St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

After dying together in a freak accident, three friends go to Heaven for an orientation session. They are all asked the same question: "When you are in your casket and family and friends are mourning over you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"

The first guy responds: "I would like to hear them say that I was one of the greatest doctors of my time and a great family man."

The second guy says: "I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and a school teacher who made a huge difference in the children of tomorrow."

The third guy thinks for a while and then replies: "I guess I'd like to hear them say, 'Look – he's moving!'"

There are a lot of jokes about heaven, and I suppose it’s because we have a lot of questions about what it will be like.

It's natural to have questions about what happens after we die. Every religion seeks to provide answers to this ultimate question. Today's feast reflects on what happens after death, offering a key to understanding the profound mysteries of our lives. In the Christian perspective, we find hope and purpose in understanding that our journey continues beyond death.

If you look at Mary's life as recorded in the Gospels, on the surface, there is nothing special about it. It is a life of faith, not vision. Only divine Revelation lets us look at the hidden glory of her life. Revelation tells us that at her death, she was assumed body and soul into Heaven, a belief that signifies her unique role in salvation history and her special relationship with her son, Jesus.

Because of Christ's Resurrection and Mary's Assumption, we have hope that our death is a beginning, but also that in our life, we can look back from that vantage point and find the infinite in the finite. There is so much more going on in our lives than we can see, understand, or even imagine. When Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, she had a life within her life. Every woman who has conceived must have experienced this—a life within her life. This seems to be a model of the Christian life: We have the life of God within our lives. We must be attentive to the life we bear, nurture it, and bring forth its fruit. Nothing is as it seems. Death is life, suffering is redemptive, and mortality becomes immortality.

Homily for the Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe

Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the death of Franciscan Friar Maximilian Kolbe in Auschwitz. He volunteered to take the place of a man with a family who was condemned to starve to death. After two weeks of prayer with no food, Maximilian was the last one alive. The guards then injected him with carbolic acid. The following day, his body was cremated.

St. Maximilian Kolbe exemplified self-sacrifice, dying for others as Jesus did. He also lived a life of service, hiding over 2,000 Jewish people during the early years of the Holocaust and rejecting special treatment from the Nazis due to his German descent.

Let us pray for the strength to make sacrifices for others and the courage to uphold our Christian values.

Homily for Tuesday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time

People's questions often indicate their priorities. In today's Gospel passage, the disciples asked Jesus, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" This question suggests their special interest in status and rank.

In response Jesus called a child over and placed it in their midst; He then told them that they must become like that child merely to enter the kingdom of heaven, never mind becoming the greatest in the kingdom.

Jesus instructed His disciples to become child-like in the sense that a child trusts a loving parent. Such a trust awaits everything from God and seizes nothing, including status and rank.

True greatness comes to those who make themselves as reliant on God as children are on adults for their well-being. Jesus' response to the question of His disciples reflects the first beatitude that He had told them about earlier in Matthew's Gospel, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Homily for Monday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time

In today's Gospel, we see Jesus and His disciples continuing their journey despite Jesus having foretold His death and Resurrection. They arrive in Capernaum, Simon Peter's home, where an interesting incident takes place. The half-shekel tax was an annual payment made by every Jewish person at the time for the maintenance of the Temple. Jesus states that He and His followers are exempt from this tax, as He is the "New Temple."

However, He tells Peter to pay the tax to avoid offending the religious leaders. Essentially, Jesus proclaims freedom from this obligation but advises setting aside this freedom momentarily to prevent unnecessary offense. This serves as a powerful reminder that while we may have freedom in particular cases, it is wise to forgo that freedom when it could imperil the well-being of others and the common good.

Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many of us engage in a fair amount of complaining, and sometimes for valid reasons. We frequently complain about the weather and may grumble about various things. If we're not careful, we can find ourselves constantly griping about anything and everything. This can lead to a negative mindset, where we only see problems without noticing anything else, failing to see the bigger picture, which always has some brighter aspects. Our vision becomes limited to what is wrong, absent, or inadequate.

Today's Gospel passage begins with the people murmuring (i.e. complaining) about Jesus. They saw Him as a problem. They knew His father and mother, but He claimed to be the Bread that came down from heaven, which scandalized them. They couldn't believe someone they knew so well could make such claims. Their response to Jesus was to complain. But complaining alone is rarely an adequate response.

Jesus calls for a unique response from us: to listen to and respond positively to His Father's teaching; those who do, He says, will come to Him. As followers of Jesus, we continually go to Him throughout our lives. We never fully reach Him in this life; we never fully understand Him, so we find ourselves always journeying to Him to know Him better. And wherever we are on our faith journey, the Lord continues to call us to come to Him.

Jesus proclaims that no one can come to Him without God's help. This help isn't merely passive but is an engaged, steering power in our lives, constantly drawing us to Jesus. There is a drive within us from God, an impetus that will guide us to Jesus if we are receptive to it, even in the slightest way.

Jesus refers to Himself as the "Bread that came down from heaven" and urges us to consume this Bread. This invitation is to come to Him by participating in the Eucharist and the Word. In the Old Testament, bread often symbolizes the Word of God. As it is said in the Book of Deuteronomy, "…it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord." We require the nourishment that comes from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ – His REAL Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – AND we need the nourishment we receive from God's Word in the Sacred Scriptures.  To feed on the Word of the Lord means to reflect on it, allowing it to guide our thoughts and actions, thus enriching our souls.

By continuously coming to Jesus in the Eucharist, in His Word, in prayer, in His presence among us always, He will shape our lives; He will provide us with what we need to live the kind of life Saint Paul describes in our second reading, a life of love in which are "kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven [us] in Christ, [being] imitators of God, as beloved children, and [living] in love."

Homily for the Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

In 258, Saint Lawrence, the chief deacon of the Diocese of Rome, offered the wealth of the Church to those who had nothing of their own. A deacon's responsibility is to proclaim the Word of God, look after the material goods of the Church, and care for the poor. As the chief deacon of a diocese as large as Rome, Lawrence held a great deal of responsibility, overseeing the Church's resources and ensuring they were used to help those in need.

He was called to act upon all these roles one day when Pope Sixtus II was put under civil arrest. Soon after, the pope was martyred, and Lawrence knew that he would be one of the next Christians the Empire would come after. So, Lawrence sought out the poor, the widows, and the orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he held, even selling the sacred vessels of the Church.

The Prefect of Rome called Lawrence before him and demanded that he produce the treasure of the Church. Lawrence then gathered together the blind and the lame, the leprous, the widows, and orphans, and lined them up before the Prefect's villa. When the Prefect arrived, Lawrence said, "Here is the treasure of the Church." The Prefect not only did not understand Lawrence's words, but he also did not understand Lawrence spending his life in the service of such people. It's unlikely, in fact, that the Prefect cared one way or the other since four days after the death of the Pope, Lawrence was martyred as well, on August 10th.

Saint Lawrence understood that the true wealth of the Church lies in the manner in which our lives touch the lives of others. In our lives as Christians, one of the most important challenges we face is to realize to what extent - both for good and evil - our lives are connected to the lives of others.

Homily for Friday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus often spoke in paradoxes. One of the most noticeable paradoxes occurred when Jesus said, "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." In other words, we will lose ourselves if we are concerned only with ourselves and our needs and desires. However, if we look beyond ourselves toward the Lord and to the lives and needs of those around us, we will find our true selves.

Jesus also expressed this fundamental paradox of his teaching in another way when he said, "Give, and gifts will be given to you." In other words, it is in giving that we receive.

Hopefully, our own experience has taught us that when we look beyond ourselves to others, to the Lord present in others, we experience the Lord's own joy and life, which is an indication of the joy and life of the kingdom of heaven.

Homily for the Memorial of St. Dominic

Today's Gospel reveals two sides of Peter. Initially, he displays a remarkable understanding of Jesus, identifying Him as "the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus responds by calling him the rock on which He would build His Church.

Later, however, Peter rebukes Jesus for speaking about His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. At this point, Jesus addresses him as Satan and as an obstacle in his path. It is hard to conceive of a greater contradiction: from rock to stumbling stone.

There is a similar contradiction in our relationship with the Lord. We have moments when we are in harmony with the Lord's will for us, but we also have other moments when we are in discord with His will. Yet, the Lord maintains His faith in us despite our shortcomings, just as He did with Peter.

This narrative tells us that Jesus founded His Church on a somewhat imperfect rock that could potentially become a scandal, a stumbling stone. When Jesus calls Peter the rock, He refers to the Church as "my church." It will persevere because it is Jesus' Church, even when those with pastoral responsibility for the Church falter. Because the Church has the Risen Lord within it until the end of the age, the gates of the netherworld, the powers of evil and death, will never triumph over it.

Homily for Wednesday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

When the pagan woman desperately cried out for help, Jesus initially responded with silence. Despite this, she persisted in her request, and Jesus seemed to dismiss it roughly. However, she was undeterred and cleverly turned His words about feeding the children rather than dogs, meant to represent the people of Israel rather than pagans, to her advantage.

Ultimately, her persistent faith was rewarded, and her request was granted. It appears that Jesus believed it was not yet time to bring the Gospel to pagans. Still, her unwavering faith seemingly influenced His timetable.

At one point, Jesus spoke about a faith that can move mountains. This woman's faith certainly moved Jesus. Her story encourages us to remain faithful, even when it's challenging, and inspires us to keep seeking the Lord, even when He seems silent and distant.

Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

Peter, James, and John were privileged to accompany Jesus to the top of the mountain where He was transfigured before them. It must have been an incredible sight: Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah right before their eyes. They were overwhelmed and in awe of what was happening.

So Jesus is with each of us. When we least expect it, He gives us a wonderful experience of His grace to strengthen us in our journey with Him. This is a privilege, but it's not just for us to admire; it's a call to respond to His invitation to love. Jesus called these three Apostles to a deeper level of love and trust in Him, and He does the same with us.

The Apostles were so awestruck that they were speechless. However, Peter felt the urge to say something even though he didn't know what to say.

In our spiritual lives, we often struggle with the temptation to speak too much. In our Gospel passage, we hear the Father's words: "This is my son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him" God calls us to listen carefully to Jesus' words and not feel the need to speak. He is often looking for a response in action rather than in words.