St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for the Memorial of St. Gregory the Great, Pope & Doctor of the Church

In our Gospel passage today, Peter and his companions had labored all night and had caught nothing. All their work, it seemed, had been useless. They had done everything they could, but it was not enough. Something was missing.

Then Jesus entered the picture, and everything changed. Peter and his companions discovered the answer to their problems. They had been missing the most important ingredient of all; they had been missing the help and the power of God; they had been missing the help and the power of Jesus.

This story of Peter and his companions contains an important lesson for us: We all need God in our lives. All our human efforts to solve our problems, while necessary, are not enough. We need the power and the help of God in our lives and in our problems.

In turning to God in times of struggle, we discover that God wishes not only to bless us but also to bless us beyond our wildest dreams. God wishes to give to our lives a power and a fullness that exceed anything that we can imagine. And all we have to do is open our hearts to God's love, to let God's light shine on us, and to lower our nets to be filled. God will do all the rest. +

Homily for Wednesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

While Jesus was in Capernaum, He performed many healings on the people there. So, it is understandable that the people wanted Him to stay with them and how, when He went off to a quiet place just outside the town to pray, they caught up with Him and tried to prevent His leaving. But Jesus made it very clear that it was imperative that He move on, saying, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God because for this purpose I have been sent.” The Capernaum villagers had to let him go; Jesus was at the service of God’s purposes, which took priority over what the townspeople wanted of Him.

We began reading Luke’s Gospel at Mass last Monday and, as we move through his Gospel, we will see how he consistently reveals Jesus as one who is totally devoted to serving God’s purposes for Him. This often brought Jesus into conflict with what others expected of Him.

All of us are called to live our lives in accord with the will of God. When we try to do what we believe God wants of us, we may often find that it will bring us into conflict with what other people want or expect or from us. In our struggle to do God’s will, we have the Spirit of Jesus to help us on our way. May we reach out and touch that power, that we may have the strength and the courage to be devoted to serving God’s purposes for each one of us. +

Homily for Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel passage, a man “with a spirit of an unclean demon” asked Jesus in a loud voice, “What have you come to do with us…? Have you come to destroy us?” Jesus neither withdraws in the face of this aggression nor does He react in kind. Instead, Jesus addressed the demon only and brought healing and peace and peace to the man.

So often, in the Gospels, Jesus does not respond in kind to those who oppose Him, but neither does He back down from them. The LORD does not relate to us as we so often relate to Him. His relating to us is always more generous, more loving, more merciful than our way of relating to Him and to one another.

When the people in the synagogue saw Jesus’ encounter with the disturbed man, they were amazed at His authority and the power He had over unclean spirits. Jesus exercises His authority by showing love and kindness to those who have no claim on it, except for their need. In that way, He shows us what genuine authority looks like

Let us pray then, today and always, that the example of Jesus may guide us in our approach one another: that we may do so in a spirit of love and mercy, and with a desire for understanding and peace. +

 

Homily for Monday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

When Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and then sat down, He made a commentary on what He had read, identifying Himself as the prophet who was sent to “bring glad tidings to the poor… to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the LORD.” He also identified Himself with two other prophets, Elijah and Elisha, who ministered to non-Israelites, to a hungry widow Zarephath, and to a leper from Syria who had been cured of his affliction. Jesus was saying to the people at Nazareth that He had come for those who were in the greatest need; it didn’t matter who they were or from where they came.

On hearing Jesus claim this vision of generosity as His own mission, the people of Nazareth became very angry. They thought, since Jesus was one of their own, they would receive special treatment from Him, but Jesus came to save all those in need. If He did have any partiality, it was towards those who are broken in body, mind, or spirit.

The LORD is continuously reaching out to us in our need and our pain; all He asks is that we receive Him as He is, on his own terms, which the people of Nazareth were unable to do. The LORD is always close to all of us; it is our need, our suffering, whatever form it takes, which can bring us close to Him. +

Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

As Christians, we are called upon by God to stand out in our world, to be a light in the darkness, to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. It sounds like an easy enough thing to do but, in practice, it can be a difficult thing to do.

In standing apart from others in our world, in our living out of our Christian vocation, we find that we are vulnerable to the criticism, the scorn, and the mockery of our world. In being lights in the darkness, we find that unwanted attention is drawn to us when through our words and example we pierce the darkness of closed hearts. When we pick up our cross, that is, our difficulties and struggles, we are reminded by most people watching that it is easier to leave our cross where it is.

Through the example of Jesus and many, many people who have gone before us and even some among us today, we know, at some level, that while it may be easier to blend in, to stand in the darkness, to leave our cross where it is, we don’t grow spiritually or emotionally by doing so. We may experience the ridicule of others by standing up for our faith and growing in our faith but, in the end, if we profess our faith with integrity, we will prove ourselves undeserving of such ridicule.

My intention is not to sound cynical about our world but simply to acknowledge that there are many ways in our world and even in our own church and families, sometimes loudly and sometimes very subtly, that we are discouraged from following God’s call to live a life of discipleship and all the burdens that go along with it.

There is a value in carrying the burdens and difficulties of life; there is a value in working through the pains that life brings us; there is a value in the sacrifice it often takes to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It is a value that can be found only in our experience of giving of ourselves to God, of putting aside our own wants and desires and truly discerning what God calls us to do.

We look to Jesus who begged God the Father to take away His suffering, to free him from the ravages of the Cross, but He knew deep down what the Father wanted from Him and He knew His suffering had value for all of humanity. May we, too, be open to God’s will and see in our lives, in our endeavors and even in our pains and struggles, value to those around us. May we then open our hearts to receive the call to stand out and show others the way to God and the way to our fulfillment.+

Homily for the Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist

Many churches throughout the world have paintings and mosaics of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. Within a few short years of their meeting in the waters of the Jordan, both of them would be dead, victims of execution. First, John the Baptist would be beheaded in a spiteful act of revenge by the wife of Herod, who requested his head on a platter, and so, Herod ordered the execution. Jesus was crucified by the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Judea. Jesus foresaw his own destiny in the death of John the Baptist. John died for declaring that Herod had broken God’s Law by marrying his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias. John is a beacon of light against the darkness of the others in the story: King Herod, his wife, Herodias, and her daughter. By their combined actions, they killed one whom the king admitted was a righteous and holy man, just as Jesus, the ultimate righteous and holy man, would be killed by another alliance of darkness.

The light of faith shines in the darkness of death and destruction. The light of the Lord’s presence shines in our own experience of the darkness of difficult experiences in life. Jesus called John the Baptist a “burning and shining lamp.”[1] John’s life is a model for us to let the light of our faith shine forth in the darkness, to live the Gospel in a world that often contradicts it, even when it puts us in conflict with those around us. Our vocation as Christians is to let the light we have received to shine brightly in every situation.

In his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith), our Holy Father, Pope Francis wrote that “there is an urgent need to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God.”[2]

 

[1] John 5:35

[2] Lumen Fidei, Paragraph 4

Homily for the Memorial of St. Augustine

Jesus tells us in our parable today that we must be prepared for the Kingdom of God, lest we be locked out because we have forgotten to prepare ourselves in the proper way. Jesus’ parable teaches us an important lesson that is stated very simply and explicitly: We must be prepared to enter the Kingdom of God. Our preparation is not a task to be performed or a list of requirements that need to be fulfilled by a particular point in time. Instead, our preparation is a way of life, to be lived constantly.

As long as we put our relationship with God and our answer to God’s call to love on a “list of things to do”, we will fail to allow God’s love to transform our hearts and our lives. 

Every day of our lives on earth should be filled with expressions of love and concern for others, with acts of love for the needy, with praise and thanksgiving for God.+

Homily for the Memorial of St. Monica

St. Monica, whose Memorial we celebrate today, had to deal with many of the same family issues that a lot of people have to deal with, even today. She was married to a man who had many good qualities, but he had a bad temper. She had a very difficult relationship with her mother-in-law. And she worried about her son, Augustine, who lived a life very far from her Christian values and lifestyle. So much so, that she wouldn’t even allow him to stay at the family home.

 

One night, Monica had a vision that gave her the confidence that he would return to Christianity and live a better life. She remained close to him and prayed and sacrificed that he might return to the faith.

 

Eventually, he did and today St. Augustine is regarded as one of the greatest Christian leaders and writers of all time.

 

Let us pray… Loving Father, through the intercession of St. Monica, may we be granted the same fortitude, patience, and trust in you that filled her mind, heart, and soul. Help us to accept your will in all things. Through Christ our LORD. Amen.+

Homily for Wednesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus seems to be on a roll in His righteous anger toward the Pharisees. Yesterday, He chastised them for their focus on the details of the law as they ignored the values of the Torah. 

 

In today’s passage, Jesus points to the importance of our inner reality over the image we portray to others. What matters most, He tells us, is who and what we are in the deepest recesses of our being. 

 

Jesus was swollen, bruised, and bleeding while dying on the Cross – a gruesome image – but it was then that His love for us was most intensely and powerfully visible. 

 

The widow who put two small coins into the Temple treasury seemed insignificant with her tiny contribution. However, Jesus recognized her generosity of heart; He saw that she was prepared, like Him, to give everything she had.[1]

 

Indeed, appearances can be deceiving. The scribes and Pharisees had far less substance than their outer image. In the widow in the Temple and the crucified Jesus, there was far more than met the eye. Jesus tells us to be less concerned with how we appear to others than the quality of love in our hearts. 

 

So, let us pray, today and always, that God’s Holy Spirit will kindle in our hearts the fire of His love; that we may be recreated to become the people He created each of us to be in the first place.

 

[1] Mark 12:41-44

Homily for Tuesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus blasts the Pharisees in a moment of righteous anger. The Pharisees focused on the fine details of God's law (as they interpreted it) while ignoring the spirit of God's law. In particular, He goes after them for their insistence on details such as the exact tithing of herbs while ignoring essential values of the Torah: justice, mercy, and faith. Jesus insisted that people value and practice what matters most to God.

 

Indeed, it is essential for us as Christians, that we keep returning to the fundamentals, to the true spirit of the Gospel, so that we will know and do what God wants of us. 

 

In the Book of the Prophet Micah we hear the words, "You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God." [1] These were the ideals Jesus exemplified in His life and His death. To live by them is to "put on the LORD Jesus Christ" [2], which is our essential vocation. +

 

[1] Micah 6:8

[2] Romans 13:14