St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Wednesday of the 5th Week of Lent

Jesus declares, “the truth will set you free.” A little later in John’s Gospel, He will say of Himself, “I am the truth.”

Jesus is a source of true freedom for His followers. He goes on to declare, “If the Son frees you, then you will be truly free.” It is through staying close to Him that we can enter into what St. Paul calls “the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Our relationship with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that He pours into our hearts, let us live as God wants us to live: in ways that correspond to what is best within us.

True freedom is the freedom to love, to give of ourselves to others as Jesus gave of Himself to us. It is for this freedom we pray during these final weeks of Lent.+

Homily for Tuesday of the 5th Week of Lent

“O LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.”

I focus, once again, on our responsorial psalm for the day. Today’s Psalm begins with a pleading for God to hear the prayer of the psalmist and recalls how God has always heard the cry of His people.

In the end, the psalm seems to be reassuring that God hears our prayers made amid our struggles and that God keeps us from succumbing to our trials.

Of course, this last part of the prayer refers to the end times and to our belief that regardless of what happens in this life, there is joy and salvation in the next.

May we always trust that God hears our prayers and may we always trust in His promise of eternal life.+

Monday of the 5th Week of Lent

“Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you are at my side.”

Our psalm today is another one of those things that we hear often in Scripture, and which sounds nice, but we have to ask if we really take it to heart. When it seems like our prayers are not being answered – or at least being answered as we would like – do we despair or do we take to heart these words of the great psalmist? Do we trust that God’s love and grace are with us regardless of what happens to us in this life? That trust (or at least that hope) is what marks the faithful people of God.

May we seek to trust that God is with us at every step of the way – in good times and in bad – and that, walking with us, he will lead us to the everlasting peace and joy of heaven.+

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent

In the 1950s and ’60s, when China invaded the tiny mountain nation of Tibet, the Communists imprisoned many monks, nuns, and Buddhist faithful. Some were imprisoned in labor camps for twenty or thirty years or more.

One monk had been imprisoned for twenty-five years. He had been tortured and treated badly, and his body was pretty much a wreck, but not his mind.

When you looked into his eyes, far from seeing bitterness, brokenness, or hatred in them, you could see that they were glowing. He looked as though he had just spent twenty-five years on retreat. All he talked about was his gratitude to the Chinese. He said that they had helped him develop an overwhelming love and compassion towards those who would cause him harm.

The old monk explained that his imprisonment forced him to draw on his inner strength. In such circumstances, either you go under or you rise above the hatred and pain. When he emerged from prison, the old monk felt nothing but love and understanding toward his captors. He had learned the deeper meaning of his religion and came to understand humanity’s profound connections to one another in and with God.

The monk explained that without his captors, his words of faith would have been nothing but mouthing platitudes. He needed the challenging experience he endured for so long for the words of faith to take root in his heart, to be living words with deep meaning.

To transform our lives in order to become the people that we were meant to be begins by “dying” to those ambitions, prejudices and fears we cling to: What values, what gifts, what purposes are we willing to center our lives upon in order to make them what we pray they will be? What are we willing to let “die” in our lives in order that what we seek in the depths of our hearts might “live” might grow and blossom? What must we put aside and bury in order that the justice and peace of God may be established here and now?

Christ gave His life on the tree of the Cross in order that new life might come forth; His death gave rise to a new heart and spirit for humanity. The Gospel of the grain of wheat is Christ’s assurance to us of the great things we can do and the powerful works we can accomplish by dying to self and rising to the love and compassion of Jesus, the Servant Redeemer.+

Homily for Saturday of the 4th Week of Lent

Many years ago, a wealthy merchant purchased a powerful microscope. He was fascinated with it. Looking through its lens at crystals and flower petals, he was captivated by their beauty and detail. He spent many enjoyable hours with the microscope until one evening when he placed under the lens a morsel of the food he was about to eat for dinner. He was horrified to see the disgusting, monstrous-looking organisms crawling in it. He loved this particular food very much. He agonized over what to do. Finally, he concluded that there was only one way out of his dilemma He picked up a mallet and shattered the microscope to pieces.

Like the microscope that reveals more than the merchant wants to see, Jesus comes to proclaim a Gospel that is more than we bargained for. The reign of God that Jesus proclaims is founded on a concept of justice and an attitude of reconciliation that can scare us, that threatens the isolated cocoons we sometimes create for ourselves, that shatters our sometimes-self-centered approach to the world

To those who really understood Him, Jesus’ teachings did not suggest comfort and joy; they objected to Him as a dangerous firebrand, an idealistic radical who had no grasp of reality or the complexities of the world.

And it's true, Jesus' Gospel is not one of comfort (at least not to the comfortable), nor is it a Gospel of peace to those at war with themselves and those around them, nor is it a Gospel of love to those who are concerned only with themselves. “Love your enemies and pray for them, invite to your table the poor and those who in no way can repay you, forgive seventy times seven, seek the lowest place, take up your cross and follow.” These are dangerous, radical, and subversive teachings that will surely undermine comfortable and complacent lifestyles and threaten what the world often holds dear.

The scribes and Pharisees – and even some today – would agree with the wealthy merchant: Better to destroy the lens of the microscope than being overwhelmed by the vision we see.[1]

 

May we have the courage to look deep within our hearts and souls and look deeper into the Gospel message of Jesus and turn to Him for the support, help, and guidance we need to follow in His ways.+

 

[1] Cormier, Jay, Connections: The Weekdays of Lent, MediaWorks, Londonderry, NH, 2007, p.14.

Homily for the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We do not know a lot about the details of his life. We know that he was much older than Mary. We know that he was a carpenter. We know that he had dreams in which an angel appeared to him at crucial times in the time before the birth of Jesus and in His early life. And we know that because he listened to the angel in these times, and followed their guidance, he played a very important role in bringing to fruition the mission for which God came to earth in the person of Jesus.

So, while we do not know much about the details of Joseph’s life, we do know about the faith and character of this man, chosen for the role of foster father of Jesus and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His is a life, then, that we should emulate.

Through his intercession, may we be always aware of the ways in which God is calling to us and guiding us, and may we humbly act in accord with that call and guidance with the same trust and conviction as did St. Joseph.+

Homily for Thursday of the 4th Week of Lent

Our readings today help us to focus on the fact that God does not give up on us. We may fail to follow God’s will but God is always trying to point out the true way to His kingdom.

Sometimes, our faith seems to focus a lot on the wrath of God but, in reality, God wants us to be a part of His kingdom of heaven and God wants us to be an active part of His plan on earth. Unfortunately, we do not always follow where God calls

Let us pray for an openness to God’s call, that we may with faith and wisdom, live out our call and truly become the people God has created us to be.+

Homily for the Memorial of St. Patrick

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus proclaims openly that His aim is not to do His own will, but the will of the One (the Father) who sent Him. Jesus’ entire life was molded by the will of His Father, and that will is that all people might find life through faith in Jesus. As John says in Chapter 3 of his Gospel, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” God wills life and that is why Jesus says, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10b)

This is also the image of God we find in today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Just as a mother cherishes the child in her womb and gives life to her child, even more so does God cherish us and work to bring us to the fullness of life.

God guides us to springs of living water. When we pray in the LORD's Prayer, “Thy will be done,” we are praying that a culture of life will prevail over a culture of death. We are also committing ourselves to do God’s will by protecting life, by bringing life to others, by helping others to live fully human lives, lives that are shaped by the Holy Spirit and lead to eternal life in heaven.+

Homily for Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus is faced with the hypocrisy of the people who vilified Him for performing a miracle on the Sabbath. We know that there are other places in Scripture where Jesus’ goodness and faithfulness are questioned because of this. They were taking very literally the law as they saw it while ignoring the greatness and goodness of Jesus’ actions.

Indeed, it can be very easy to get caught up in the letter of the law, all while ignoring the more important aspects of God’s law that tell us to love God and neighbor, often failing to heed these two most important commandments.

Let us pray that we may be filled with the spirit of God’s law and that we will always seek to be ambassadors of God’s love and grace in our world. +

Homily for Monday of the 4th Week of Lent

Many people approached Jesus for help as he went around the villages. On the occasion that we hear about in today’s Gospel passage, a court official asked him to come to his home and cure his seriously ill son. This official was probably attached to the court of Herod Antipas. His request, at first, is met with what seems like a refusal. However, he wasn’t put off; he persevered, saying, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

In response to this man’s perseverance, Jesus grants his request, but not in the way the man wanted. He didn’t go home with him to cure his son; he simply said, “Your son will live.” The man had to believe the word of Jesus and he did just that. He returned home on his own, with the promise of Jesus in his heart, and on the way, he discovered that his prayer had been answered.

When we approach the LORD in prayer, asking for his help, we too can feel that the LORD is not answering our prayer. He does not engage with us in the way we had hoped. When that happens, we must persevere in prayer, like the royal official in the Gospel. Like him, we will discover that the LORD will answer our prayer, even if not in the way we expected. Like the royal official, we are asked to take the LORD at his word and to travel with the LORD's promise in our hearts.+