St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Monday of the 2nd Week of Lent

We often measure our success by what we have accumulated, such as money, possessions, or achievements.

However, those of us who have faith are called to invest our love, care, and compassion in others without expecting a reward. Love and mercy are what matter most in God's eyes.

Jesus instructs us to love one another unconditionally and without limit, just as God loves us. Ultimately, God will reward us with the things of heaven.

Let us pray that God will open our hearts and minds to focus on the things of heaven as the ultimate reward for all our actions in this life.

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent

In the Transfiguration, Jesus climbed the mountain and gave His disciples Peter, James, and John a peek at the glorious life they will live with their beloved one day. This life will be free from all distractions and filled with love. It encourages us to seek silence and pray so we can encounter Our Lord in our hearts.

The First Reading recalls another mountain and a time when Abraham had to make a life or death decision. It showed where his priorities lay and who came first in his life.

In the Second Reading, Paul reminds us that the Lord spared Abraham's son but did not hesitate to sacrifice His own.

In the Gospel, Jesus takes His closest disciples up the mountain alone to show them a glimpse of His divinity and prepare them for the trials to come. Elijah and Moses appeared, showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and prophets. God the Father identified Jesus as His Beloved Son.

This was a culminating moment of the faith the disciples had already shown. Like Abraham with Isaac, neither the disciples nor Abraham completely understood what had happened after the "mountain."

Getting to a mountaintop is not easy. In today's Gospel, Our Lord takes his disciples up a high mountain, away from the noise and distractions of the world.

Prayer is one of the pillars of Lenten observance. The struggle for quality prayer is often a struggle for silence. Everyone acknowledges the utility of "quiet time," but for prayer, this is just the first step. Exterior silence must facilitate interior silence. We have to quiet down on the inside too.

So, find a quiet place this week, such as a chapel, monastery, convent, or shrine, and set aside some real quiet time so that Our Lord can reveal himself to you more profoundly.

Homily for Saturday of the 1st Week of Lent

If someone is a perfectionist, it suggests that they are a taskmaster and demand everything to be precisely right, down to the last detail. However, when Jesus says, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” he does not ask for detailed perfectionism. In Luke’s gospel, the companion passage is almost identical to today’s passage from Matthew, except that instead of perfect, Luke has “merciful”: “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.” Therefore, Luke has interpreted what Jesus meant by “being perfect.”

Being perfect means to love others unconditionally. It involves loving others in the same way God loves us. This is the central message of Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount - to love one another with a selfless love that seeks nothing in return.

Jesus urges us to love in the same way that God loves, which indicates that this command is not impossible to fulfill. Though we may not be capable of loving in this divine manner independently, we can accomplish it with the help of God. As Jesus later tells his disciples in Matthew's gospel, "For God, all things are possible."

Homily for Friday of the 1st Week of Lent

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus calls His followers to a virtue and a standard greater than those of the scribes and Pharisees, for whom an essential commandment was “You shall not kill.” Jesus’ call goes far beyond that to the fundamental feelings and passions that lead people to kill others or put the lives of others in danger. Deep-seated attitudes and emotions need to be addressed to prevent evil actions and lead us to a recreation of our minds and souls.

The more profound and more fundamental re-creation and transformation for which Jesus is calling is not something we can bring about by our own efforts; we need the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit to bring about that profound transformation within us.

So, let us pray that the Holy Spirit will re-create deep within us the love that is God, that the roots of that deeper virtue and standard may grow within our hearts and minds and help us to become what God truly wants us to be.+

Homily for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle

Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle. This day does not refer to a piece of furniture but recognizes the authority Jesus bestowed upon St. Peter and his successors. This authority is not St. Peter's own but rather the authority of Christ. The Chair, also known as the Cathedra, is a symbol of that authority. The term Cathedral, which refers to the seat of authority in any diocese, is derived from this.

Jesus' authority was never used for His own purposes but rather to carry out the will of His Father in heaven. He used His authority to heal the sick, comfort the brokenhearted, and give hope to the oppressed. In the same way, the authority He bestowed upon St. Peter was less about power and more about responsibility. It was a responsibility of faith, love, and compassion.

This is also reflected in Bernini's sculpture of the Chair of St. Peter under the dome of the Basilica in Rome. The inscription on it reads, "O Pastor Ecclesiae, tu omnes Christi pascis agnos et oves," which means, "O pastor of the Church, you feed all Christ's lambs and sheep."

On this special day, let us pray for our Holy Father, that the Holy Spirit may guide him always as he continues to act as the Vicar of Christ on earth. May his work, prayer, and life be an example of how to use the gifts we have received to spread God's love and grace to all those we encounter.

Homily for Wednesday of the 1st Week of Lent

Our response to the Psalm today is taken from one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 51. Sometimes, during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I give this Psalm to people as a penance.

Although Psalm 51 speaks heavily about the sinful nature of human beings, it is also a Psalm of hope. It gives hope that a truly repentant heart will not be ignored by God. The Psalm is filled with the hope that a person can be cleansed of their sins and created anew in the deepest recesses of their soul. 

It also emphasizes that nothing will merit God's forgiveness more than a genuinely contrite and humble spirit. No offering, no action, no matter how great, can earn the merciful attention of God more than a sincere word and spirit of being sorry for our sins.

Throughout this season of Lent, let us ask God for the grace to remove from our lives, our minds, and our hearts those things that keep us from being truly repentant for our failings. Let us use God's grace to do so.

Homily for Tuesday of the 1st Week of Lent

In our reading from the book of Isaiah, we learn that when God speaks, His Word never returns to Him without having achieved its purpose.

As we are blessed with life, we are called to share God’s love and mercy with those around us. By doing so, we are doing God's work on earth and presenting Him with the fruits of our labor.

May this Lenten season help us understand our role as ambassadors of God’s love on earth and inspire us to offer Him everything He has given us.

Homily for Monday of the1st Week of Lent

In today's Gospel reading from Matthew, we are reminded that serving those most in need is serving Jesus Himself. 

It's important to understand that Jesus is present in all of us, regardless of our socioeconomic status or level of independence.

Whether serving or being served, you will encounter Jesus as He lives and acts within each of us. Therefore, let us strive to recognize the presence of Jesus in every person we meet today.

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent

In January 2006,  an explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia led to the deaths of twelve miners, eleven of them by carbon monoxide poisoning. Rescue crews desperately tried to reach the miners in time. Still, the twelve were found dead late the following day, along with one survivor who recovered from his devastating injuries after months of hospitalizations and therapy.

One of the miners was Martin Toler. As he huddled with his fellow miners, trying to find shelter from the poisonous air, Martin took out an insurance form he had stuffed in his pocket and a pencil. In faint sentences, he managed to scribble out a goodbye to his family, assuring them that he and the others died peacefully.

The note read: "Tell all I'll see them on the other side. It wasn't bad; I just went to sleep. I love you."

Other notes were found. The messages assured their families that they had not suffered, that they had just gone to sleep. The miners scratched out their farewells and last proclamations of love, care, and concern on any scrap of paper they had.

Such extraordinary grace and selflessness: Despite the imminence of their own deaths, the miners managed to find a way of offering some assurance, some peace, some final expression of love to their families.

The miners of Sago left an essential lesson to all of us as we begin the season of Lent: Lent confronts us with our own mortality, with the reality that our lives are all too brief and fragile.

As Jesus was led to the desert to confront the mission before him, we are called to the desert of our own hearts and spirits to face what we are making of this time we have been given, what we want our lives to stand for, what we want to leave to those

we love.

 May the Spirit of God give us the courage and wisdom to face the reality of this life's limits and to accept the hope of the life of the resurrection to come.

Homily for Saturday after Ash Wednesday

In today's Gospel passage, the Scribes and the Pharisees questioned Jesus about why He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. According to them, eating with such people was a risk as they believed it could lead to contamination and loss of moral health. They believed it was better to keep away from such people.

However, Jesus was not concerned about being contaminated by others' sins. He knew that His goodness, which was the goodness of the Father in Him, would infect and transform them. The Lord is never reduced by our failings, but we are always enriched by His holiness.

This is why the Lord does not separate Himself from us, even when we tend to separate ourselves from Him because of our actions or inactions. The Lord is always ready to sit with us, break bread with us, and enter into communion with us. In our weakness, we can draw from His strength, and in our many failings, we can draw from His goodness and love.