Episodes
Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
Homily for Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Easter
Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
As Jesus said, "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit," Stephen also prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." He then prayed and asked the Lord not to hold the sin against them. The message is that Jesus' followers should adopt His attitudes.
Today, the Risen Lord continues to live in and through us, His followers. He invites us to receive Him as our Bread of Life and live by the guidance of His Spirit.
When we come to Him in the Eucharist, we receive spiritual nourishment and strength to live by His example. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger."
Monday Apr 15, 2024
Homily for Monday of the 3rd Week of Easter
Monday Apr 15, 2024
Monday Apr 15, 2024
In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus distinguishes between bread that quickly grows stale and the bread, the food, that lasts into eternal life. He had fed the people with bread and fish since physical hunger had to be satisfied. Still, as they continued looking for more food, He invited them to think of spiritual food to satisfy their deeper desires. He came not just to feed people physically but to give them the spiritually nourishing food of God’s presence.
Jesus reminds us that while we need material things because we are material beings, our search must go deeper. There is more to life than satisfying our physical needs. We have a deeper, spiritual hunger that must be satisfied to live our lives fully and be at peace with ourselves and others.
Jesus Himself offers us the food of eternal life, satisfying the deepest hunger of our hearts. Our quest for fulfillment must ultimately lead us to God; as St. Augustine eloquently put it, “Our hearts cannot find true rest until they rest in God.”
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
The message we receive in our Scripture readings today is that before Jesus could rise to glory on Easter, He first had to suffer and die. Peter puts it this way in our first reading today: “God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through… all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer [before being raised to glory].”
Jesus refers to this in our Gospel reading today. He adds elsewhere in the Gospel that what has happened to Him must also happen to us when He says, “Remember, no slave is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
The Gospel says that if we are to rise to glory as Jesus did, we must also suffer as He did. When this happens, we may beg God to take it away as Jesus begged His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, but in the end, we will cry for joy just as Jesus did.
St. Augustine expressed this same message in a sermon over 1,500 years ago. He said, “You are like a piece of pottery, shaped by instruction, fired by tribulation. When you are put in the oven, therefore, keep your thoughts on the time when you will be taken out again; for God is faithful and will guard both your going in and your coming out.”
Back in 1954, the great French painter Henri Matisse died at 86. In the last years of his life, arthritis crippled and deformed his hands, making it painful for him to hold a paintbrush. Yet, he continued to paint, placing a cloth between his fingers and the brush to keep the brush from slipping.
One day, someone asked Matisse why he submitted his body to such suffering. Why did he continue to paint in the face of such great physical pain? Matisse replied, “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”
Similarly, the pain you and I experience being shaped into something useful and beautiful for God will pass. But the beauty of what we become in the process will remain forever.
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
Homily for Saturday of the 2nd Week of Easter
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
As Jesus retreated to the hills for prayer, His disciples went to cross the lake in their boat. Despite His solitude, Jesus was not oblivious to His friends' plight. He was acutely aware of their struggle against the wind and exhaustion from rowing, demonstrating the power of prayer in maintaining connection and awareness.
If genuine prayer sharpens our awareness of other people's needs. If our prayer opens us up to God, it leaves us more open to others struggling with life's stresses and storms.
As Jesus is invited into the boat with his disciples, the wind drops, and they find themselves in a calmer space at their destination. This is a powerful reminder that we, too, can ask for the Lord's calming presence during the many stresses and storms that threaten to overwhelm us. His grace enables us to share our trust in His saving presence with others.
Friday Apr 12, 2024
Homily for Friday of the 2nd Week of Easter
Friday Apr 12, 2024
Friday Apr 12, 2024
Today's Gospel tells a well-known story of Jesus feeding a large crowd with just five barley loaves and two fish and having twelve wicker baskets of leftovers when it was all done.
There's a rather important detail to this story that is often overlooked. Where did Jesus get the five loaves and two fish with which he performed the miracle?
He got them from a small boy. The boy didn't have much but gave what he had, and the LORD did all the rest.
There is an essential truth in that detail: God relies on our cooperation for His will to be carried out. We need to offer our gifts, as meager as they may seem. God will take our actions, talents, and efforts and make great things of them, especially when it comes to feeding the poor, finding shelter for the homeless, caring for the sick, standing up for the oppressed, and bringing God's love, mercy, and providence to those who need it the most.
As we reflect on this story, let us remember that our mission on earth is not accomplished through our own strength alone. Through God's grace, our efforts are multiplied, and our mission is completed. Let us, therefore, pray that we will always be willing to use our gifts and talents for the good of others, trusting in God's grace to bring about His will.
Thursday Apr 11, 2024
Homily for the Memorial of St. Stanislaus
Thursday Apr 11, 2024
Thursday Apr 11, 2024
Our first reading today presents us with a challenge that we face every day: the challenge to turn away from the world's expectations and, instead, follow God's expectations, to obey God's will rather than the impulses of humanity.
The apostles served as a beacon of courage in their unwavering commitment to Jesus' teachings. They stood their ground even when their safety and lives were at stake, a testament to their unyielding faith.
Our challenge, too, is to stand firm in our obedience to God and proclaim the truth of God's love and our redemption in Christ, even when the world doesn't want to hear it.
Let us pray that we will have the same courage as the Apostles and keep our eyes fixed firmly on heaven.
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
Homily for Wednesday of the 2nd Week of Easter
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
The evenings are getting longer, with daylight extending beyond 7:30 PM. Most of us are happy that daylight is increasing daily at this time of year. Our hearts sink later in the year when the days grow shorter. Even though most of us like light, the Gospel passage from John notes that sometimes people prefer darkness to light.
However, John is not referring to natural light but to the One who is the "Light of the World": Jesus Himself.
Jesus declares that anyone who lives by the truth, who seeks the truth with sincerity of heart, will come out into the light. They are already standing in the light of God's grace, even if they may not be fully aware of it. This is the light that people of faith, those who seek to be guided by the light of Christ, will always have in common with all who seek the truth.
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Homily for Tuesday of the 2nd Week of Easter
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
In today's Gospel passage, Nicodemus, a well-educated person with strong beliefs, seems surprised and confused in his conversation with Jesus. The conversation is challenging because what Jesus says doesn't align with what Nicodemus holds as true. In response, Jesus encourages him to let the Holy Spirit dwell in him so he may be reborn.
Often, we are told to surrender ourselves to the Spirit, but in today's passage, Jesus is not asking us to surrender. Instead, he asks us to open our minds and hearts to the Spirit. He is not asking us to give up anything but to listen to the Spirit.
Our relationship with God is a relationship, which means that we actively participate in speaking and listening. In this relationship with the Spirit, we can understand who and what God is in our lives and souls and who we are to God.
Let us pray that we will truly open ourselves to the Holy Spirit so that we may come to know God and keep Him in our awareness as an ever-present and influential reality.
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Homily for the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Monday Apr 08, 2024
Today, we commemorate the Annunciation of the Lord. It was the moment when Mary received God's call to be the mother of His Son. It must have been scary for Mary to be visited by an angel and to put her reputation, along with Joseph's, at risk of being accused of wrongdoing.
Despite her fears, Mary answered God's call with all her heart, soul, mind, and body.
Let us pray that Mary's selfless devotion to God's will may inspire us to follow God with all our hearts, even when it is difficult, unpopular, or at odds with those around us.
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
In his book entitled Miracle on the River Kwai, Ernest Gordon tells the story of British soldiers, prisoners of war, who their captors forced to work on a jungle railroad. Suffering drove the prisoners to hate their captors. Even their behavior toward one another degenerated into division and bitterness.
One day, a shovel was missing. The officer in charge was enraged and demanded that it be returned. Not one of the prisoners budged. The officer raised his gun and threatened to begin killing them on the spot if the guilty one did not come forth. It was apparent he meant what he said.
Then, one of the prisoners stepped forward, trembling with his head bowed. The officer immediately killed him. After this, he ordered a recount of all the tools to be sure nothing else was missing. At the second count, it was discovered that none of the shovels were missing. There had been a miscount the first time. Every tool was there.
Word spread like wildfire throughout the whole camp. An innocent man laid down his life to save them! His sacrifice had a profound effect. Prisoners began treating each other like brothers. And not only each other.
When the victorious Allies swept in, the surviving soldiers, who were hardly more than human skeletons, stood between their captors and the Allies. Instead of attacking, they protected the captors, saying, "No more hatred, no more killing. Now we want forgiveness!" One man's sacrificing love transformed them.
The image of God's love for us, Jesus dying on the Cross, transforms us. When we see the image of Jesus on the Cross, we are reminded that whenever one of His members suffers, Jesus suffers, for we are His body. When our bodies are in pain, our heads suffer as well.
Eight days after His resurrection, Jesus appeared to the Apostles. He stretched out His hands before them and said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands; and bring your hand and put it into my side."
Jesus could have said, "Look at my hands, look at my side. See the wounds." Instead, He tells Thomas to enter His wounds, "Put your hand into my side." In other words, “Let your flesh become one with my flesh, your sufferings with my sufferings.” Jesus suffered because we, His body, suffer many things.
The sacrifice of one soldier inspired the others by his example of love for them. The inspiration Jesus gives is infinitely greater. He breathes His Spirit into us: inspiration. He enters us and takes our wounds upon Himself to bear our sufferings. The image of Jesus will be on the Cross until the last member of His body shares in His Resurrection and ascends with Him into the kingdom of heaven.