When a Son Grows Up.

Sean we are very proud of you.... You have become a good and just man.

As you now step away and begin your journey as a Man, know that we carry you close in our hearts always.

Jesus - My Master or My Friend?

I would like to take a moment for us all to reflect on the importance and holiness of motherhood, and on this Mother’s day ask for a special grace to be given to those who have been mothers, are mothers, and those who will be mothers in the future. Let us offer our thoughts and prayers to God and through the intercession of our Holy Mother as we say (Hail Mary....)

Now lets listen to God’s message to us from today’s scriptures.

The first Christians did not think that the Gentiles were to be included in God’s plan of salvation.

So when Peter visited the house of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on all who were lisening, including the gentiles, the circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded.

This says to me that they were totally taken back, surprised, and mystified by what happened, and when they left the house that day their minds were probably baffled and confused.

When Jesus said he would send the “The Spirit of Truth,” he meant it, but when it happens, when it actually happens right in front of us, we are often surprised, taken back, or even closed minded about it.

Why?

Well I think it has something to do with many of us thinking that we already know most of the answers in life, and find it difficult when we are told or discover otherwise.

The Challenge for us is to be good and sincere followers of Christ, and at the same time have the wisdom, openness, and humility to hear and respond to God’s Spirit, even when we don’t completely understand.

Such a message reminds me;

I once overheard a man telling a wise monk that he was disgusted with the other Catholics at mass and how they received communion in the hand while standing rather than on the tongue while kneeling.

He argued "They are denying the real presence, If they only knew that they were actually receiving Christ, they would kneel to receive him."

In reply the wise monk asked him a revealing question, "What would you do if Jesus appeared to you?"

The irritated man replied, "I would immediately fall on my knees."

"Good," the monk said, "But there are people who would simply throw themselves on him out of the sheer joy and love for him. Would you say that such people were irreverent?"

The man kept quiet for a moment as he began to see that it was probably less a question of discerning the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and more of a question of one's personal relationship with Jesus.

Today's gospel gives us two models of a personal relationship with Jesus to consider:

One as a master, and another as a friend.

At any given point in our faith journey one of these two models is dominant.

Either we see our relationship to Christ mainly in terms of master-servant, or in terms of friend to friend.

With the exception of the mystics, traditional lay spirituality in the church has usually followed the master-servant model.

Jesus is often seen more as a master to be feared, respected and obeyed than as a friend to love in intimacy and familiarity.

Today's gospel challenges us to rethink our relationship with Christ because, evidently, Christ himself prefers to relate to his disciples as friend to friend rather than as master to servant.

He states, "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends" (John 15:15).

Jesus says that he would no longer call his disciples servants, indicating that he called them servants until then, and that something was changing.

Our relationship with Christ goes through different stages and also changes.

Typically it starts off as a master-servant relationship when we are new to the faith, but then as our relationship with Christ deepens; it often changes into a less formal friend to friend type of relationship.

Today's gospel is a call for us to think about how we relate to Christ and if we can progress toward a friend to friend type of relationship.

This will change the way we pray and the way we live.

And as Saint John tells us (John 15:7) “We shall begin to pray better and to experience more peace and joy in our lives, as people do who are in love.

One objection that is often raised by those who promote the master-servant model of relating to Christ is the concern that we are unworthy.

Sure enough, we are not worthy.

But Jesus has already taken that into consideration.

He reminds us that "You did not choose me but I chose you" (John 15:16).

If he has decided to choose us in our unworthiness and to love and accept us as we are, then we should not fix our gaze on ourselves and ask, "Who am I, Lord, that you should love me?"

But rather we should fix our gaze on him and ask, "Who are you, Lord, that you love me so much?"

How can we tell the difference between the irreverence and disrespect shown by those who have no serious relationship with the Lord, and true familiarity which grows out of a loving relationship with Him?

The key is keeping the Lord's commandments.

Yes, God loves and accepts us as we are, but God loves us too much to leave us as we are.

We love babies as they are, yet we want them to grow up.

God expects us, in just the same way, to grow in His love.

The Lord's offer to us of friendship and intimacy with him should not be an excuse for decreased respect or indifference.

Just as God has shown His love for us in deed by sending his Son to die for us, so is true-love for God always shown in deed by the way we keep the two commandments of love of God and love of neighbor.

By this we can know if we are truly Christ's friends, because, as Jesus said "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15: 14).

Let us take a moment to reflect, not on "Who am I, Lord, that you should love me?"

But rather on "Who are you, Lord, that you love me so much."

1st Holy Communion

Modern Religion (And We Wonder Why Things Are The Way They Are)

Divine Mercy

The Feast of Divine Mercy

(Homily Adapted from Fr. Robert Altier)

Today the church celebrates the Feast of Divine Mercy and the end of the Octave of Easter. We have been celebrating Easter Sunday and the resurrection for eight days now, and today, the final day of the Easter Octave we acknowledge as the day of new creation.

It is a day on which the love of God is poured into our hearts in a profound way.
The Feast of Divine Mercy has everything to do with Trust and Mercy.

The promises Jesus made to Saint Faustina and to us is that our sins will be forgiven and the temporal punishment due to sin will also be completely removed, that our souls will be as pure as the day of our baptism, if we only do the following:

1. Go to confession and receive holy communion
2. Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet
3. Pray for the intentions of our Holy Father with an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.
4. And detach ourselves from sin.

When we look at the picture of Divine Mercy, underneath the picture of Jesus are the words “Jesus, I trust in you.”

That is something many of us do not do very well, to trust in our Lord.We all like to think that we trust in Jesus, but when it comes right down to it, most of us really don’t.We are afraid of letting go of things because we are not sure if God is really going to do what he promised.In the practical day-to-day existence, we trust far more in ourselves, and far more in other people, and far more in money and material things than we do in God, which is a pretty tragic statement, especially in light of what Jesus said:
“If someone is trustworthy in small matters, then they are to be trusted in large matters; but if they are not trustworthy in small matters, then neither are they trustworthy in large matters.”

When we consider this point of trusting in Our Lord, we know that he has made extraordinary promises to us:
• Promises of heaven
• Eternal life
• Promises of being united with him
• Promises that our sins are going to be forgiven

Now if we cannot trust God in small matters, how are we ever going to be able to trust him in the large matters?

For many of us, the problem is that we don’t have any clear evidence to support such trust.
In the Gospel today, we see Thomas in the very same situation and saying “I’m not going to believe unless I put my finger into the holes in His hands and my hand into His side.”

Jesus appears in His mercy and shows Himself to Thomas as says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

How often do we struggle with the question of whether or not our sins are truly forgiven?
The problem is that we have no evidence, no proof, no outward sign that tour sins are gone.
We cannot see the sins on our soul, and we cannot see them removed.

But in the Gospel the Lord breathes on the disciples and says “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven.”

He didn’t say “Whose sins you forgive are swept under the rug”.
He didn’t say “Whose sins you forgive I’ll keep them in mind and I will hold them against them later.”
He said “They are forgiven.”

That means they are gone, and it means that they will never ever be heard of again.
But we fear because we do not trust.

Saint John tells us that fear has to do with judgment. And so even though we come before our Lord and confess our sins, we still are afraid because we do not really believe that they are gone.

He has made the promise, and the One who has promised is trustworthy, We simply need to place out trust in Him because he has made the promise.

When we think about the feast of Divine Mercy and we think about the mercy of God, at first glance, one might think that this would be better if it were celebrated during Lent.

After all, for six weeks of praying and doing penance, we were seeking the mercy of God.
Now all of the sudden, here we are on the octave day of Easter, the height of the celebration of our Lord’s resurrection, and suddenly we turn and we are asking God once again for mercy.

But, in fact, it is rather perfect because remember as we celebrate the octave what that means is that for eight days we celebrate the feast itself.

So today, as we have for the last week, we are in fact celebrating Easter day – not just the Easter Season, which we will be celebrating for the next 6 weeks – but literally Easter day.

The reason for that is because it is a new creation.

The Church gives us 8 days to recognize that because of the mysteries of our faith we have become a new creation, and that God, especially through the Resurrection, has re-created the earth and has re-created each one of us so that as we are baptized into Christ we have literally and truly become a new creation in Christ.
So today as we celebrate the octave of Easter, we also celebrate the feast which connects what happened on the cross with what happened on Easter Sunday.

Anyone who has been praying the Novena of the Divine Mercy knows that they had to begin that Novena on Good Friday, and it culminates, of course, with the events of this day.

It connects Good Friday with Easter Sunday, and it reminds us that the mercy of God is found in the cross of Jesus Christ.

It is found in His precious Blood and it is found through the power of the resurrection.
Sins are forgiven because of the cross.

But it was not enough that Our Lord went to the cross; if he did not rise from the dead we would not be able to rise to a new and everlasting life. These events are intimately connected.

So too, the new creation in Christ which takes place in our souls is completely united with His cross and His resurrection.

But Now, as we ponder the mercy of God, we must be very careful to understand it in its proper sense.
There are many people in our day and age that have fallen into a very unfortunate heresy, into a trap which the devil has laid for them.

They have come to believe that God is merciful, so merciful that they can do pretty much anything they want, that they don’t have to go to confession because God is so merciful.
In fact, they believe that on the day they die, they will stand before God, who is so merciful that he will see on that day just how sorry they are for their sins and he will forgive them on the spot, and they will go right into heaven.

This is heresy!

The reason it is, is because at the moment you die and the soul separates from the body, there is no more changing of the mind. There will be no repentance on our part after we died for mortal sins.
And consequently, there will be no mercy.

The mercy of God is known only in this life.

Fulfillment is found in the next where we recognize that because of the forgiveness of our sins we will be able to enter into life, but the forgiveness of sins happens only here.
What I speak of is mortal sins.

Yes, Venial sins can and will be forgiven in the next life, but that means time in purgatory. No so for mortal sins.

What we want is to be able to get to heaven, and God’s mercy has done all the work for us – except for one thing.

We need to humble ourselves and confess our sins.

That is all God requires.

Of course, along with that is the repentance which implies that we intend to stop committing the sins and that we are going to try to amend our lives.

But all that God is asking of us is to confess our sins.

He has done everything else. And he continues to do everything else.

All that is left for us is that one thing. We simply need to ask ourselves.... “Is He asking too much.”
Some of us like to think that we can lie on our beds and think about our sins and be sorry for them, but that doesn’t work.

The reason that doesn’t work is because God, who treats us with mercy and love, treats us with the full dignity of our human nature.

As human beings, the normal mode of communication is not to lie on one’s bed and ponder things.
You cannot do that with your spouse and children; you cannot do it with God either.

The normal mode of human communication is to speak and to hear. So God in His mercy has set up something for us to be able to do exactly that: to speak what it is that we have done and to hear that in fact we have been forgiven. Lie on your bed as often as you like and think about your sins, and when you get up and walk away the sins will still be on your soul. Your conscience will still be troubled because you don’t have the knowledge that your sins were forgiven.

But when you go to confession and you hear those beautiful words from the mouth of the priest:

“I absolve you from your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” your sins are gone and you have the knowledge that your sins are gone forever – never to be heard of again – even on the Day of Judgment.

That is the mercy God is offering to His people. He has done everything for us, and He has given to us the means by which our sins can be forgiven. All that he asks of us is to humble ourselves, to confess our sins, and to trust in Him.

The Pope Is Stacking The Deck... Why? Because The Church Is Under Attack!

Jesus' Outrage At The Temple - Homily, 3rd Sunday of Lent

Angry Jesus

Homily: Jesus’ Outrage At The Temple . It’s common to think of Jesus as a gentle and peace-loving man, but in today’s gospel we also see a different side of him. We see him make a whip out of cords, over-turn tables throwing coins everywhere, and attempting to drive evil-doers out of the temple area. Surely many were shocked by what they saw and witnessed…. but was there a point to his actions? Do you think the merchants in the temple area thought of themselves as “evil-doers”? Probably not! Do you think there were always merchants in the temple area? No, I don’t believe so. I would assume that one day a man set-up shop, and entrepreneur, and then another, then another, and overtime a large market developed. There might have been some initial dissatisfaction over the selling of goods in the temple area, but overtime the gradual process of adding more and more merchants probably went unnoticed by most of the city inhabitants, and after a few years it not only became normal, but was expected. Can you begin to see some similarity between this example and what has happened in our society? Or maybe you can’t. Just the other day I was visiting with a man who described a recent event that left him troubled. He told me that more than 10 years ago he removed the television from his home because he and his wife were fearful of what was being shown, fearful of the inflectional power of TV, fearful of how it could negatively affect them and their children. He stated that since that time, 10 years ago he hadn’t really seen much Television. He then informed me that he had recently returned from a family visit in which he watched a variety of TV shows with his relatives. He reported that he was shocked at what appeared to be in almost every show: overt homosexuality, varying levels of nudeness, pre-marital sex, affairs, and ramped immorality. And what bothered him the most was that his relatives, who were good Catholics, saw nothing wrong with the content of the shows. They had become “Desensitized”! In response to his relative’s apparent non-reaction, He initially questioned himself? Is Homosexuality ok? Is Pre-Marital sex ok? Is looking at Naked and Half-Naked people ok? Is having an Affair ok? Then he stated that he snapped out of it, recalling that all those behaviors were not only wrong, but sinful…. and that they actually separated people from God. How many of us have been de-sensitized through a gradual process, and now find little to no objection to what is so prevalent in society? If Jesus were here today, do you think he would find our current culture Acceptable? Holy? And Just? I don’t think so! But he isn’t here, at least not in a physical human form, but we are. We are His Body…. The Church. And as we begin to look at the world around us through Christ’s eyes, we begin to see a much different world…. We can begin to see how certain behaviors and attitudes have evolved, leaded many away from God and his ways. So how do we respond to this awakening? Do we just sit back and hope and pray that things will change. Or do we find the courage to stand up against most of society and say “This is wrong”! I can’t help but think of what Saint Padre Pio said and is so often quoted for… “The greatest sin is the sin of omission…. Of doing nothing in the face of evil.” Many of you are aware that something is happening in our culture right now that is threatening who we are as Catholics and our Religious Freedom. The threat is so profound that all 456 of the Bishops in the United States have declared that the church is under attack. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have loudly voiced fervent opposition to the current Administration’s Act of Law to force Catholic Institutions, contrary to our beliefs and teachings, to provide insurance that covers Contraceptives, Sterilization, and Fetus-Killing drugs to all those they employ. This is a direct attack on Religious Freedom and on our Church! As Catholics, we should all be in an uproar about this issue. This is not a Republican issue, nor a Democrat issues, but purely a Catholic issue and a Religious Freedom Issue.. In order to gain additional insight into such a serious issue, we should return to the Gospel and look to Jesus. Why did Jesus make such a scene and what does this mean for us, his followers? To further understand His actions we need to know a little more about what was going on at the time. Well, the Temple system was the ultimate imperial and religious institution; a huge building like the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol, White House, and National Cathedral all rolled into one. Jews believed that God lived there, so once a year at Passover, all Jews had to go there and offer sacrifice to God. But the Pharisees and scribes, working with the empire, had a total scam going on and made a fortune off the poor in the name of God. Each year at Passover, the population of Jerusalem jumped from 50,000 to 180,000 people. There were 18,000 lambs slaughtered in the Temple. And the poor had to buy expensive doves if they were to offer sacrifice to God. Jesus would have none of it. He simply could not tolerate injustice, especially in the name of God. He couldn't stand oppression of the poor. He could not allow unjust structures and institutions to take advantage of those they were to serve, so he confronted this unjust structure head on. Jesus does not merely want lower prices for the poor. He's not trying to help us get a good deal on doves. He does not try to reform the Temple. He overturns the tables of the money changers, gets rid of the animals and calls for an end to the entire system. This is the boldest political statement in the entire Bible. Jesus is definitely not passive or quiet or apolitical in the face of injustice. He is active, challenging, daring, provocative, and even scandalous. Jesus is trying to teach us something here…… Is there some similarity in regard to our current state as Catholics and what is happening in society? Well, our temple isn’t being desecrated, at least not yet, but our church, our Holy Mother Church, and what she stands for is under attack. We are being told that our values, our beliefs, the truths of our faith are meaningless and we are to have no voice. So what is our reaction as Catholics…..are we listening to the Bishops? Can we hear the seriousness of this attack? Or have we fallen victim to the devil’s plan to slowly separate us from Catholic virtue, Catholic morality, and from what we have always experience here in America - Religious Freedom. What will you do in light of this crisis? Will you be active, challenging, daring, provocative, and even possibly scandalous? Or will you be what Saint Padre Pio so warned us against….. Doing nothing while evil prevails. LET US ALL BE CREAR, This is our wake-up call…..Are we listening?