St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus wants His disciples not to repay evil with evil, but to respond to evil with goodness. The worst instinct in human nature is to respond with malice to goodness, as instanced by the rejection and Crucifixion of the One who “went about doing good; for God was with Him.”[1] The best instinct of human nature is to overcome evil with good. This could be called the divine impulse — God’s own impulse. It was the main characteristic of Jesus Christ. He overcame the evil that was done to Him with good. In the very moment when He was wrongly rejected, He revealed His love most completely. He lived and died to overcome evil with good.

It is the hardest challenge to remain good in the face of evil, to remain loving in the face of hostility, to be faithful even if one is betrayed, to be peacemakers in a hostile world. We simply could not do it by our own strength alone. We need God’s strength, God’s resources, God’s Spirit — but we need not fear failure for this strength, and grace is promised to us. St, Paul calls on us “not to receive the grace of God in vain.”[2] God is always gracing us and if we rely on His grace we can keep working towards that ideal of overcoming evil with good.+

 

[1] Acts: 10:38

[2] 2 Corinthians 6:1

Homily for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

This feast that we celebrate today, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, often called Corpus Christi, is one that has developed over the centuries. The origin of the feast (so the story goes) is with the experience of a priest, many centuries ago, who was struggling with belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. His faith was beginning to weaken. One day he was celebrating Mass and just as he was consecrating the host, it began to bleed. And that, not too surprisingly, reaffirmed not only his faith but also that of his congregation. In that community, the celebration of that event came to be called Corpus Christi and is now celebrated throughout the Church.

At first, the focus of the celebration was on the miracle that happened to the host. As time passed, however, and, especially since the time of the Second Vatican Council, our celebration has been focused on the spiritual nourishment that we receive in communion with the whole Church when we eat the Body of Christ and drink His blood.

God has joined us together, all of us, in a relationship that goes far beyond anything of our own design, a relationship that is, indeed, marked by something more than human. It means that we now encounter God by turning our attention deep into the center of our own lives, and the lives of those around us, and especially in our life of worship together, because, as St. Augustine points out, that is where God has chosen to be with us. It means that the way we treat one another is the way we treat Christ. Jesus, Himself, said, "Whatever you do to one another, you do to me."

At the very heart of our faith in Christ is our commitment to a morality, an ethic, of love for one another. And it is to a very particular understanding and practice of love that we are called as Christians. Jesus set the standard simply enough: we are to love one another as God has loved us. While we may call others to task for their actions, our attitude toward others can never simply be what we might think the other deserves, or what feels right to us at the moment. Instead, our attitude must mirror God's own attitude. Again, in Christ's own words, if we are to be His people, His Body, we must love our enemies. A radical calling? Yes, but one which Jesus carried out in His own life.

Every week, every day, the Church celebrates the mystery of our intimacy with God. We celebrate it in a way that not only recognizes and honors that mystery but, in fact, brings it about and makes it happen. Our worship, the taking of the Eucharist, is the means by which God has chosen to become one with us. God could have chosen any number of ways of bringing about this intimacy with His people, but He chose this food, this drink. God chose the very human act of eating as the way in which He would make us more than human. And that is a degree of intimacy that defies understanding. It defies even imagination; it requires faith.

And so, the Eucharist is integral to what it means to be the community of the Church. We not only partake in the Body and Blood of Christ but, every time we gather together in God's name, every time we work to bring about the justice of which the Gospel speaks, we are the Body of Christ on earth.

St. Paul tells the Corinthians: “Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it.” St. Theresa, in her prayer, says to us, “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet but yours.” As we celebrate the Eucharist today and every day; as we partake, together, in the One Bread and the One Cup; as we eat the real Body of our God and Savior, let us be mindful that we, the Church, are the Body of Christ on earth and that, as such, we are called to be the hands and the feet of the Lord. We are called to be instruments of God’s love to all people, so that, through our actions of love and care and concern, all people may witness the love and care and concern of God who acts in and through each one of us.+

 

Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Anthony of Padua. St. Anthony had a most interesting life as a very devoted member of the Franciscan order, as a preacher and a teacher. However, most of us know St. Anthony as the finder of lost things, both physical and spiritual things. How did he come to be perhaps the most prayed to saint, especially when we are looking for things?

The reason St. Anthony's help is sought for finding things that are lost or stolen goes back to an incident that occurred in Bologna: St. Anthony owned a book of psalms that was important to him because he would write notes and comments that he would use when teaching his students.

One day, a novice Franciscan decided to leave the Franciscans and he took the book of psalms with him. This was before the invention of the printing press, and all books were quite valuable. Because of his vow of poverty, it would have been difficult for St. Anthony to get another one.

When he realized the book was missing, he prayed it would be found or returned. The novice who took it was moved not only to return the book to St. Anthony, but he also returned to the Franciscans. The book still exists and is stored in the Franciscan Friary in Bologna. 

While St. Anthony is mostly prayed to in order to find things, he was a brilliant teacher of the faith. So, as we come to the end of a most challenging academic year, let us pray, through the intercession of St. Anthony, a prayer of gratitude for the teachers of our young people and pray that they may always be blessed in their vocations as teachers.+

Homily for Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

In our Psalm response today, which comes from Psalm 27, we hear the prayer of one who earnestly searches for God. “I long to see your face, O LORD.”  

The quest of this Psalm is one that, perhaps, resonates with all of us because all of us, to varying degrees, are searchers. Our ultimate search is for God, the source of our very existence, and our ultimate destiny. St. Augustine echoes the longing of this prayer when he says, “You have made us for yourself, O LORD, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

It is the searcher in us that makes us travelers on a journey toward God. Elijah the prophet was that kind of searcher when embarked on his journey to the mountain of God, Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, as it was also called. In a cave on that mountain, he encountered God in a quiet way; in a “sound of sheer silence.”

Silence is not easy to find by in our busy and, often, noisy lives. However, that is where the LORD is best heard. We often have to seek such silence in order to find it. To seek silence is, in a very real way, to seek the LORD, because it is where we become most aware of the LORD’S presence.+

Homily for the Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle

Barnabas had a reputation in the early church for encouraging others. His given name was Josef, but Barnabas was added as a nickname which means “son of encouragement.” We see him engaged in that ministry in today’s text from the Acts. Something powerful and new was stirring within the Christian community in Antioch. In that city, the Gospel had for the first time been preached to pagans as well as Jews and therefore a new kind of Church was emerging there, a group that included members of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds.

When Barnabas was sent to Antioch by the Apostles to assess what was happening there, he immediately recognized it as the work of the LORD and sided with this new development. He turned out to be absolutely right; it was indeed the work of the LORD.

God is always at work in new and creative ways among us and it is a great gift to be able to recognize divine inspiration wherever it is to be found and to celebrate and encourage its effects. Barnabas had this gift of noticing where the LORD was at work because, as the narrator says, he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. We need to be open to the Spirit, in order to recognize the work of the Spirit. As Saint Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, spiritual things are discerned spiritually.+

Homily for Wednesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus showed that He was respectful of Jewish tradition, but He also asserted that He came to complete the Law and the Prophets, that is, to bring their true objective to fulfillment. So, while Jesus respected the many good aspects of His religious tradition, He was also receptive to the ways that God willed the development of that tradition.

We, too, are called to value the many good things in our own religious tradition, to acknowledge any shadow sides to that tradition, and to be open to the ways that the LORD is constantly renewing and inspiring that tradition.+

Homily for Tuesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

A documentary entitled, Light on Earth, tells the story of an experience of the S.S. Lima back in January of 1995. As the British merchant ship was sailing the waters of the northwestern Indian Ocean, the ship’s crew noticed that seas beneath them began to glow.

A luminous sea of milky white water surrounded the ship. There have been other stories over the years of similar experiences, but there was never any scientific proof.

After the experience of the S.S. Lima, a group of scientists, using a meteorological Satellite, discovered a sizeable glowing area, about 110 miles in length, in the same area where the S.S. Lima had sailed. Marine biologists learned that bioluminescent bacteria that were feeding on algae were the cause.

Think about it: bacteria are microscopic organisms but, when they gather together, these minuscule creatures, that can be seen only with a microscope, actually emit their light a few hundred miles into space.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells us, “Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” It is important to note that nothing of what Jesus asks of us, does He ask us to do alone. In letting our light shine, in putting ourselves forward, using the gifts of the Holy Spirit to better the lives of others, we do answer that call. By joining all people of faith and those of pure goodness, our light becomes an incredible beacon of faith, hope, and love in our world.+

Homily for Monday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

The “blessed” of the Gospel are right here among us. The “blessed” of God, despite the struggles and discouragements of life, readily embrace the spirit of humility that begins with valuing life as a gift from God; a gift we have received only through God’s profound and limitless love. May God give each one of us the vision, courage, and grace to embrace the “blessedness” of the Beatitudes – to live our lives in loving gratitude to God, who invites us to “rejoice and be glad” – God’s heaven is ours.

Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

The beginning of the 20th century was very focused on the thought of three prominent intellectual figures: Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx. These three were often described as “The Unholy Trinity.” The three are often credited with pushing the people into the modern world, despite their strong objections.

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was met with strong condemnation, and he had to battle to be taken seriously. This condemnation often came from churches, which clung mightily to the story of Creation in the Scriptures.

Sigmund Freud opened up the universe of the unconscious mind and greatly influenced a major change in conventional attitudes and understanding about the workings of the human mind and emotions.

While Darwin’s thought has been proven, and largely accepted even by churches, Karl Marx’s socialist ideas dominated one half of our planet and greatly influenced the other. The history and experience of the Eastern Bloc countries have pretty much discredited Marx. The theories of Freud are more and more contested in recent years. Indeed, time has not been kind to “The Unholy Trinity.”

The real Holy Trinity, the solemnity of which the Church celebrates today, is beyond the reach of time and the grasp of human understanding. It is a great mystery of our faith.

“Two's company; three's a crowd” is a popular expression. Our faith says otherwise. For us, three signifies completeness and perfect symmetry and is present at key moments of the story of Jesus Christ.

His life constantly reflected the Trinity: Three figures make up the nativity scene in Bethlehem — the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Their first visitors were the three Wise Men. Later, in the desert, Jesus was tempted three times by Satan.

As a general rule, a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Jesus was a great storyteller and three figures appear prominently in his parables. The Prodigal Son is about a father and his two sons; the Good Samaritan tells the story of the actions of three passers-by, the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan. The Parable of the Sower tells how the farmer planted his seed in three different types of soil, yielding three different results of the harvest.

Toward the end of His life, the number three also figured prominently for Jesus: After His arrest, Peter denied Him three times. On the road to Calvary, he fell three times. The Crucifixion scene has three figures, Jesus and the two robbers. Before His resurrection, He spent lay in the tomb for three days.

God is love and is the three Persons of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Together they represent the fullness of love. The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The Holy Spirit is their love for each other.

Each of us was made in the image of the triune God. God the Father, who created us, his Son, who saved us, and the Holy Spirit who continues to guide us. Our lives should reflect the Trinity. We should always be creative like the Father, compassionate like the Son, and use our talents in the service of others, like the Holy Spirit.+

Homily for Saturday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time

The phrase "widow’s mite," which finds its origin in today’s Gospel passage, has made its way into the English language as a metaphor describing something small, which exhibits a great generosity of spirit. The widow placed a very small amount of money to the temple treasury but, in giving those two nearly worthless coins, she gave away all that she had to live on. Jesus points His disciples toward her as an example of generosity of spirit. Throughout His ministry, Jesus showed that He believed there was much to learn from the goodness of simple and ordinary people. 

Today’s Gospel passage takes place in Jerusalem, shortly before Jesus’ Passion, death, and Resurrection. This woman who gave everything was symbolic of the sacrifice He was about to make on the Cross, giving away everything - His very life - for us. This seemingly insignificant widow, who had practically nothing to give was, in reality, an example of immense generosity.

The widow reminds us that there are saints among us that may go unnoticed. Generosity of spirit is often expressed in simple and ordinary ways. There can be times in our lives when we have very little, but if we are generous with the little we have, we are immensely generous and rich in the eyes of the LORD.+