St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s parable was originally meant as an encouraging word from Jesus to His followers. In His public ministry before this parable, Jesus and His disciples met many difficulties and obstacles: The religious leaders accused them of breaking the Sabbath. They even claimed that Jesus had healed people by the power of Satan! Jesus’ own relatives wanted to confine Him to the house because they feared He had lost control of Himself. That was the context for Jesus talking about the farmer sowing his seed in the field.

The Galilean farmer had all kinds of obstacles to deal with, so that many of the seeds he sowed never took root, or never reached maturity. Yet, despite all challenges, obstacles, and setbacks, the harvest turned out to be great.

Jesus’ message is this: “Look beyond the obstacles, the setbacks, the disappointments; God is at work in my ministry and the harvest will be great in the end. "

We can all become absorbed by what is not going well, by the failures and the losses all around us. Today’s parable encourages us to stay hopeful in the midst of loss and failure, because the LORD is always at work in a life-giving way, even when failure and loss seem to dominate our vision of the world.+

Homily for the Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus implies that it is doing the will of God the Father that makes us family to Jesus. He identified the faithful disciple, not by rank or position, not by talents or wealth, but by faithfulness to the will of God in the routine of our daily lives. Jesus asks us to approach all that we do as if we were in the framework of a universal family, with our neighbors as our sisters or brothers, as our mothers or fathers.

This story seems to show Jesus overriding traditional family relationships in favor of the new harmony of His followers with Him. When His mother and other relatives seek to see Him, one might presume that He would drop everything else and give His full attention to them. Apparently, there are times when we should be with our biological family and other times when we should share our love with outsiders. Jesus gives examples of both of these moments.

In today’s story He gives more attention to His extended family; but later in time, in John’s gospel, as He hangs dying on the Cross, He ensures that His mother will be cared for (John 19:26-27). Even this final concern for His mother is linked to His relationship with the entire Church. Here, as in other gospel stories, Mary represents the Church, the center of a praying community (Acts 1:13-14).

The natural response of children can teach adults a lot about what it means to be Church. In general, kids like to be encompassed in a close family circle and most of them can also effortlessly engage with complete strangers. They teach us the meaning of Jesus’ words as He looked around at those seated in the circle and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."+

Homily for Monday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time

The passages surrounding today’s Gospel show us the mixed reactions to Jesus’ activities in Capernaum: There were huge crowds gathering round Him on the seashore; His family believed He was going mad and wanted to stop Him; in today’s passage, the official religious authorities, the scribes from Jerusalem, attributed His actions to evil sources, an attitude that would eventually lead to His death.

Jesus pointed to the inconsistency of their opinion, that He was practicing two conflicting plans at the same time. He accused them of an unforgivable sin, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit since he was filled with the Holy Spirit and they accused Him of having an unclean or demonic spirit.

Indeed, it was the Holy Spirit that directed Jesus' words and actions throughout His life and ministry here on earth. That same Spirit fills us and, like Jesus, when we follow the Holy Spirit, we may find ourselves at odds with our world and even those closest to us.

Let us pray that in our quest to follow God’s will, we may be most influenced by the promptings of God’s Spirit dwelling in our hearts, minds, and souls. +

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

My Dad was a Lutheran and didn’t really practice his faith. For the most part, when he would go to church, it would be to a Catholic church. Whenever anyone would ask him his religion, he would answer in jest, saying, “I’m a Pedestrian.”

When asked our religion, most of us would describe ourselves as “Catholic” or “Christian.” But we would probably back away from calling ourselves “Disciple” or “Follower.” That description rightly belongs to the great heroes of our faith: the saints and martyrs, people like St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Teresa of Calcutta, or Dorothy Day. Our lives probably seem too ordinary to imagine that we are doing the work of the Gospel in the name of Jesus. If we think this way, however, we are wrong.

A woman by the name of Denise Roy found that in her life as a wife and mother, she had been doing exactly what Jesus did. In her book entitled, My Monastery is a Minivan: Where Daily is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer, Denise writes: “For two decades I have broken bread, poured grape juice, preached, prayed, told stories, bestowed blessings, taken care of the sick… I have been a parent. These have been sacraments of my daily life… These are simple, sacred acts. These are how we mediate love, as we minister to our own little congregations – children, spouses, family, and friends.”

At one time in her life, Denise, who is also a psychotherapist and spiritual director, wanted to be a contemplative nun, but she found her family’s minivan to be her own ‘monastery’ of sorts. She spent so much time in it running from place to place doing errand after errand and carting the kids from one activity after another, that she recognized that she needed to bring a piece of her experience of Church, a piece of her faith to the place where she spends so much time.

Jesus’ invitation in the Gospel to the fishermen, tax collectors, farmers, laborers, and peasants to be His followers is extended to us, as well. Jesus’ call to discipleship transcends that moment on the shores of the Sea of Galilee to our own time and place, to our own homes and lives, to our own jobs and livelihoods. Our baptisms were acceptances of that invitation to take on the work of discipleship – an acceptance that we must renew each day and in every aspect of our daily living.

We are called to do this not just in this church when we gather to pray and worship and share in the Eucharist, but everywhere we live and breathe. May the faith we share in this church be expressed in every action of our lives.+

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Today we celebrate the conversion of the Pharisee named Saul who became an Apostle of Jesus and was then called Paul.

As a Pharisee, Saul studied and knew all about the events of Jesus’ life and death; he knew that Jesus’ followers recognized Him as the Messiah and that the Mosaic Law was no longer viewed as the final word of authority, that the people believed the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus was now a part of the final word. As a Pharisee, focused entirely on the Law, this was abhorrent to him.

Yet, somehow, on the road to Damascus, Saul saw Jesus not through the eyes of a Pharisee, but through the eyes of faith, and his view of Jesus was turned completely upside down.

This new view of the one now called Paul enabled him to set aside his blinding adherence to the strictest interpretation of the Law and to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and to become His follower. It also helped him to see that the call to preach, meant the call to preach to everyone, including the Gentiles, whom some early Jewish Christians believed were to be excluded.

Let us pray that we, too, will recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives and that we will also answer the call to share our knowledge and love of God with others.+

Homily for January 24, 2020

As I was reading today’s Gospel passage, a seemingly insignificant line jumped out at me. It comes after Jesus summons those whom He wanted; it says, “And they came to Him.”

Jesus called the Twelve He wanted to be His Apostles. And they came to Him.

Jesus calls us every day; He is constantly reaching out to us. Do we go to Him when He calls? Do we even know when and how He calls us?

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that He calls us through and is found in those who need help with the basics of life, like food, water, clothing, refuge; He is found in those who are sick and in need of our compassion and care, those who are imprisoned, especially those found there by oppression. (Matthew 25:31-46)

Do we recognize Jesus in these people? Do we hear His call through these people? Do we go to Him through these people? Hopefully, we do, because Jesus made it clear on many occasions that it is in people such as these that He may be found, and He may be served. +

Homily for January 23, 2020

During His ministry on earth, those who came to Jesus in the greatest numbers were people who were suffering, people who were distressed, those who had least going for them in life. They recognized that He had come to bring them life; that He had come especially for the suffering, the broken, the lost.

We, too, come to the LORD with a sense of urgency when we are struggling, when we are in some kind of distress. Like the crowds in the gospel, we reach out to touch the LORD in our brokenness, recognizing Him as the source of healing and life. The LORD is as present to us as He was to the crowds in Galilee so long ago; He remains strength in our weakness, healing in our brokenness, life in our varied experiences of death. We can approach Him with the same sense of confidence of being as well-received as the crowds in Galilee that we hear about in today’s Gospel.+

Homily for January 22, 2020

Decisions and actions against human life are influenced by many things: feeling fearful, feeling unsupported, feeling pressured, feeling angry, or feeling alone. All of these feelings lead some people to make decisions that put the lives of others at risk, as well as their own lives.

Consider a college student who has conceived a child in her womb. Her boyfriend tells her that she must choose between him and their unborn child.

Consider expectant parents who have just been told their baby may have a serious disability. Our culture and our laws provide for them to consider a choice to end the child’s life so as to have the baby not suffer or struggle.

The disagreement between those who are “Pro-Life” and those who are “Pro-Choice” elicits very strong feelings on both sides. Nonetheless, we are called to love both the unborn children and their parents, even if they are considering abortion, providing concrete support to help those in difficult pregnancy situations to welcome their children before and after they are born. +

Homily for January 21, 2020

Our Scriptures readings today show us that there are extraordinary opportunities within what seem like very ordinary lives. Seemingly mundane encounters with family and friends can hold the key to our peace and holiness in the sight of God. It was not David’s older, stronger brothers that God chose to be king; it was the young man himself, because of what God saw in him. For “not as man sees does God see, because he sees the appearance, but the Lord looks into the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

Questions about our purpose in life are raised by today’s Scripture readings, questions often raised by Pope Francis in his homilies: “Do I put my life actively at the service of others, seeking to serve them in the ways that today’s people need if they are to hear the Gospel?” “Do I appreciate the potential in other people, despite their limitations?” “Do I appreciate my own potential, despite my limitations?” “Am I more appreciative of others than judgmental of them?” “How well do I live out the principle of mercy stated by Jesus when He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath?” 

Such questions have been asked by Pope Francis, promoting a Gospel of Joy, and they invite us to ponder whether we are living out our faith to promote the love and mercy of God, or to pronounce judgment on others.+

Homily for January 20, 2020

The wine was a very important element at a wedding feast, the beginning of a marriage, as was clear from the story of the wedding feast at Cana, which precedes the story we just heard in today’s Gospel reading. Having spoken of Himself as the bridegroom, Jesus also compares His presence to that of new wine.

The new wine of the LORD’S loving presence and life-giving action calls for new wineskins to hold it and to dispense it. The LORD’S love is a grace, but it also makes certain demands on us, calling on us to continually renew our lives so that we can truly be molded by His love.

New wine, new wineskins. We have to keep shedding our old skin and develop new skin. We can never be fully satisfied with where we are at any moment of our lives.+