celebrate at Christmas and this is why we honor Mary today.

In the classic Peanuts show “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” Charlie Brown famously asks, “Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?” His friend Linus then proceeds to give perhaps the most famous reading of St. Luke’s Gospel account of the birth of Jesus. St. John has his own version of the story, what one might call the “advanced” version of the Christmas story. John tells us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He also says beautifully that “The light shown in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The truth is that there remains much darkness in all of our lives. It is precisely to this situation that Jesus came and continues to come. God did not abandon the world 2000 years ago and he has not left us alone either. God has been and always will be with us. In times of darkness, the light shines all the brighter. In whatever situation we find ourselves this Christmas, God comes to us just as he did in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. This light brings us great hope, and that’s what Christmas is really all about.

The opening scene of today’s gospel is filled with names of people and places that readily evoke the expectation of Christmas: Gabriel, Nazareth, Joseph, Mary… Yet, the name that would most stick out to a Jew at the time of Jesus would have been that of David. God had promised that a king of the line of David would rule over his people forever. Exile and destruction had left many questioning if God had forgotten his promise. The family tree of David seemed to be annihilated, that is until the angel Gabriel brings good news to the a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the House of David.

Has it been a while since you’ve been to confession? Maybe you’re worried or just reluctant to go because you feel you don’t know how to go confession. This weekend’s homily provides some practical tips and an explanation of the basics of making a good confession.

Advent is a time filled with many treasured symbols: the Advent wreath, the Christmas tree, favorite foods and songs. In today’s homily I introduce my favorite Advent symbol: the orange construction cone. At first it may seem like an unlikely symbol for such a peaceful season, but if you look at the readings today, they’re all about road construction. Isaiah says plainly that our job this Advent is to build a highway for God.

How’s you’re road to God looking these days? Have you patched so many potholes that it looks more like a mine field? This Advent God invites us to put a big “under construction” sign out. We’ve got to do the hard work of repairing our road/lives through some spiritual resurfacing. No one likes construction while it’s going on, but there’s nothing nicer than a brand new road. The Sacrament of Penance is our chance to resurface our road and start over.

Finally, the season of Advent is one that can easily get out of control is we’re not careful. If we follow the wisdom of society we will wind up being very busy and arrive at Christmas exhausted and glad it’s over. To avoid this we need to slow down. Picture that construction worker on the side of the road with his big orange “SLOW” sign. Consider it a sign from God this Advent. Slow down, take time for prayer and quiet, and think of the beautiful new road God has planned just as soon as you get through this construction zone.

Jesus tells us over and over in the Gospel today to “watch.” This is our attitude for the season of Advent. Just as the new translation of the Mass is causing us to have to watch carefully the words we use and pay attention, so we are meant to pay closer attention to our spiritual lives this Advent. This watchfulness of Advent is not a passive sitting back. Rather, the collect of today’s Mass prays that we will have “the resolve to run forth” to meet Christ at his coming.

Advent recognizes two comings of Christ. The obvious one is the coming of Jesus at Christmas. Yet, these first weeks of Advent urge us to prepare for a more important coming, the return of Jesus in Glory. This anxious expectation gives Advent and the Mass a sense of direction. We are not sitting around idle waiting, rather we are on a mission. May this season of Advent increase our resolve and an eagerness to welcome Christ at his coming.

Like a pop quiz or a thief in the night, Jesus will return. The good news is that we know the questions that are on the test. We even know the answers. In the evening of life we will be judged on our love. How well did we care for the least of those among us? How well did we use the gifts God gave us? That is the emphasis of today’s Gospel. God has given each of us special gifts according to our ability and each of us is called to greatness. Let’s resolve not to compare ourselves to others but to do the best we can with the talents we have been given. If we do that, we will hear at the end of our life, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Paul uses the language of sleep to describe death. This makes death sound so temporary and indeed it is. The early Church had seen firsthand how Jesus could raise someone from the dead. They had experienced the resurrection of Jesus, a word literally meaning “to get up again.” It is not surprising then that the Christians refused the pagan practice of cremating the remains of those who had died. Instead they created large underground cemeteries such as the catacombs in Rome. There they placed the bodies of their loved ones awaiting that great day of awakening. This weekend’s homily explores the Church’s traditions regarding care of the body after death and explains what the Church really teaches about cremation.

Yesterday we honored the Church in Glory, the saints in heaven. Today we commemorate and pray for the Church Suffering, all those who have died and await the full glory of heaven in purgatory. There is a tendency today to “canonize” everyone who dies and talk as though it is certain that they are in heaven. Yet, the Scriptures tell us plainly that nothing imperfect can enter heaven. Certainly we know many of our deceased loved ones who we believe died in a state of grace. Yet, how many of us are completely free from all attachment to sin and are thus perfect when we die? Purgatory is the great gift of God’s mercy to allow us to get cleaned up before entering heaven.

On this day, we remember that it is a great spiritual work of mercy to pray for the dead. Let us remember our brothers and sisters who have died and can be greatly aided by our prayers, especially those forgotten souls who have no one to pray for them. May perpetual light shine upon them and may they rest in peace.

To be a saint is to be in heaven. Today we celebrate all our brothers and sisters whom we know are in heaven. From there they behold God face to face forever. Thus they hold out for us the great example of where we are headed if we live heroic lives as they did. Yet, from this place of bliss they remain joined with us in the great Communion of Saints. Like the fans at a sporting event they cheer us on. They desire for us to share in their glory. May we be grateful this day and every day for the saints, our heavenly friends and our biggest fans.

St. Paul tells us in the second reading today that he is proud that he shared with his disciples, “not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well.” We all love teachers who put themselves into their teaching and give us more than just the words in the textbook. I think we love this quality in our priests as well. We love priests who understand us and with whom we have something in common. While we have beautiful examples of how the humanness of our priests helps us to know God better, their are also cases where the humanness of priests becomes a major stumbling block and even a scandal. It has always been this way since the beginning of the Church.

On this Priesthood Sunday we give thanks for our priests who are chosen from among us. We priests are called to image the perfect fatherhood of God, yet we often fall short, as all fathers do. Pray for your priests. Give thanks for the good you see, quickly overlook the bad, and remember that the two are always wrapped up together in the human condition. May God allow us as priests, broken though we are, to be living witnesses as we share not only the gospel of God, but our very selves.

St. Paul gives us what appears to be a paradox in the 2nd reading today. He praises the Thessalonians for accepting the Word “with affliction and joy in the Holy Spirit.” How can affliction and joy exist together? St. Francis of Assisi is a great model for solving this riddle. In his own unique way, St. Francis shows us how to radically live out the call of today’s Gospel to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. If we do that, we can have perfect joy no matter what affliction life throws at us.

In the new translation of the Mass which we will begin using this Advent, the words of consecration of the chalice will be changing. Instead of referring to the fact that Jesus shed his blood “for all” we will hear the priest refer to Jesus shedding his blood “for many.” While Jesus did indeed die for all, the new translation is not only faithful to the Latin, but also points out the sad fact that not all will accept Jesus’ offer of salvation. Like the people in the Gospel, many of us today make excuses as to why we have better things to do than accept God’s invitation.

Every Sunday we are invited to the marriage banquet prepared by God. How do we respond? Do we tell God that we have “better things” to do? If we do come to Mass faithfully each week, how is our attitude? Are we really participating and putting ourselves fully into it so as to “get something out of it?” Perhaps the meditation in today’s homily concerning our beloved Kansas City Chiefs football team will help.

I was conducting a parish retreat last weekend and so didn’t have a Sunday homily. As a bonus then, here is the homily I have at Bishop Miege High School for the homecoming Mass on the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi. May we be like Mary in the Gospel and know how to find the one thing that is most important among the many. When we find that it is God that we need, may we be like St. Francis in leaving everything to follow God, placing nothing before him, not even sports.

Our readings today speak of several reversals of roles. None is greater than the one spoken of in the 2nd reading. Paul tells us plainly that God become man. The creator became part of his creation. To really understand the enormity of this event, we have to hold on to two very important truths about Jesus. Namely, Jesus was 100% God and at the same time he was 100% man. Jesus is God, consubstantial with the Father. Yet he also took on our flesh, became incarnate, and is one us.

Because of Jesus’ self-emptying and his death for us, we ourselves are in for quite a role reversal. God became man so that we might become like God. Jesus did not stay dead and neither will we. We are meant to be lifted up and live with God forever in heaven where “Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

The landowner in today’s Gospel has such compassion that he goes in search of workers for his vineyard time and time again. Even though he probably has no need for more workers, he knows how much the people need the work. God has no need of us, yet we have great need of God. He has called each of us into his vineyard, some early in life, some later. Our response should never be to compare ourselves to others and become jealous. No matter when we were called, our response to God must always be the same…gratitude.

On this 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our country, the phrase often featured on signs and memorials reads simply, “Never Forget.” Yet, what is it that we are not supposed to forget? In the days and weeks following the attacks there were many feelings of anger and hatred and a desire for revenge. Our scripture readings today encourage us not to try remember these feelings of hurt and anger, but rather to have a heart of forgiveness. While certainly we resolve that we will never forget those who died, there are some other things that we as a nation would do well to “Never Forget.”

Before 9/11 many in our country didn’t think very much about God. Things seemed to be going well and our country and our lives seemed strong and invincible. Many proudly claimed that we didn’t even need God any more. On 9/11 and the weeks following, the country prayed. We went to church. We knew how much we needed God and how only trust in him who brings good out of evil could make any sense of such sad events.

Before 9/11 many of us took our families for granted. It seemed that our lives would go on forever and that we had plenty of time to make needed changes later. On 9/11, the people in the planes that had the chance to make one last phone call or scribble a few hurried words before the planes impacted almost universally had the same wish. They weren’t worried about money or their sports teams. They simply wanted to tell their family that they loved them. Many family members left behind wished the same.

Before 9/11 it seemed that America was divided and so many people were only selfishly focused on what was in their own best interest. Other people didn’t matter so long as I got what I wanted. On 9/11 we saw average Americans become heroes. As the twin towers were falling we know that they were filled with fighters and police racing to get into those towers to help people. In the following weeks thousands of young men and women volunteered to protect our country by joining the military. 9/11 brought the country together around the common desire to help others.

There are many things to remember about 9/11. Most people alive then can remember where they were. On this anniversary, let us resolve not try to remember the past anger and hatred. Rather, I pray that we might once again be reminded of how we learned what was really important on that day. May we never forget how much we need God. May we never forget how special our family and friends are. May we never forget the great pride and sense of community we found when each of us cared about others more than ourselves. These are truly worthy things. These are things that I hope we will “Never Forget.”

A popular philosophy plaguing our society today is the idea of moral relativism. This way of thinking says that there is no truth; it’s all relative to whatever morality an individual person might want to create. The supreme virtue in such a society is that of tolerance. We should condemn nothing and tolerate everything since nothing is objectively right or wrong. We often hear the Scripture quoted reminding us not to “judge” others. Yet is this really the Christian view?

In today’s readings, God is clearly telling us that not only is not wrong to correct someone doing something bad, such correction is required. This is a natural consequence of a correct understanding of the fact that there is of course such a thing as absolute truth. Something can be true even if no one believes it at the time. More importantly, in our Christian beliefs, we understand something as sinful not because it breaks an arbitrary rule but because it is bad for us. Sin is bad because it ultimately makes us unhappy and less free.

In this light, we can see why the Bible is so forceful that not only must we judge when our brother or sister is doing something bad, but we must correct him or her. The key here is how we do it. Fraternal correction is an act of charity when motivated by unselfish love for our brothers and sisters. We all need the support of the community to help us get out of sin when we are stuck. We pray that our Church would be such a community where we build each other up and help each other live a moral life. Indeed we really are called to be our brother’s keeper.

In today’s gospel a Canaanite woman comes to find Jesus and asks healing for her daughter. Surprisingly, Jesus won’t even talk to her. When he does finally talk to her he calls her a dog. In the very next sentence he then praises her for her faith in a way that we don’t even see him compliment his disciples. What is going on here?

First, we have to see that this woman is not Jewish. She is not a part of the chosen people. Jews often referred to gentiles as dogs, so we see Jesus repeating a popular objection to involving himself with a non-Jew. Notice though that this woman is said to be coming out from the land of the gentiles and is going toward Jesus. Spiritually, she represents all the gentiles who will come to have faith in Jesus. Most Christians today were not born Jewish, therefore we are gentiles and the fulfillment of the Psalmist’s desire, “O God, let all the nations praise you.”

However, there is a second important reason behind Jesus’ delay in responding to the woman. St. Augustine remarks that “The woman is ignored, no that mercy might be denied, but that desire might be enkindled.” The crisis that led the woman to leave Tyre and Sidon behind, to beg Jesus for help, allowed her desire for God to increase. God wishes to do the same for us. Through the difficulties and struggles of our life, we pray that our desire for God might be increased.

When we are ready to come out of Tyre and Sidon, to leave sin and separation from God behind, we will discover that God is also coming out to meet us. Let us therefore persevere and turn to God in moments of crisis that our desire might be enkindled and we might hear those beautiful words of Jesus, “Christian, great is your faith.”

In today’s first reading, the prophet Elijah has an amazing encounter with God. Mt. Horeb was the famous mountain where God appeared in smoke and fire to give Moses the 10 commandments. Elijah would have been full of expectation, and indeed while on the mountain he experiences some powerful signs. There is a strong wind, an earthquake, and a fire…all powerful signs that God had used in the past to show his presence. Yet, this time, Elijah discerns that God is not in any of these. Rather, Elijah encounters God somewhat unexpectedly in “a tiny whispering sound.”

Where do we expect to encounter God? Do we tend to look for him primarily in big and powerful ways, in ways that stir our emotions and excite us? This can happen, and we need it to happen every now and then. However, God is more often found not in loud exciting ways, but in silence. If we make time for silence, we might just be surprised that we will have an amazing encounter with God. In the ordinary work of our day, don’t forget to take some time to meet God, to be silent, and listen for the tiny whispering sound.

Maybe we’ve never experienced a lack of water in our lives, but all of us experience thirst. We have a spiritual thirst put in us by God that only he can satisfy. Society gives us all kinds of things that it says will satisfy us, but they ultimately leave us unfulfilled. Today God invites us to “come to the water.”

After we have found the life giving water in our faith, Jesus then asks us to share it. Perhaps we are afraid. We may think that we’re not qualified to be an “evangelist.” The truth is that we don’t have to be experts to share the faith. Maybe we only have a little, like 5 loaves and 2 fish. We bring to Jesus the little that we have and he does the rest. All it really takes to be an evangelist is to recognize that you are someone who is thirsty and that you’ve found the source of water. Now who wouldn’t want to share that?

Our world is hungry like never before for the satisfaction only God will give. Don’t wait for someone else to do something about it. Jesus says to us as he said to the apostles…”Give them some food yourselves.”

Jesus speaks today of a treasure hidden in a field. Hopefully we get the point that our faith is a treasure and our relationship with God worth “selling” everything. Truly there is wisdom in our Church beyond what Solomon could have imagined. Yet, do we realize this? Can we really say that our faith is what we value most of all?

We tend to focus on the man in the story who finds the treasure, but did you every stop to think about the man who sold him the field? He obviously didn’t know he had a treasure. Maybe he never bothered to really look around his field or else he could have found the treasure. As a result he probably sold his field cheap, no knowing what he had.

This parable is a warning to all of us. We have a treasure in the Church. However, if we fail to learn our faith, to dig around in our field, we will one day find the little faith that we had…gone. We will run the risk of leaving the Church and selling our field cheaply, believing that we actually got a pretty good deal on what we thought was just an empty field.

With all the violence, difficulties, and scandals in our world, this place can really seem less than ideal. Well, it is. The good news is that we don’t have to make everything right in this world. We don’t have to fight to the death to avenge wrongs done to us. There is another world where all will be made right. As we go through this world, our task then is patience, like the farmer who allows the weeds and the wheat to grow together until the harvest.

While we’re at it criticizing the world and everyone else in it, we can often think that of course we’re the wheat. Is that so? Most of us probably look a little more like weeds than wheat at times. The good news is that God is not done with us. We are all works in progress and that is why we must be patient, with each other and with ourselves. The harvest will come when all will be made well, until then…patience.

Today’s homily was given in the Chapel of the Twelve Apostles on the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri.

Our young people today have so many options before them. Particularly alluring is the world of sports. It is not uncommon for kids to be playing multiple sports and giving great amounts of time to this. On top of sports there is a multitude of other activities to be involved in and it seems that no one wants to risk “missing out” on anything, so they try to do it all. In this way they seem to be a lot like the situation described in today’s gospel.

The gospel from today’s Mass describes a sower going out to sow. As he goes, it seems that he is throwing seed everywhere. Some lands in rocks, some on the trail, some among thorns, and some on good soil. Like kids who try to do everything, he seems to be casting seed everywhere, much of it having little lasting effect.

There is a notion of freedom today that relishes the ability to do whatever we want. However, I would propose that the true joy in life comes not from doing a great number of things, but rather in being committed to a few important things. The seed that falls on good ground needs time to stop and put down roots. We too need to stop trying to find happiness in the quantity of activities and realize that true joy and freedom will come only from commitment.

What is worthy of the commitment of our lives? For what are we willing to say that we will forgo all these other activities in order to commit to something special. The greatest joy in life comes when we find the special things that are worthy of our commitment, when we stop and put down our roots. While there will be many things along the way that will give great meaning to our life, ultimately only God is worthy of the total commitment of our lives. May we have the strength today to sink our roots deep in something of great meaning, most especially our faith.

This weekend we celebrate our freedom, our Independence Day. What could be more American than freedom? Yet, have you ever stopped to think about what that freedom really means or where it comes from? Ultimately, our freedom cannot simply be about doing whatever we want and no one stops us. True freedom is the freedom not to do what we want, but to do what we ought. We are most free when we become the people God created us to be.

In our Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers recognized that the right of people to be free comes not from government but from our Creator who has endowed us with “unalienable rights.” It was for the same reason that the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950′s. Communism was trying to remove belief in God from public life, leaving only the state as the source of rights and freedom. If the government thinks that it gives us freedom, it can also try to take away our freedom. The recent attempts to remove the “Creator” from the Declaration or “under God” from the Pledge shouldn’t just make us sad, it should make us scared.

If we will not be a nation under God, then we will inevitably be a nation under tyranny.

The truth is that freedom comes from God and we are truly free only when we give ourselves completely to God. We have no better example us this than our Blessed Mother. She found great freedom in her complete obedience to God. An even more perfect example of this is God himself. Jesus entrusted himself completely to Mary as a little baby. If Jesus could give himself into Mary’s hands this way then we should too. Blessed Pope John Paul II took as his papal motto, Totus Tuus, “totally yours.” Everything we have belongs to God. In the great irony of the Christian life, it is when we claim nothing as our own and give ourselves totally to Jesus through Mary that we are able to be truly free.

At first it might seem strange to celebrate a day in honor of the Eucharist. Don’t we do that at every Mass? Of course, but today is a special day to recommit ourselves to our faith in the Eucharist. Sometimes we can let our faith grow weak, not really stopping to think who it is we receive in Holy Communion. It’s easy for our senses to be deceived since the Jesus comes to us under the appearance of ordinary bread and wine. We might doubt that this is really Jesus.

This was the case for a priest whose doubt of the Eucharist gave rise to the feast we celebrate today. Today’s homily tells the story of Fr. Peter of Prague and the great miracle God worked for him and for the Church in 1263. May we all recognize the great miracle that God works at Mass today and every day.

Like many, I was incredibly surprised to hear Fr. Corapi’s statement that he is abandoning the priesthood of Jesus Christ to become “The Black Sheep Dog.” It is a move so bizarre and sad that for the first few hours after his announcement, the opinion among a good number of his fans was that his website had been hacked; this simply could not be him. Much of the analysis of this sad situation has been handled ably by others and you are welcome to see the National Catholic Register’s coverage for details. However, in light of the new statement Fr. Corapi released yesterday, I would like to add something of my own, as someone who once very much admired Fr. Corapi.

Perhaps the thing that most bothered me about Fr. Corapi’s proposed plan of action was that he indicated that he was resigning from public ministry and leaving the priesthood, yet seemed to think that he would just go on doing basically the same things he had been doing. “How on earth does he expect to do that?” I thought. How can someone who spent so much effort teaching people to love and respect the authority of the Church think that he is just going to continue, business as usual, while living a life radically opposed to his own teaching? Does he really think that somehow the priesthood was just superfluous to his teaching the Catholic faith? Does he really hold the priesthood that cheaply?

The answer came in his statement yesterday (see www.theblacksheepdog.us for more). Speaking of the great privilege he enjoyed as a sacred minister of the greatest gifts Our Lord ever gave us, of the supreme call from God he received to make Jesus Christ present thought the Sacraments, Fr. Corapi said simply,

I didn’t do very much of that, quite honestly, in the 20 years that I did minister. About 90% of what I did in the past did not require ordination.

To further answer all my questions, he concluded,

What I’m going to be doing in the future is pretty much the same thing [I've been doing].

No, no, and no. There is absolutely no way he will continue doing “pretty much the same thing” that he’s been doing. This whole situation reminds me of a quote of Pope Paul VI:

Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.

Fr. Corapi was a great teacher of the faith. He proclaimed the truths of the Catholic Church with great conviction. But people listened to him for only two primary reasons. First, because the truth he taught was so attractive. He taught the fullness of the faith to a culture that is often left with only watered down Catholicism. That this truth is attractive is nothing for which Fr. Corapi or any priest should dare take credit. When we give people authentic Catholicism it’s like water in the desert and it’s no great coup for a priest that people drink and desire more.

While it is true that “John Corapi” could go on proclaiming the truths of the faith “pretty much” as before, no one will listen to him. At least very few will listen, and that is because the second and most important reason people listened to Fr. Corapi was because he was a witness. Anyone can read the Catechism. People listened to Fr. Corapi because they found him to be an authentic, credible witness. He could command obedience to Holy Mother Church because he himself had pledged his life to such radical obedience. He had made public promises to God that his life was no longer his but was given totally to God through the Church. This is what made his teaching, and that of any true witness, powerful.

The “Black Sheep Dog” now thinks that he can simply go on doing “pretty much the same thing.” He is like Sampson who has not yet realized that his hair has been cut (no pun intended). The strength of the Catholic Church and her teachings remain, but Fr. Corapi’s strength to teach these truths is gone. He thinks that he can be a teacher without being an authentic witness. The words of Paul VI foretell his future. No one will listen to him any more…and that is a shame. We needed teachers like him.

After encountering Jesus after the resurrection, the gospels describe the apostles as being “fearful, yet overjoyed.” Perhaps that’s the best description we can hope for to describe how we should feel in the presence of God. On today’s Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity we try to put into technical language what is ultimately a mystery. How do we properly describe God? Is God a powerful force that created everything, the “Lord” who appears to Moses in smoke and fire? Or is God a loving father, who sends his son on a rescue mission to save his beloved children? Yes…”both and.”

On this Fathers’ Day we are reminded that earthly fathers are meant to be an image of our heavenly Father. Although we should always know that our fathers love us, my experience is that when you’ve been bad, no words strike more fear than the infamous, “Wait until your father gets home!” Earthly fathers image this “both and” of the Trinity. God loves us, but he also expects certain things. We pray for our fathers today that God will strengthen them to carry out their mission. Through them, may we come to know a little bit better the love of the Holy Trinity.

A woman decided to steal a 1st class relic of St. Anthony from the church bearing his name and on the saint’s feast day nonetheless. Now, those who don’t fall into the “religiously stupid” category will quickly note that St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things. What do you suppose the chances would be of a 1st class relic of the patron saint of lost objects staying…lost? I’d say about zero, and that is how this bizarre story ended today. The relic, along with the stupid person who stole it, have been found. Another triumph for St. Anthony who today got himself…unlost.

Today is not any ordinary day. Today is Pentecost. It is a day filled with the power of the Spirit. Today the apostles went from being locked in a room in fear to spilling out onto the streets to boldly proclaim the Gospel. The Spirit was present on another fateful Pentecost in Warsaw Poland in 1979. John Paul II returned to Poland for the 1st time as Pope and told the millions gathered, “Do not be afraid.” The Catholic Church in Poland came out of their locked rooms and the Spirit sowed the seeds that would lead to the end of atheistic communism in just 10 years.

The Spirit continues to come to us today. Pentecost is a day on which we can change the world…one family at a time. All it takes is one family, one person, to say yes to the Holy Spirit and we can change the world. Let’s not try to contain the Holy Spirit. Let’s say yes to the Spirit today, and when you do…do not be afraid.

There is more to reality than what we experience in the material world. Many things are very real that are beyond our senses. Today we celebrate the day when Jesus Ascended into heaven and left this material world. Yet, as he was leaving, he promised that “I am with you always.” As the Church fathers put it, the Christ of history is now present in mystery. Sometimes we think that the apostles had it better because they experienced Christ physically present in the world. The truth is that the presence of Christ which we experience today is every bit as real, more real in fact.

The Second Vatican Council taught that the presence of Christ can be experienced today through the Word of Sacred Scripture, through the Sacraments, the person of priest, and especially through the Eucharist. When we realize that Jesus is with us always, we are no longer tied to just one physical place as the apostles were. Now we are ready for mission. Jesus’ last words to the apostles were instructions to “Go!” So at the end of Mass, after we have been filled with the presence of Christ, we too are told to “Go!” As we are sent we hear Jesus say to us as he did to the apostles, “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

St. Peter reminds us in the 2nd reading today to always be ready to give an explanation for the “reason for your hope.” Perhaps we don’t know the faith as well as we should. Maybe we are afraid when others question or challenge us about teachings of the Church. St. Peter reminds us that the faith is reasonable. Our faith “makes sense” and can be defended. However, our faith is much more than just a reasoned deduction. Hope is not quite as tangible as reason, but is just as real. Our hope points us toward heaven and our relationship with God.

In today’s gospel Jesus says that he goes to prepare a place for us and will then return to take us to be with him forever. It sounds like the end of the world…and it is. But, the language also tells us something about our relationship with God right now. In the time of Jesus, when a couple became engaged it was known as betrothal. The formal period of betrothal began when the husband paid the father of the bride the “bride-price.” The couple was then known as husband and wife. However, they were not yet married. The period of betrothal would last around a year.

During the year of betrothal, the husband had to ensure proper employment such that he could support a family and he had to go and build a home for this new family. Literally, he had to go and prepare a place for his wife and children. After a year, the marriage was sealed when the husband came to the home of the bride and took her in solemn procession into his new home. During this period of betrothal, the couple did not engage in marital relations. Rather, the time of betrothal was meant to prove that the couple could live chastely and were not mere slaves of their passions.

It is in this context that Jesus says in the gospel that he goes to prepare a place for us and will return to bring us to himself. Jesus is saying that he is our bridegroom who has betrothed himself to his bride the Church. This means that in this life we should be waiting expectantly for the coming of Jesus the bridegroom. It also means that during this time of preparation we are called to faithfulness. How are we doing?

We can certainly see that with regard to marriage we could be doing a lot better. Moving in together is no longer seen as the sign of marriage. In fact, couples live together today with almost no commitment at all. It wasn’t too long ago that if a boy tried to take some young lady to live with him outside of marriage that the father of the girl would have been there with a shotgun. Where are the fathers today to protect their daughters? Where are the fathers to show their sons how to be real men and care for women?

St. Philip the apostle begs Jesus today, “Show us the father.” Indeed, we are in dire need of strong fathers who will protect their families from evil. We also must see in Philip’s request the great desire we should all have to be in heaven. During this time of betrothal we pray that we can have the expectant joy of a bride preparing for her husband. We pray that we will be faithful.

We often think of sheep as being cute and fuzzy little creatures that you just want to hug when you see them. However, I was reminded of a different side of sheep recently when I saw a book written by a Protestant pastor entitled, “When Sheep Attack.” We often like to think of ourselves as cute little sheep, but the truth is that sometimes we attack. We often find ourselves frustrated with our shepherds. Yet, we need to stop and think about how we got these shepherds leading the Church in the first place.

The Church does not have the leaders she does because our bishops and priests are are so incredibly talented and holy. In fact the Church succeeds in spite of the often obvious unholiness of her leaders. There can only be one reason that the Church is what it is today, and that is because God is holy. He chooses to work through unworthy servants that he calls to be shepherds of his people. If chose the leaders of the Church, we would probably pick different people than what we’ve got, but then we’d also want to take credit for any success.

Today we thank God that we are not in charge of the Church; he is. If our shepherds are holy men, praise God. If we are frustrated by our shepherds at times, pray for them. Above all, trust that, no matter who the shepherd might be, the voice of the Good Shepherd speaks through them. Learn to hear his voice, no matter how unworthy his instrument may be. May God bless us with holy shepherds…and more of them!

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Like a time capsule left for us in scripture, these words are addressed to us living today. We never saw Jesus during his public ministry. We did not see him die on Good Friday. Except for a few mystics, we have never seen him alive after his resurrection. Yet, billions of Christians all over the world gather today and profess our whole-hearted belief in Jesus Christ. Have you ever stopped to think how amazing this is? St. Paul tells us that “without seeing him, you love him.” On this day that see our beloved Pope John Paul II officially named “blessed,” the words of Jesus remind all of us who believe that truly we too are among the blessed.

An atheist once admitted in a debate that, although he did not believe in the resurrection, the only logical conclusion was that the apostles did. He said it was completely absurd to think that the apostles made up a story of the resurrection, or faked it, or just thought it in their minds. How did he arrive at this conclusion? He said that the lives the apostles led after the resurrection, the testimony that they gave…and especially the testimony of laying down their lives as martyrs…could lead to only one conclusion. The apostles really thought they saw Jesus raised from the dead.

Now this atheist also believed that the apostles were hallucinating, but his conclusion is at least partly right. The lives of the apostles bore witness to what they had seen. What about our lives? We have the same chance that Peter and John had in the Gospel today. They saw an empty tomb and it says that St. John “saw and believed.” We can see the same empty tomb today in Jerusalem. Do we believe? If we do, is there the same kind of evidence in our lives such that even an atheist would have to say of us that there is no doubt that we really believe we have encountered Jesus raised from the dead?

Today, 2000 years later, all Christians gather on this Easter Sunday to boldly proclaim together, “We have seen the Lord!” Alleluia!

It is a great mystery to think that the Almighty God became man and became a part of His own creation. Yesterday we celebrated the incredible mystery that this same God would then take ordinary bread and wine and change them into Himself. However, nothing can compare with what we celebrate today. Today is the strangest of days. On this day we recall the inexplicable truth that God died for us.

This event is made so real today that the sacrifice of the Mass is not celebrated. Today we come confidently before the thrown of grace to receive God’s mercy. We venerate the wood of the cross now become the tree of life and we eat of it’s fruit, Jesus the crucified given us today in Holy Communion. Oh strange and blessed day on which the savior of the world died that we might live. Come, let us worship.

This evening we sing an ancient hymn composed by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Mass of Corpus Christi in the 13th century. While most people will probably never read much of the volumes of theology he wrote, almost everyone is familiar with the words of his famous chant, Pange Lingua. We use the last two verses which begin with the words Tantum Ergo in the liturgy of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Tonight this chant serves to accompany the procession at the end of Mass whereby we spiritually follow Jesus as he leaves the upper room and goes to the Garden of Gethsemane. Tonight we sing of his glorious body and receive that same body through the gift of the Eucharist. Tonight we are Jesus’ “chosen band.”

Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory,
of His flesh the mystery sing;
of the Blood, all price exceeding,
shed by our immortal King,
destined, for the world’s redemption,
from a noble womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing,
stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
then He closed in solemn order
wondrously His life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper,
seated with His chosen band,
He the Pascal victim eating,
first fulfills the Law’s command;
then as Food to His Apostles
gives Himself with His own hand.

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
by His word to Flesh He turns;
wine into His Blood He changes;
what though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
faith her lesson quickly learns.

Down in adoration falling,
This great Sacrament we hail,
Over ancient forms of worship
Newer rites of grace prevail;
Faith will tell us Christ is present,
When our human senses fail.

To the everlasting Father,
And the Son who made us free
And the Spirit, God proceeding
From them Each eternally,
Be salvation, honor, blessing,
Might and endless majesty.

The talk lasts about an hour with 15 minutes of audience questions at the end. If you want to jump to a particular point in the talk the time indexes below can be used. May God bless you and our Church during this Holy Week.

0:00 – Introduction
16:26 – Holy Thursday
29:05 – Good Friday
41:07 – Holy Saturday
1:07:03 – Questions

It was Palm Sunday 1865 and General Ulysses S. Grant and General Robert E. Lee were meeting at Appomattox Courthouse to officially end the Civil War. Grant was the conquering victor. Lee suspected that he would probably be executed for treason. Although Grant had all the power and could have completely crushed Lee’s army, he opted for a different route.  Imagine Lee’s surprise when he is met with a handshake and respectful greeting from Grant. After some friendly conversation Lee surrendered. Rather than imprisonment, trials and executions, Grant merely instructed Lee that his army must promise not to fight any more and they could return to their homes in peace.

Lee himself had chosen surrender because he knew that, while fighting remained possible, it would lead to countless deaths and only a slim chance of victory. Grant knew that the desire of many in the North to punish the South would only lead to more hostility and the end of the union he had fought to protect. The humility of both of these men would eventually allow to the country to recover and become a unified nation after the war. However, none of this would have been possible without the humble example and direction of President Abraham Lincoln.

The month prior to the famous Palm Sunday surrender, in his 2nd inaugural address, Lincoln addressed those in the North who wanted to severely punish the South. He said famously that there must not be any additional spilling of blood. Rather the country must proceed “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Rather than retaliation and revenge, Lincoln envisioned what would come to be called “reconstruction.” 5 days later, on Good Friday, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. Booth thought he would celebrated as a hero. Instead, many in the South were angry at Booth realizing that he had killed the best friend the South could have had after the war.

In our reading of Passion today, we see the kind of violence and retaliation, the mob rule that Lincoln wanted to avoid. Although Jesus had all the power and could have summoned legions of angles to fight for him, he chose not to fight. He remained largely silent at his trial. God would have certainly been justified in calling an end to this “human experiment” of his, given the way we have treated him and his plan for our happiness. Yet, rather than retaliate and punish us, Jesus chose to save us. On Good Friday we killed the greatest friend mankind has ever had. Through his humility and his love for us, Jesus chose not to fight and thus accomplished the greatest event in history, the reconstruction of mankind.

In today’s gospel we hear of the death of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. St. John makes it very clear that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” Yet, when they are most in need and asking for his help, he instead seems to ignore them. When he does finally show up, seemingly too late, Martha and Mary both confront him in confusion and perhaps even anger, “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.”

When our prayers seem to go unanswered we can find good company with Martha and Mary. Yet, just as was true in the gospel, Jesus does in fact hear our prayers. If he seems not to answer it is only because he desires to bring about a greater good. Who could have imagined that Jesus would bring the dead back to life? Jesus promises us that he loves us and will do what is best for us. Ultimately, he promises us eternal life. The question for us is the same he asked Martha, “Do you believe this?”

In today’s gospel we hear of the miraculous cure of the man born blind. Jesus uses to story to point out that there are ways much more serious than physical blindness that affect all of us. The first is a moral blindness caused by sin. It is hard to see the right way to go when stuck in the darkness of sin. Second is an intellectual blindness. Are we blind to the truths of our faith? How well do we really know Jesus? Finally there is a kind of blindness of charity wherein we are blind to Jesus Christ present in our brothers and sisters in need. We pray that this Lent will be a time of purification and enlightenment in which we find ourselves prepared for the coming of the light of the world at Easter.

Jesus never avoided difficult issues in his public ministry. In today’s gospel he is going right through the heart of the controversial region of Samaria where he encounters the woman at the well. Like the woman we often try to avoid our problems by going time and again to “wells” that will never satisfy us. Jesus promises to be living water to permanently quench our thirst. When we find Jesus we can joyfully leave our bucket behind at the well and live in the new freedom of Christ.

We all love those experiences when we seem to be on top of a mountain in our faith. Everything seems so clear and God seems so close. That’s the gift that Jesus gave to Peter, James, and John in today’s gospel. Yet we tend to forget what it took to arrive at this experience. Climbing a mountain is not easy. It takes our effort. Even when we get on top, we know that we can’t stay there. Jesus didn’t intend for his apostles to just remain on top of the mountain. He had a mission for them. We all need those mountaintop experiences of God. Two questions remain for us. Are we will willing to do the work and what will be the result? We pray that this Lent might find us eager to draw close to God and that the result will be a greater desire to go out and spread the good news, to bring others to the mountain of God.

Temptation often seems to leave us frustrated. We ask God why he would allow such obstacles in our life. Yet in today’s Gospel we see Jesus freely entering into the wilderness to be tempted. He goes to do battle with the devil. While we too do battle with the devil, our temptations often come just from our fallen nature, our own human weakness. We shouldn’t get discouraged by temptation, even when we fail. Each time we are tested, it is an opportunity to tell God that we love him. If we had no freedom, there would be no temptation, but there would also be no love.

As you carry out the various Lenten disciplines that you voluntarily undertake this Lent, you might wonder how hard you should be on yourself. The thing about Lent is that there really aren’t any strict rules for “giving things up.” We abstain from meat on Friday’s of course, but beyond that…it’s up to you. So, how much and what to give up? It all depends on how much you want to grow and how many opportunities you want to tell God that you love him.

Current
Dear friends in Christ,
let us ask our Father
to bless these ashes
which we will use
as the mark of our repentance.

Forthcoming
Dear brethren (brothers and sisters), let us humbly ask God our Father
that he be pleased to bless with the abundance of his grace
these ashes, which we will put on our heads in penitence.
O God, who are moved by acts of humility
and respond with forgiveness to works of penance,
lend your merciful ear to our prayers
and in your kindness pour out the grace of your blessing
on your servants who are marked with these ashes,
that, as they follow the Lenten observances,
they may be worthy to come with minds made pure
to celebrant the Paschal Mystery of your Son.

This is just one example of how what we have been praying has in many cases not been a “translation” at all, but rather a redaction or even a new creation. With the new translation, English speaking Catholics will once again be able to know that the prayers we are praying are in fact the same ones being used around the world rather than our own special editing. Much more will come in the upcoming months.

Why do so many people seem to really enjoy Ash Wednesday and actual look forward to Lent? I think we all need to have that day when we are able to draw the line in the sand and head in a new direction. We get a glimpse of how much better we could be and we need a day on which we finally start. Today is that kind of day. We get a new beginning. This makes Lent not a season of sadness, but a season of hope. We hope for a future free from our attachments to sin. We pray for the new freedom of Easter and know that today can be that day when we really start to change our lives. If we’ve been waiting for just the right day to begin our new life, here it is. Today is a very acceptable time.

St. Ignatius teaches that the devil is like the leader of an opposing army that rides around the walls of a city looking for a weak point at which to attack. When the weakness is found it is there that the attack begins. Ignatius proposes that instead of allowing ourselves to be continually attacked we should instead go out and round around our own walls. Upon finding a weakness we should immediately begin to repair it and build it up. Lent is a great time for going out and riding around our walls. We seek to strengthen our weaknesses by taking on voluntary penances. If we challenge ourselves this Lent we will arrive at Easter with our walls in good repair and with much new strength.

We live in a very busy world. It seems that everywhere we look we find stress and anxiety. Today’s gospel is meant to provide us some time to calm down. Jesus asks us to consider the “Lilies of the Field” and how the flowers and other plants and animals don’t worry about anything that we normally do, and yet they are provided for by God. Our peace comes from knowing that God loves us and will provide for us, no matter what our present situation might be. If we can trust in our Heavenly Father, then we will have a peace that the world cannot give.

In this weekend’s gospel, Jesus continues where he left off last week with more hard sayings about what it really means to keep the law. Just when we might be thinking that it is impossible to really keep the commandments, Jesus offers this consoling summation. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Well, that certainly doesn’t seem to offer much comfort. Just in case there was any doubt, yes, Jesus wants us to be perfect. Yet, if we look at the Greek behind this word, perhaps we may still find some hope.

The Greek word translated as “perfect” is “telos.” It’s a world that means refers to the end or reason for something. A perfect bridge would be one that best achieves the end of what a bridge is supposed to do. A perfect human being is therefore one who lives in a way that is ordered to his or her end, his or her “telos.” Jesus is essentially telling us to live up to who we were created to be. We’ve got to know the purpose for which we were created if we are ever going to find fulfillment. We’ve got to know where we’re going if we expect to get there.

St. Paul gives us the answer in today’s 2nd reading. “Do you not know that you are temples of the Holy Spirit?” We were created to be temples of God. That is why Leviticus tells us to “Be Holy just as I your God am Holy.” We were made for holiness; we were made to be with God forever in heaven. That is our “telos”. If we know that this is our reason for existence then think how much difference it can make in our lives. Every decision now comes down to one question. “Does this help me achieve my end or not?” “Does this help me get to heaven or not?” If we want to be perfect then let’s choose the things that will get us to heaven. Now that doesn’t sound so impossible after all.

Sometimes we think of the Old Testament as the time when God had all those rules and laws. We think that Jesus came and did away with all those silly rules and just told us to love everybody. Today’s gospel shows us that this is hardly the case. Jesus tells us plainly that he has come not to abolish even the smallest part of the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus takes several examples from the 10 commandments and seems to really raise the bar. In fact, what he is doing is showing us what the commandments were all about in the first place.

The Christian life cannot be simply about rules. It’s about what is in our hearts. Each of Jesus’ examples points beyond the law to look deeper within. When we look at what is in our hearts, what do we find? If we don’t like what’s there, we know we need to go to confession. Nothing that is in our heart will be able to remain there very long; it will come out some way. Jesus offers us not an abolishing of rules, but rather the freedom to live as God intended. St. Paul reminds us that the fulfillment of the law is love. Let’s hope that one day we can look into our hearts and there find only love. Then we will have fulfilled the law.

The Rite of Baptism reminds parents that they are to be “the first teachers of their children in the ways of faith…may they be also the best of teachers.” Parents have a sacred role in helping their children to know and love God and, ultimately, to arrive together in heaven. Our Catholic schools have long be a valuable tool in assisting parents in this mission. Today we begin a week of celebration of the great accomplishment of our Catholic schools in this country. We give thanks for the faith and those who have passed it on faithfully for 2000 years.

I delivered the following talk as the keynote address at the annual Kansans For Life congressional prayer breakfast held in Topeka. In attendance were the various senators and representatives that serve Kansas both in on the national level in Washington and on the state level here in Topeka. Newly inaugurated governor, Sam Brownback, and members of his administration were also present. It was a great honor to deliver this address on the 150th anniversary of the day Kansas became the 34th state. May God continue to bless Kansas and use us to bring about a culture of life.

Address to the 2011 Kansas Congressional Pro-Life Prayer Breakfast (audio – mp3)

Address to the 2011 Kansas Congressional Pro-Life Prayer Breakfast (text – pdf)

I was also priviledged to deliver the keynote address at this breakfast two years ago. Video of that address can be found under the entry for March 11, 2009.

Today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord marks the conclusion on the season of Christmas. In the Gospel we hear the voice of the Father speaking of Jesus saying, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” At Christmas we celebrate that Jesus was truly human and so it must have made him very happy to know that he was loved by his father. We too are beloved sons and daughters of God. In our baptism God claimed us for his own. Through all the joys and difficulties of life we return to the surety of our identity. Who we are is not dependent upon how much money we have or how successful we are in the world’s eyes. Who we are was established at our baptism. We are the beloved of God and He is pleased with us.

“The hormone oestrogen could be fuelling head and neck cancers in young women, explaining why the disease is on the increase in that group, a US team says.”

This left me confused. It doesn’t really explain why “the disease is on the increase.” The whole premise of the article is that oestrogen is causing cancer. The logical question would be “what has caused this apparent increase in oestregen that is causing the cancer?”

Alas, the article doesn’t answer that obvious question. It doesn’t even raise it as a question. So, I did a quick Google search on this mysterious cancer-causing hormone. It turns out that oestregen is the main ingredient in the oral contraceptive pill. Who would have thought it?

It seems like the more correct headline would have read “Contraceptive Pill May Fuel Oral Cancer in Young Women.” I wonder why they didn’t just come out and say that. If a chemical taken by millions of women turns out to cause cancer, the media would want people to know, right?

The word Epiphany means “to make manifest.” Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem, is today made manifest as symbolized by the arrival of the magi. It is also traditional on this day to solemnly announce the date of Easter for the upcoming year. As you listen to this chant, maybe the dates aren’t so important any more, but notice the structure. Everything revolves around Easter. Everything else is reckoned according to the fixing of this date first. Likewise we are told that what Easter is to the year, Sunday is to the week.

The new civil year is often a time when we get a new calendar. With today’s proclamation in mind you might ask yourself, “What do I put on my calendar…what is most important?” Particularly, as we look at our weekly calendar, can we truly say that Sunday is the center and everything else revolves around this most important day? What place does Sunday Mass have on our calendars? If someone looked at our calendar, would they be able to conclude that Sunday Mass is the central focus of our week around which everything else takes its place?

The star of Bethlehem manifested the presence of Jesus to the magi. We pray that our lives will also make God manifest to those around us.

Mothers protect their children; that’s what they do. It is not too hard to imagine Mary protecting the baby Jesus and then the child Jesus. She would have even sought to protect him in his adult life. Today’s feast, which would seem to be about Mary, is another example of Mary protecting her son…but this time in the realm of theology. To say that Mary is the “Mother of God” is not so much to say something about her, but to say something about Jesus. Namely, Jesus is God…always was…didn’t become God sometime after he was born.

Mary gave birth to a person who had two natures, one human and one divine. While Mary is not the origin of Jesus’ divine nature, when speaking of Jesus’ divine nature it is correct and necessary to say that Mary gave birth to God. To say anything less would be to say that Jesus was not God when he was born. May Mary continue to protect us during this new year, even in the realm of theology. May she lead us closer to Jesus her son.

One of the most beloved songs of Advent is the famous “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” However, few people are aware of the origin of this classic. During the last 7 days of Advent, the official Evening Prayer of the Church contained in the Liturgy of the Hours has a series of special antiphons to accompany the chanting of the Magnificat. Each antiphon invokes a different title of of the coming messiah. They also all happen to start with the letter/word “O” and hence have come to be known as the “O” antiphons. Each of the 7 verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is actually an arrangement of one of these famous antiphons which date back to the 5th century.

Today’s homily explores each of these seven antiphons and how they can make Advent, and the famous song, more meaningful. The Latin and English texts of the antiphons follow:

LATIN: O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. 
ENGLISH: O Wisdom, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come, and teach us the way of prudence.

LATIN: O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.. 
ENGLISH: O Lord and Ruler the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: come, and redeem us with outstretched arms.

LATIN: O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.
ENGLISH: O Root of Jesse, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: come, to deliver us, and tarry not.

LATIN: O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.
ENGLISH: O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: come, and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.

LATIN: O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbra mortis.
ENGLISH: O dawn of the east, brightness of light eternal, and sun of justice: come, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

LATIN: O Rex gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.
ENGLISH: O King of the gentiles and their desired One, the cornerstone that makes both one: come, and deliver man, whom you formed out of the dust of the earth.

LATIN: O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.
ENGLISH: O Emmanuel, God with us, our King and lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: come to save us, O Lord our God. 

The time of Advent and Christmas is filled with traditional stories. The greatest story ever told is that of the birth of Jesus. We’ve got stories of shepherds and magi. We even have beloved secular stories like The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol. One lesser known classic Christmas story is actually found in the book of Number in chapters 23 and 24. Our first reading today gives us the very end, but misses the best part of the story. Nothing says “Christmas” like a talking donkey, and that’s exactly what we have for your listening pleasure today. So light the fire, gather the kids, press play, and relax for the telling of a Christmas classic.

The prophet Isaiah prophesies in today’s first reading that “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.” The places referred to here are not generic but actually refer to the region south of the Dead Sea on Israel’s southeastern border. This region was the land of Israel’s great rival, the land of Edom. The kingdom’s of Judah and Edom were constantly waring back and forth and taking over the other’s land. Edom was a real thorn in the side of Judah and there was never peace with them but always stress and tension.

It is to this dry and battle-plagued region that Isaiah addresses words of comfort. “Fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication.” God is coming to smite Edom and bring peace to his people in Judah. Notice that God’s people do not save themselves. They need their vindicator. The words of Isaiah are also meant to bring comfort to us today.

What are the stresses in our life that are constantly tugging at our borders like Edom? No doubt there are many external pressures. Yet, the greatest force that makes war on us and robs us of our peace is our own sinfulness. How often we become discouraged by our sins and weighed down with guilt. The devil leads us into sin and then is there constantly beating us up over our failures. God says to us “Fear not!” He comes to be our vindicator and wants to bring peace to our borders.

Notice however that, like Israel, we cannot save ourselves. Our vindicator comes to us through the Sacrament of Pennance to bring us his peace and healing. The other problem Edom created for Israel was that they cut off the pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem so that people could not worship God in freedom. Sin does the same thing to us. It prevents us from worshiping God with a clean heart in freedom.

This Advent, let’s get to confession. Let’s allow God to defeat the Edom in our life and open the way home to full participation in the sacramental life of the Church. If we do this, we will indeed have great cause to sing Gaudete, Rejoice! Our God comes to save us and bring us his peace.

In today’s celebration we recognize the great gift that God gave to Mary in protecting her from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception in the womb of her mother Anne. In this singular privilege, we see that God had a mission in mind for Mary from before she even existed. Indeed, he had her in mind right from the beginning in Genesis when the first woman failed to say yes to God. Mary would be the new Eve that would say yes to God and her son would crush the head of the serpent.

God preserved Mary from original sin in order to prepare her to be the Mother of God. That was the mission for which she was created. We too have our mission. God also knew us before we were conceived. As was true for Mary, we’ve got to find our mission for which God has prepared us. We honor God today for the gift given to Mary. However, we also honor Mary for saying yes to this rather frightening and unknown plan of God. We pray that through her intercession, we too may always say yes to God’s plan for our life.

One can hardly imagine Christmas without the traditional symbol of the Christmas tree. However, in today’s first reading the prophet Isaiah gives us an even greater symbol for this time of year…the “Christmas stump.”

Isaiah prophesies that “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” Jesse was the father of King David. David was of course the greatest king in the history of Israel. It was to David that God made the special promise that one of his heirs would always be seated on his throne ruling over God’s people. By the time of Isaiah, David’s family tree should have been, figuratively speaking, a huge and stately tree. So why a stump?

Sadly, God’s people quickly turned away from God and his promises. By the time of Isaiah, the dynasty of David had been destroyed through division and exile. It was no more than a stump. Yet, in the midst of this despair, Isaiah prophesies that the tree is not dead. In fact, a shoot will sprout from this stump of Jesse. This shoot is the coming messiah, the everlasting king to rule of God’s people forever just as he had promised.

Jesus is this shoot prophesied by Isaiah. Just as the people of Israel looked with hope for the coming of the messiah, so we too wait expectantly during this Advent for the coming of Jesus. Just as Isaiah prophesied hope in the midst of sadness, a shoot from an apparently dead stump, so we too must look to Jesus to be our hope in the midst of our own struggles and difficulties.

Today, the Church extends it’s branches to every corner of the world just as God promised David so long ago. We have our king Jesus, a descendant of David, ruling over all peoples everywhere. If our life seems to be more like a stump than a fruitful tree right now, Isaiah’s prophecy is our answer; Jesus is the answer. Have hope. From this stump will come a shoot.

The Thanksgiving holiday is often a time known for stuffing ourselves with turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and a whole host of other delectable cuisine. If we were to have a mascot for this 1st Sunday of Advent it seems that a big stuffed turkey would fit nicely. Yet now in the Church we begin something new. A new liturgical year has begun and the new season of Advent calls for something different than the Thanksgiving feasting we’ve been doing since Thursday. The Church gives us three rather counter-cultural guides through the season, the prophet Isaiah, St. John the Baptist, and our Blessed Mother Mary.

In today’s first reading, Isaiah calls us to focus on the mountain of the Lord. It’s difficult to climb a mountain, but Isaiah beckons us up. From the top of a mountain you gain perspective. You are able to look forward and backward, to see where you’ve come from and where you’re going. Advent is a time for gaining some perspective and taking the time to contemplate in quiet as on a mountaintop with God.

Secondly, we have St. John the Baptist. Whereas everyone seems to be running busily and buying things, eating large feasts, and trying to accumulate presents, we instead find John in the wilderness. He gets away from it all and goes out to eat locusts and wild honey. That’s the true food of Advent. John’s great message to us is simple, “repent.” Perhaps the path to God is a little crooked. Take some time this Advent to turn back to God, to get to confession. The real threat to our Christmas joy will not be a lack of presents, but a lack of repentance.

Finally, Mary is the star of the season of Advent. She lives simply in a little cave in Nazareth where, in the peace and quiet, she is able to hear God’s voice. She encounters the angel Gabriel and says yes to God’s plan. Above all, Mary is marked by great joy. We’ve all got to have the joyful longing for the birth of Jesus the way Mary did as she carried him in her womb. Notice too that in her joy Mary’s first thought is to run to help her cousin Elizabeth. Rather than selfishly focusing on herself as is so easy to do during Advent, Mary is thinking of how to help others, how she herself can be a present to someone else. Acts of charity are so important to having a good Advent.

These three great figures of the story of Christmas are our guides through this season. If we follow society we are likely to arrive at Christmas day worn out, tied from all the partying and shopping, and probably broke. Let’s instead follow the example of Isaiah, John, and Mary. If we do that, we will arrive at Christmas spiritually filled, full of God’s presence, and ready to begin celebrating.

As we celebrate this last Sunday in Ordinary Time we honor Jesus Christ our King. We celebrate and look forward to his return in glory. Yet we also prepare to “start over” at the beginning as the season of Advent begins next weekend. So is it the end or the beginning? Well, it’s both. The kingdom of God which we celebrate is truly present “now,” but is also “not yet” fully here and is still coming. This is the tension that we live in as we continue our pilgrimage through time.

Our church building actually helps us to keep our focus on the end. When we enter the church building we are, for a brief period, leaving the outside world and are able to touch heaven. Whenever we gather for Mass, we come from the “not yet” of our everyday life, with all its sufferings and struggles, into the eternal “now” celebrated in the liturgy where heaven touches earth and Jesus Christ truly reigns as king. As we enter the church we may not think much about the door through which we enter, but it has a significance. In traditional architecture the door to a church is often designed the reflect that of the classical “triumphal arch” such as the Arch of Constantine in Rome with its three gates. This is to remind us that as we enter the church, we do so a victors. We are triumphant in the victory that Christ has won for us.

Our church building also points us to the “not yet” of Christ’s reign. We still await his return in glory. Churches used to be built facing toward the east and both the priest and the people faced east together in one procession. As the fathers of the Church teach, Jesus ascended to the east and promised to return just as he went. We look to the east with great expectation. Just as the sun rises in the east bringing the hope of a new day, so too we look to the east awaiting the new day of the return of the king. We likewise remember that the Garden of Eden was in the east and thus we are reminded here we are in exile and long for our true home with God.

While we eagerly await the return of Jesus Christ our King we also know that with his return comes judgement. As we look to the east we traditionally see on the wall the cross, the symbol of our victory. It reminds us that we have a king that gives us only the rules that will help us and, even when we break them, he takes the punishment on himself. We must do our part as we make our way through the “not yet” of this world, but God’s mercy also allows us to be eager in expecting the return of Jesus Christ the King.

Today’s Gospel paints what seems to be a pretty bleak picture of discipleship. If you follow Jesus, he promises that everyone will hate you and you’ll be killed. Rather than happy days without end, Jesus promises his followers suffering and trials. As we come to the end of our liturgical year, we should see these sufferings not as a destructive force, but rather as a purifying fire.

We tend to look at a forest fire and immediately want to put it out. Yet, sometimes a fire is exactly what the forest needs to be healthy. The fire burns up all the dead wood and debris and all the undesirable plants and trees. In the process seeds are released for new trees. The fire actually rejuvenates the forest even as it seemingly destroys.  God’s love for us is a lot like this. He is a purifying fire that wants to burn up all the selfishness and sin that threatens to choke out the beautiful forest of his grace.

At the end of the Gospel Jesus reminds us that, in the face of all the suffering and trials, there is one thing we must do…persevere. The Greek work for perseverance (hypomone) implies patiently baring with difficulty, holding out until the end. Yet it also has a second meaning. It also means waiting expectantly, longing, hoping. We don’t just bear the difficulties of life with no purpose. They point us forward to a time when there will be no more suffering. We need a longing for the coming of that day.

The prophet Malachi in the first reading speaks of the coming of this day. There will be fire like an oven, but for those who love God he tells us that the “sun of justice” will comfort us with his “healing rays.” As we go through the difficulties of this life we’ve got to have our eyes fixed on the east, awaiting the rising of the sun of justice. This is the day of the coming of our king that will end all the suffering in his healing rays and bring about a new heavens and a new earth. We celebrate his feast next week with the Solemnity of Christ the King.

Until then, our task is clear. Hypomone…perseverance…enduring and longing. “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

In today’s Gospel, some of the Jewish leaders try to trap Jesus in what appears to be a debate about marriage laws. However, the supposed question is really a subtle attack on the teaching about the resurrection. Jesus of course does not fall into the trap. Rather, as he so often does, he turns the tables and uses it as an opportunity for teaching. However, Jesus’ answer to the question might create even more questions for us. He says simply that in heaven there is no marriage.

Given all the beautiful things the Church teaches about marriage, what is Jesus trying to say here? If marriage is so holy, why would there not be marriage in heaven? The key here is to understand that when we acknowledge that marriage is a sacrament, we are saying that it is a sacred sign. It is a sign that points to something else. In the case of marriage, the sign of the love between spouses in this world is meant to point us to the love of God.

The reason that there is no marriage in heaven is because in heaven it will be as though we are all married to God. The intimate union of life and love shared between spouses is only a foreshadowing and small part of the infinite love of God we are all meant to experience in heaven. This truth helps make sense of the celibate vocation as well. The celibate priest or religious forgoes the earthly sign of marriage to point to the heavenly reality.

In this month of November, we begin by recognizing all the saints. They remind us that heaven is our goal. Let us pray that during this month we might stir up a great desire for heaven, to pray for the poor souls in purgatory, that one day we will all be together at the heavenly marriage feast.

This Sunday the Church gives us a day to celebrate priesthood. It also happens that All Saints Day is tomorrow. As we look at the history of the priesthood we are thankful for all the great saints that God has called to this ministry and the many ordinary priests that have impacted our lives.

When we look at the beginning of the New Testament priesthood, we of course look at the apostles. If one were going to pick the perfect group of people to lead a new church, one can hardly imagine picking this group. One would expect to find Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes. Certainly if one were looking for someone perfect, the Blessed Mother would have been the ideal priest. Instead we find this imperfect and sinful bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and even traitors. What was Jesus thinking?

Perhaps his was thinking that he wanted it to be perfectly clear that the Church will not achieve its mission and be successful because of the superb and perfect leadership of its priests. No, the Church is what it is today solely because of Jesus Christ, the one perfect high priest. Priesthood Sunday is necessarily a celebration of the priesthood of Jesus.

As we look beyond the apostles, we find quite a diverse group of saints who were priests. We’ve got great intellectual powerhouses like St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine. We’ve got humble confessors like the Cure of Ars and heroic martyrs like St. Maximilian Kolbe. Yet, probably the priests that are most special to us are the ones we have known, the ones that have touched our lives.

Today we are grateful for all those priest who have been there to help us when we’re down, to share our joys, to provide wise counsel, and to provide the sacraments. Priests have always been just your average sinners that God chooses to do something miraculous. Pray for them today. Pray for more of them. Most of all, be thankful today for the gift of the priesthood.

The Beautiful Hands of a Priest

We need them in life’s early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek it while tasting life’s woes.

When we come to this world we are sinful,
The greatest as well as the least.
And the hands that make us pure as angels
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness
Their dignity stands alone.

For there in the stillness of morning
Ere the sun has emerged from the east,
There God rests between the pure fingers
Of the beautiful hands of a priest.

When we are tempted and wander
To pathways of shame and sin
‘Tis the hand of a priest that absolve us.
Not once but again and again.

And when we are taking life’s partner
Other hands may prepare us a feast
But the hands that will bless and unite us,
Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress,
What can a poor sinner do better
Than to ask Him who chose them to bless

When the death dews on our lids are falling,
May our courage and strength be increased
By seeing raised o’er us in blessing
The beautiful hands of a priest.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul writes to his beloved disciple Timothy and offers a sort of farewell address. In summing up his life, St. Paul beautifully states that he has “fought the good fight,” “run the race,” and “kept the faith.”

St. Paul reminds us that this life is not all about peace and contentment. It’s a fight, a battle. We’ve got to fight and fight hard and it will at times be tough. Today we often make the mistake of thinking that if there is conflict that something has gone wrong. St. Paul promises that there will indeed be conflict. St. Paul did not die at peace with all men; he had real enemies…and so will we. The point is not avoid having enemies, but to make sure that we have the right enemies.

Related to fighting the good fight, St. Paul urges us to run the race to the finish. Life can be long and monotonous like a marathon. We might be tempted to get tied and stop running, to give up. We’ve got to keep running, to get past “the wall” and catch our second wind.

Finally, St. Paul tells us that he kept the faith. As he is near his death he has no possesions. He doesn’t even have his freedom. Objectively speaking it would appear that he has nothing to “leave behind” to Timothy. Yet, despite this, St. Paul does have one treasured possesion that he has faithfully kept. He has kept the faith. This is what he leaves to Timothy and it is what has been left to us. The faith is our great inheritence. We pray that when we die, we can also be proud to have passed on the faith to our children, that we can say with St. Paul that we too have fought the good fight, run the race, and kept the faith.

Sometimes it seems as though God does not hear our prayers. We pray and pray about things that are really important but there seems to be no answer, or at least not the answer we want. We might be tempted to grow weary and quit praying. We might even get mad at God. This reminded me of the movie Evan Almighty from 2006. There is a great scene where Evan’s wife and “God” sit down to talk. Joan had prayed that God would bring the family closer together, but things don’t seem to be going well. “God” (Morgan Freeman) then has this wonderful line:

“Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

Sometimes God’s answer to our prayers is just such an opportunity. We’ve all marveled this past week at the minors who were rescued in Chile. Interviews have shown that the minors learned two very important things while they were trapped. They learned that they needed God most of all and, secondly, that they needed other people. One can hardly think of two more important things in life to realize. Yet, how many of us would have prayed that God trap us in a mine for two months for God to teach us this? This difficult situation actually turned into one of God’s “opportunities.”

We may not ever be stuck in a mine, but each of us needs to find time to learn the important things in life, like God and family. The next time you’re praying for something, don’t be surprised if God chooses to answer your prayer with one of his famous “opportunities.”

Today we read in our gospel about 10 lepers who are all healed by Jesus. However, only one returns to thank Jesus. We might look at this and think the the moral of the story is clear; 1 leper is thankful and 9 are ungrateful. Maybe there’s a deeper message. I would think that all 10 lepers were very thankful. The difference with the one that comes back is that he knows not only what he is thankful for, but he knows to whom he has to go to offer that thanks.

Like the lepers, we too have much for which we should be thankful. Likewise we need to realize the one to whom we owe our thanks. The word Eucharist means thanksgiving. It is God that deserves our thanks and the Eucharist is the perfect place to offer that thanks.

A baby hippopotamus was born recently at the Topeka Zoo. While hippos may not be the most attractive of God’s creatures, you have to admit that this little guy is cute. His birth, however, created quite a stir at the zoo because his arrival was a complete surprise. The zoo had recently acquired a male hippo, Tucker, to accompany the already resident female hippo, Mara. On the surface it doesn’t seem so surprising that a new little baby hippo would result. However, this situation has a few twists and the facts may just save your marriage.

You see, the zoo keepers didn’t want Mara getting pregnant so they were giving her a high dose of a contraceptive grain. The comments of a zoo official caught my attention.

“They had noticed that Mara and Tucker were beginning to try and mate, so they wanted to make sure they were giving her the right amount of grain.”

That seems logical enough. If two hippos are going to mate and you don’t want a pregnancy you should make sure that the female is on the correct dose of contraception, right? The following comment throws the first one into a whole new light.

“[T]hey…upped the grain and Tucker seemed to not want to mate anymore so that was a good sign that it was working.”

Did you catch that? The fact that Tucker was interested in mating with Mara was a sign to the zoo keepers that something must be wrong with the contraception. They knew they had fixed the problem when Tucker lost interest in Mara. This reminded me of something that I had learned about contraception within human relationships a long time ago.

I was once at a conference with the famous Theology of the Body scholar Mary Shivanandan. She presented a scientific study on the use of contraception throughout the world and one particular stat has stuck with me to this day. She presented the findings of a study that showed that couples who practice Natural Family Planning have sex way more often than couples who use contraception. I assumed this had to with the greater relational communication that is required of couples using NFP as well as just the more authentic love that is expressed among these couples.

Fast forward a few years and I was at another conference listening to the equally famous Janet Smith talking on contraception. She presented a study done with monkeys in which a male monkey was placed in an environment with multiple female monkeys. When the females were given contraception, the male monkey lost all interest in the females, began engaging in sexual acts by himself and then eventually with other male monkeys. A farmer pointed out that anyone who works animals knows that when a cow is in heat the bull will practically rip down the fence to get to her.

These two conferences came back to me when I read the story of the new baby hippo. Zoo keepers are smart enough to know that males are attracted to females that are fertile, but not to females that are infertile. This is part of God’s design. When is a female infertile for an extended period? When she’s pregnant. That’s how contraception works. It tricks the woman’s body into thinking she’s pregnant…for a long time. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why the zoo keepers misjudged the hippos. When Tucker lost interest in Mara they thought it was because they had gotten the contraception right. The truth was that Mara was not experiencing the “fake” pregnancy of contraception but was actually pregnant. The symptoms are the same.

Think today about how many people use contraception because they want to have sex more often and whenever they want. They think that NFP would mean less sex, less often. The studies above and the new hippo show why this is completely backward. We tend to think that we know everything about how our bodies work and that we are in control. The truth is that things are way more complicated than we realize, especially when it comes to attraction among men and women. Even the sense of smell plays an important role. Contraception messes up God’s design in ways we don’t even understand. We should, however, be smart enough to learn a lesson from some hippos.

Zoo keepers knew the contraception was inadequate when Tucker wanted to mate with Mara and they knew that it was working properly when Tucker lost interest. Women, does it seem that your husband has lost interest in you or that your love life just doesn’t have the excitement that it should? It may be surprising, but some hippos may just save your marriage.

This weekend all of the Boy Scouts in the Kansas City area got together to have a campout celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts. It was wet and muddy and I had Mass in the middle of it. It was the kind of campout that brings out the true scouts amongst the mere wimps. You see, scouts aren’t afraid to get dirty. Any normal person would be happy to sleep inside on a nice soft bed and wake up to TV and a microwave for breakfast. Scouts are not such people. We like it hard. The harder the better. Scouts like a challenge because it brings out the best in us.

Our Gospel reading today speaks of a man who was afraid to get dirty. He sat around in purple garments eating off fine linen and probably never had a challenge in his life. Meanwhile a beggar named Lazarus was literally right at his door. To the rich man Lazarus was dirty and inconvenient.

Do we sometimes miss Lazarus right at our door because we don’t want to “get dirty?” Are we too stuck in our “comfort zone” to accept the challenge to go out of our way to help someone? Today’s Gospel is a warning to us. Let us listen to Moses and the prophets. Let’s not be afraid of the challenge of loving our brothers and sisters in need, and let’s not be afraid to get a little dirty if that’s what it takes.

The 2nd reading today gives us two very important statements. On the one hand, St. Paul tells us that God wishes “that all men be saved.” On the other hand, we are told that “there is one God and one mediator…Jesus Christ.” In a society filled with all kinds of religious beliefs, these statements might seem to be at odds. If there is no salvation apart from Jesus, how can “all men be saved” without Jesus?

First, we have to realize that not all will be saved. It is true that Jesus died for everyone, but not all will accept him. We can sometimes think of our Catholic faith as no more than “one road among many” all leading to the same place, namely heaven. This is actually a heresy known as “indifferentism.” This heresy teaches that it doesn’t really make a difference what religious faith you practice so long as you do it faithfully. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our Catholic faith is special. Jesus Christ died for our sins because we really needed to be saved that we might go to heaven. Jesus died that he might give us the Church, his bride. He wanted us to have the Eucharist, the Sacraments, and the fullness of the faith. To say that it doesn’t matter whether you’re Catholic or not is to say that Jesus died for us, but it wasn’t necessary and doesn’t really matter because everyone goes to heaven anyway. It’s easy to see why this is a heresy.

But what about all the non-Catholics? The Church teaches that everyone who goes to heaven only does so because of the death of Jesus. However, not everyone really knows Jesus. This is why we have to evangelize. Thus, the Church also teaches that those who “through no fault of their own” do not know Jesus or his Church can also be saved. It doesn’t mean that it will be easy, but it is possible.

We should in fact rejoice to be Catholic and want everyone to share in the fullness of the truth. However, the sad reality is that we as Catholics often take our faith for granted. Many Protestants do a whole lot better with what they’ve got. Many Catholics are  going to be surprised to see how many good Muslims, Jews, Protestants, and others are in heaven. God does indeed will that all might be saved. Let us resolve to do our best to make sure that we’re in that number when the saints go marching in.

There is a classic scene in the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in which King Arthur encounters “The Black Knight.” King Arthur duels with the Black Knight and cuts off his arm, and then his other arm, and then both legs, all the while the Black Knight is minimizing the extent of the damage and continuing to taunt King Arthur. The scene is comical precisely because the Black Knight refuses to admit how bad things really are. While this scene is fictional and funny, the tragic truth is that we see something similar in our own lives.

Think of all the ways in which we are wounded, particularly by sin. We have mortal wounds clinging to our souls. Yet, how often are we like the Black Knight, pretending that things really aren’t all that bad? We’re like the sheep that wanders away from the flock and then, even when the shepherd comes to rescue us, we refuse to go.

The prodigal son in the gospel is our great example. Unlike the Black Knight, the son realizes just how bad things are. He knows that he has sinned, that he is far away from home and that he needs help. This is the most important moment in his life. It is in this moment that he begins to head back home. When he nears his father’s house, the son encounters his father running out to meet him with great joy. This same welcome awaits all of us when we turn back to our Father. So let’s admit today that everything is not “OK.” Let’s get to confession and find our loving Father welcoming us home to the banquet, the banquet of the Eucharist.

Jesus gives us several hard sayings in today’s gospel that make it sound pretty tough to be a disciple. “Hate your father and mother…take up your cross…renounce all your possessions.” In the middle of these sayings he gives us two parables. If you build a tower, you need to make sure you have enough resources. If you go into battle you need to know if you have the strength. Jesus asks us today if we have what it takes to be a disciple.

The truth is that it’s not easy to be a disciple of Jesus. We like to think that everyone goes to heaven and that we can kind of just go with the flow and be alright. Jesus has something else in mind. Every athlete knows that if you want to win that you’ve got to work hard. There are no trophies given out just for showing up. Shouldn’t we expect that the prize of eternal salvation would require at least the amount of effort we put into an athletic competition?

The good news is that we don’t do this all by ourselves. We do have the resources to finish; we do have the strength to fight because Jesus fights with us. Let us resolve to do our part and not treat our faith as cheap. Let us fight hard to win the heavenly crown.  It’s worth the cost.

We tend not to like discipline. It brings up unhappy memories of being punished for breaking the rules. Yet, our 2nd reading today tells us not to begrudge the discipline of God. Rather we should be thankful that we have a loving father that corrects our mistakes. God knows that the only way we can grow in holiness is for him to discipline us when we do things that are harmful to ourselves and others.

However, in addition to this discipline that is imposed for doing wrong, there is another kind of discipline. There is the discipline that we might choose to impose on ourselves…self-discipline. Athletes do this all the time in order to get better and grow stronger. The same is true for the spiritual life. If we expect to become spiritually strong then we’ve got to do more than we’re doing.

Jesus tells us plainly in the gospel that we should strive to enter by the narrow gate. Many, he says, are not strong enough. I’m starting a weightlifting program right now in order to make my body stronger. I’ve learned that if all we ever do is lift our own bodies then our muscles get used to this. It’s no big deal. We have to try to lift something that is almost too heavy for us so that our muscles can wake up and realize that they need to get stronger. In the spiritual life we also have to stretch ourselves. Let’s resolve this weekend to add some new exercises for our souls, to stretch ourselves spiritually to lift more than we think we can. Only this way can we hope to have the strength to enter the narrow gate.

The dogma of the Assumption teaches that, at the end or her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken body and soul to heaven. Just as no corruption of sin touched her body in life, so no corruption was allowed to touch her body in death. Christians have always believed this, but it is interesting to note that the dogma was not formally proclaimed by the Church until 1950. Why?

The Marian year of 1950 followed shortly after the end of World War II. Throughout the world we were being confronted with the tragic and shocking pictures coming from those who liberated Hitler’s concentration camps. The newspapers featured picture after picture of dead bodies piled on top of each other. Everywhere you looked there were images of human bodies treated as if they were just trash to be thrown out. The sight, as well as the knowledge of what caused this, left many demoralized and questioning, ”Is this all we’re worth?”

In the face of this, Pope Pius XII inquired if perhaps it would be an opportune time to proclaim the dogma of the Assumption and the request was met with overwhelming approval. The fact that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven was set forth as a great affirmation of the goodness of the body. We’re not trash. We are body and soul and both are sacred. Our bodies are holy, temples of the Holy Spirit. The fact that Mary is in heaven, both body and soul, points to what awaits all of us. At the end of our earthly life, our bodies too are meant to be in heaven. Let us find strength and hope from this truth today. Let us treat our bodies as sacred knowing that that we too, body and soul, are meant for eternal glory in heaven.

This talk looks at the practical details of the various parts of the Mass as well as the theological background behind them and how to get the most out of Mass.

People who heard this talk might also enjoy my Theology on Tap presentation I gave last month along similar lines.

The 2nd reading this weekend holds up our father Abraham as the great model of faith. Yet what is faith really? We tend to equate faith today with some irrational belief in things that otherwise just don’t make sense. This is not faith at all. The Church has always maintained that faith and reason go together. The things we believe can and should make sense to us. Yet, faith is much more than accepting a bunch of “things.” Fundamentally, faith is the belief in a person.

The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Abraham had faith because he knew “the one who made the promise was trustworthy.” Ultimately, our faith is a trust in Jesus Christ, a belief in the person of Jesus Christ and his plan for our lives. This is not always easy, but we follow because we trust. In time, things may all make sense and we may come to believe a set of teachings, but at the core of the Christian life is a trust in Jesus. Let us strive to know him and to follow him with our whole hearts.

As a Boy Scout, I like to go camping and particularly I like backpacking. Backpacking provides an interesting challenge in that you simply can’t take all the “stuff” you might want to. You have to leave a lot of stuff behind that might be useful, but ultimately too heavy or just not necessary. Jesus is saying something similar in the Gospel today. Martha seems to get criticized for being “anxious and worried about many things.” It’s not that the things she’s doing aren’t good. It’s just that she’s doing all these “good” things while missing what Jesus calls “the one thing necessary.”

How often do we do this same thing in our lives. We are busy doing “many things” all the while loosing sight of the “one thing” we need most, namely God. Think of how much time we spend on sports, especially our kids. It’s always sad to hear that someone missed Mass because of sports. It’s not that sports are bad, but choosing sports over Mass is missing out on the “one thing” in favor of the “many.” The same is true of all the work that we adults do. Supposedly we work to provide for our families. Yet, how often today do we work so much that we don’t have time for our families. We’ve become busy with many things and lost sight of the one thing that was the point in the first place.

Let us look carefully at our lives and, like good Scouts, do what we like to call a “shakedown.” Let’s take a good look at all the stuff we’re carrying around in our pack and see if maybe we’ve got too much of a good thing in some areas. Doing as many activites as possible is like carrying everything we can in our pack. It just causes you to fall over and lie on the ground unable to move. What are some things in our life that, while good, are getting in the way of the greatest good?

St. Augustine reminds us that, “Our hearts are restless until the rest in you, O lord.” Let’s take some time to put things in balance in our life and find peace for our restless hearts. If we know that God is the “one thing necessary” then we can follow Augustine’s other great advice, “Love God and do what you will.”

The first reading today describes several cases of injustice that would seem to cry out for God to “do something about it.” Yet, God’s ways are not our ways. He does indeed care about our problems and injustices, but his way of dealing with it may not be exactly what we would want. It can seem like he doesn’t hear our prayers. As we celebrate Mary today, we are reminded that it took God from the fall of Adam and Eve all the way to the time of Mary to send his promised Messiah. God won his great victory over evil not with an invading army, but with the quiet “yes” of a young girl living in a cave in Nazareth. Jesus himself won the ultimate victory not by “crying out in the street” as the gospel reminds, but by his silence at his trial and the silence of his death on the cross. God does indeed hear and answer our prayers. Let us be like Mary and say yes to God and allow him to work in his patient, sometimes silent, way.

With so many different “churches” offering opportunities to “worship” one must ask the question, “What is worship?” “Where does it come from and how do you do it?” This talk explores the origin of Christian worship in the Old Testament, showing that it was God who first asked us for worship and the essence of this worship was expressed through offering sacrifice. But what place does offering sacrifice have in worship today? Are there any “rules” for worship, or do we just make it up and do whatever we like? Understanding how we are in fact called to offer sacrifice is the key to understanding the Mass and…the meaning of life.

This talk was given to a group of Catholic students and permanent community from the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center in Lawrence, KS. The talk was a part of their new “Theology on Tap” series and was given at Old Chicago in Lawrence.

We are all familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan in today’s gospel. Yet, what do we do with the knowledge gleaned from this parable? Today’s homily gives the unfortunate results of several studies demonstrating that a lot of us are like the priest and Levite in the story…we ignore those in need. There are lots of reasons why this is and not all of them are because we are uncaring people. We’re often just in too big a hurry to stop and help. Perhaps more often, we tend to think that someone else will help.

There is an important principle of Catholic social teaching called “subsidiarity.” It says basically that problems and changes should be handled at the lowest level possible. If there are poor and needy people around us, it is not the job of the federal government, the state government, or anyone else to help them. The poor need to be helped at the lowest level possible and that lowest level is you and me. We cannot rely on some government program to help the poor. The fact that we may give money to a charity or pay our taxes that fund welfare doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to help those in need that we encounter each day.

Ultimately, there is no law that will force us to take care of those around us. However, Jesus doesn’t appeal to the law in today’s gospel. He appeals to our hearts. No policeman will arrrest you for passing by a homeless person or not helping someone change a tire. Only the love of Christ can compel you to act with compassion. St. John of the Cross reminds us that “in the evening of life, we will be judged on our love.” We all know the story of the Good Samaritan, but that’s only half the battle. The real question is…”what will we do?”

We often tend to ignore the reality of hell. We talk and act as if it didn’t exist. Yet, today’s gospel clearly says that it does, and that people go there. In 1917 our Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. On July 13th of that year she gave them a special warning about hell. She showed them a vision of hell and all the souls suffering there. She asked the children to pray and do penance for sinners so that fewer souls would be lost. Mary gave several prophesies to the children about what would happen if her call to repentance was not heeded. She continues to call to us today to pray, to pray the rosary especially for peace. Let us resolve today to change our lives, do penance for our sins and those of the whole world, and to pray the rosary every day.

Today we rightfully give thanks for the blessings of freedom we enjoy in this country. Our scripture readings today also call us to give thanks for an even greater freedom, the freedom that only God can give. What is the source of this freedom? Isaiah reminds the Israelites that as bad as things might seem in exile, they have cause for hope. One day they will return to Jerusalem. Jesus teaches the apostles in the Gospel that if they have him, they needn’t fear that anything will be lacking. There is a great freedom in knowing that God is in control. Yet so many of us rarely experience this kind of freedom. What gets in the way? In a word…fear.

We’re afraid of so many things. We’re afraid of loosing our job, afraid we won’t find a job, afraid our kids will lose the faith, afraid our health will fail and list goes on and on. Ultimately, we’re afraid that we will die. In little ways and big ways we are confronted with death every day. If we live in fear of dying, we are not truly free to live.

St. Paul gives us the answer to this problem in our second reading. He talks of how we should boast in the cross of Jesus. The cross seemed like the ultimate defeat and yet was turned into the symbol of Jesus’ triumph over death. The cross reminds us that death is not the end and that Jesus has conquered death. We need no longer fear death.Boasting in the cross is now our ticket to true freedom. If we have nothing to fear from death then we need not be afraid to encounter the cross in our life. To live in the knowledge of the resurrection gives us a freedom the world can never give.

Today we are especially thankful for the freedom we have in this country and we know that it was bought at a great price. Men and women throughout history have given their lives that we might live free. Even greater though is the freedom in God that points beyond this world. This freedom too was bought at a great price. Jesus gave his life on the cross that each of us might live in freedom, freedom from sin and death. This is a victory we celebrate every Sunday. Each week we can rightfully celebrate the Lord’s day knowing that it is indeed our Independence Day.

50th Wedding Anniversary of Joe and Pat McGreevy

St. Paul speaks today in the second reading about freedom. Perhaps no other value expresses better the core element of what it means to be American. But what do we really mean by freedom? Today, we tend to think that freedom means being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and no one can stop you. We also value freedom as “keeping all our options open.” St. Paul, and the Church, have a different view of freedom in mind. Freedom should be seen as the ability to be who you were created to be. Our freedom is a gift to be used in such a way that we make ourselves a gift to others. When we discover how we are to make this gift we are called to use our freedom to make a commitment.

If freedom is seen as “keeping all your options open” then commitment would seem to be the opposite of freedom. After all, doesn’t making a commitment limit one’s freedom? While committing to something will necessarily close the door to certain other options, it is actually through making a commitment that we become most free. A life that is lived with “all options open” is a wasted life. When you make a commitment, especially the commitment of your life as in marriage or religious life, then and only then can you become who you were created to be. Then you find a new freedom that you never knew before.

After a commitment is made, there can be only one course of action…fidelity. If you think about it, we wouldn’t need to have solemn public commitments in marriage if it were easy to stay married. We wouldn’t need sacred vows in religious life if everyone who became a priest or religious just naturally went on without any temptations to think that maybe the grass was greener somewhere else. It is precisely because of the great difficulty in living out our vocations that we need commitment. If the only thing that keeps you coming to Mass every Sunday at times is that you know you have a commitment on pain of mortal sin, well…good! That’s what the commitment is there for…to get you through the tough times.

This weekend we celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Joe and Pat McGreevy. We celebrate the commitment they made 50 years ago and have been living out in fidelity ever since. It has of course  not always been easy, and that is precisely why the joy of celebration today is so special. They’ve remained faithful to their commitment through good and bad times, just as they promised each other. What is the result? Joy and peace…and life. Just look at the family that they have around them and you can see the fruit of a commitment faithfully lived. We thank them for their faithfulness and witness and ask God to strengthen all of us in our commitments that we too may know this great peace and joy.

The following homily was given at the monastery of Santa Maria Real in Spain while on pilgrimage. A Eucharistic miracle took place here in which the appearances of the the consecrated bread and wine in the Mass were changed along with the substance into true flesh and blood.