St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

In typical human fashion, Jesus' disciples were tempted to follow the easiest way out of trouble. In yesterday's Gospel, we heard how His disciples came to Him with the suggestion, "This is a deserted place, and it is already late. Dismiss the crowds so that they may go to the villages and buy some food for themselves."

 

Whenever we face difficulty, our first response should not be dictated by an easy way out, nor by our command of financial or other resources, but by loving, tender compassion and personal care. In this part of our hearts, we hear God's Word. At such times we, like Peter, should cry out, "LORD, save me!"+

Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a true story about a man who spent six years in a prison in Argentina. The military government put him there without trial. During this time, the young man was tortured and subjected to long periods of solitary confinement.

 

Soon after his release from prison, a reporter asked him if he was bitter about his suffering and the loss of six years of his life. He said, “I don’t regard those six years as lost. I took advantage of them to strengthen my character and to deepen my relationship with God.”

 

The man’s response illustrates what St. Paul talks about when he asks: “What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or peril?” Then St. Paul answers his question saying that nothing will separate us from the love of Christ. “Neither death, nor powers, nor any creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our LORD.”

 

St. Paul’s point is clear: While God does not create unfortunate circumstances in our lives, God can still work through them if we turn to God with open hearts and minds to the presence and grace and love of God that is always present. If we are open to God in adverse situations, God can often help us to do things that we could never do in ordinary situations in life.

 

A famous maker of violins once said that the best wood for violins comes from the north side of the tree. The reason is that the wood on that side of the tree has been seasoned by the cold north wind. That seasoning gives it a distinctive sound that no other wood can duplicate.

 

The same is true for us. Some of the most beautiful music and art was created by people who were seasoned by suffering, tragedies, and trials.

 

For example, Handel wrote his famous “Hallelujah Chorus” when he was poverty-stricken and suffering from paralysis on his right side. At the time he was painting his Angelus, the great French artist Millet wrote, “We have only enough fuel for a few days. And they won’t give us anymore unless we can scrape together enough money.” Yet, from hands so cold that they could hardly hold the brush, came one of the world’s most magnificent paintings.

 

The trials of life are times that we can give up on life, or we can reach deep within ourselves and tap the many resources that God has given to us. Such times are also occasions when we can give up on God, or we can reach out to God, who is always present to us. Indeed, difficult moments have the potential to be times that we grow in faith and times when we grow in our relationship with God.

 

It’s important to remember that God doesn’t give us the difficulties we endure in life. And, as we know from the Crucifixion, God doesn’t necessarily take away our difficulties either. That is the price of the tremendous gift of freedom that God gives us. However, God is always with us, and God can provide us with the strength that we need to not only make it through stressful situations but to grow through them and to become better, seasoned people through these experiences.

 

We pray for the openness we need to see the presence of God in all aspects of our lives and that we may turn to God in good times and in bad so that we may live and love despite and through the trials of life.+

Homily for the Memorial of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

The execution of John the Baptist is a dramatic example of the abuse of power with which human history is infused. In the time of Jesus, Herod Antipas was the ruler in Galilee. Although ultimately subject to the emperor in Rome, he could use his local power as he wished, subject to the laws of Rome. In today’s incident, Herod abused his power to execute an innocent man. 

 

People who abuse power in this way lose their authority. John the Baptist had no power in this passage; he was Herod’s prisoner. But he had higher moral authority, rooted in his relationship with God. That gave John the freedom to speak the truth to powerful people and to confront King Herod for breaking the Jewish law. For speaking out, John was imprisoned and, eventually, executed. 

 

John’s martyrdom foreshadowed that of Jesus. As Jesus hung from the Cross, He too had no power. As St. Paul says, “He was crucified in weakness.”[1] Yet, at that moment, He had great authority: the authority of a life of integrity and goodness; the authority of God’s faithful Son. A fact that, remarkably, was recognized by the centurion in charge of the Crucifixion.[2] 

 

Even if we have little or no power, we can have authority in the gospel sense. Like John the Baptist, we are called to be people of the Word, people who let God shape our values, our attitudes, and our whole lives.+

 

 

[1] 2 Corinthians 13:4

[2] Matthew 27:54

Homily for the Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

When Jesus returned to His home at Nazareth, the people there recognized Him as the son of Joseph, the carpenter, and whose mother, Mary, and whose brothers and sisters were known to them. He was one of them, a working man just like them. Yet, in many ways, He is not like them at all. The people of Nazareth were astonished at His wisdom and His miraculous powers. They could not understand from where He would get all that. They were perplexed by Him.

 

Jesus was both ordinary and extraordinary. As we have been taught, He was like us in every way, but sin. He was fully human, yet the wisdom and power of God were at work within Him. St. John expressed it succinctly when he said at the beginning of his gospel that the Word became flesh.[1] He was “flesh” like all of us, fully human, the son of a carpenter, from a particular place in Galilee who lived at a specific time in history. Yet, this man uniquely revealed God. That is the “scandal” of the Incarnation that so troubled the people of Nazareth.

 

The son of the carpenter, the son of Mary, is with us today as risen LORD in and through the familiar and the ordinary. He said to His disciples, “Whoever receives you, receives me;”[2] “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me;”[3] and, “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”[4]

 

The sacred and the temporal are not so far apart; we meet the sacred in the temporal, the divine in the human. We are always on holy ground.+

 

[1] John 1:14

[2] Matthew 10:40

[3] Matthew 18:5

[4] Matthew 25:40

Homily for Thursday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

The message in today’s Gospel is similar to that of Tuesday’s Gospel: Throughout lifetime on earth, there will be both good and bad people; there will be both virtue and vice. This can be hard to take at times, and we may wonder why God allows it.

 

Jesus connects a common experience of the people when he compares the process of hauling a full net of fish ashore and separating the bad from the good to the angels doing so at the end of time.

 

Let us pray that we will have the patience and the hope that God will indeed separate the good from the bad at the end of time and let us do all that we can and must do to enter the kingdom of God.+

Homily for the Memorial of St. Martha

On hearing today’s gospel passage, many people feel empathy for Martha. We see her working hard to prepare a meal for Jesus and His friends, and, when she complains that her sister Mary is not helping her, Jesus proclaims that Mary has chosen the better part. That seems rather unfair to Martha. 

 

We know from other stories in Scripture that Jesus was not opposed to people working hard in the service of others. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, He praised the man’s mercy and love when he cared for the victim of robbers. But, as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.”[1] With this in mind, we might say, “There is a time to be active and a time to refrain from activity.” 

 

When visiting the home of Mary and Martha, Jesus saw it as a time for them to refrain from work so that they could listen to what He had to say. Mary recognized that this was the kind of hospitality Jesus wanted on this occasion: the hospitality of listening rather than the hospitality of activity. Mary was more attuned to what the LORD wanted than was Martha. While the LORD wants us to work on His behalf, He also wants us to stop working at different times so that we may truly listen to Him. Wisdom consists in knowing when it’s time to be active and busy in the LORD’S service and when it is time to sit and listen to His Word.+

 

 

[1] Ecclesiastes 3:1

Homily for Tuesday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

At the request of His disciples, Jesus explained to them the Parable of the Weeds in the Field. The heart of the parable is the separation of the good and the wicked at the end of time. Jesus strongly hints that until that final separation, good and evil will exist together in the world and the Church, and even within our own hearts, minds and souls. The weeds and the wheat grow together, and the final separation will be made by God in the Final Judgment at the end of time. It is not the place of anyone to judge another’s moral quality in the present time since judgment about people’s motives belongs to God alone.

 

A favorite theme of Pope Francis has been that we should be slow to judge. It is very easy to see ourselves as the wheat and identity others as the weeds. We need to remember what Saint Paul said to those who were judging him, “Do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the Lord comes, for He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts, and then everyone will receive praise from God.”[1] Remember that “the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.”[2]+

 

 

 

[1] 1 Corinthians 4:5

[2] Psalm 145:8

Homily for Monday of the 17th Week in Ordinary Time

In today's Gospel passage, we hear two parables that are metaphors for the ministry of Jesus on earth. The ministry He performs in Galilee is compared to the growth of the mustard seed and the yeast; both begin very small and seem insignificant at their beginnings.

 

Indeed, the work of Jesus, to that point, had been done quietly and without great flourish. However, the parables imply that, from these tiny beginnings, will come something incredibly significant. Just as the tiny mustard seed grows into a tree so large that the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches, and just as that little bit of yeast leavened those three measures of wheat flour, so will Jesus' ministry flourish.

 

Unremarkable beginnings can have quite remarkable results when it comes to the work of the LORD. We need to realize that, with the grace of God and our efforts, the simple gifts we have to offer can make a positive impact on our world, even if it is just a small part of it. God can work remarkably through our tiniest efforts if we perform them out of love and devotion for Him. The LORD calls us to plant good seeds and to trust that He will do the rest.+

Homily for the 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

There is a story from the work entitled In This Very Life that tells of a skilled basket weaver.  He was a simple man who enjoyed weaving his baskets.  He whistled and sang and passed the day happily as he worked making his beautiful baskets.  He would welcome customers warmly and readily express his gratitude for their patronage.  At night he would retire to his little hut and sleep well.

 

One day a wealthy man passed his little shop and was taken with one of his beautiful baskets. Impressed by the weaver's handiwork and moved by his humble poverty, the rich man gave the poor weaver a thousand dollars.

 

The stunned basket weaver took the money with much appreciation. He had never seen one thousand dollars in his life.  He took the money back to his ramshackle hut and wondered where he could keep it.  But there was no safe place.  He did not sleep at all that night, worrying about robbers and even rats nibbling at his cash.

 

The next day he took the thousand dollars to his little shop, but he did not sing or whistle, he was so worried about the money.  So worried, in fact, that he had trouble concentrating on his weaving. Again that night he did not sleep.

 

The following morning he went to the home of the wealthy man who had given him the thousand dollars. Handing the money back to the puzzled man, the poor weaver begged, "Please, sir, give me back my happiness."

 

Sometimes we become so obsessed with the things of the world that we fail to embrace the treasures of life itself.  The simple but wise basket weaver refused to trade his life's happiness and sense of meaning for the kind of money the foolish use to measure happiness and success.

 

Jesus calls us to seek the "treasures" and the "pearls" of lasting value that are the things of God: the love of family and friends, the support given and received in being part of a family and community, the sense of joy and fulfillment found in serving and giving for the sake of others.  To seek anything else is to settle for so much less than God has given.+

Homily for the Feast of St. James, Apostle

Our Gospel passage today gives us a glimpse of the human tendency to seek status and importance. In the instance we witness today, we see that it is the mother of two of Jesus’ disciples who seeks this for her sons. So, we understand that sometimes, this tendency can be one of pride, if not for ourselves, then for others whom we love. And the offense taken by the other Apostles is just another instance of the tendency to want to appear important in the eyes of others.

 

We see this tendency so often in the media, in government, and in many areas of life, where people want to appear more important and more powerful than others.

 

But Jesus works to teach everyone in today’s story that such status-seeking has no place in the lives of any of His disciples; that to truly follow Him, they must drink of the chalice of suffering from which He drinks; that, like Him, they must serve and not seek to be served. Humility and putting others before ourselves are ways to true greatness, the kind of greatness to which we are all called: the greatness of being born in the image of God, following His ways, and returning home to our Father at the end of time, with nothing except the fruits of our actions on earth.+