St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Wednesday of the 2nd Week of Lent

As we just heard, Jesus asked James and John, “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” In other words, were they truly prepared to share His chalice, to cast their lots with Him, to follow where He would lead them, even though it could cost them their lives?

In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” (Matthew 26:39) Yet, He went on to drink that cup on the Cross. At the Last Supper, He drank of the cup and then gave it to His disciples, who also drank from it. Yet, a little later, they deserted him and fled. Despite what they promised Him, James and John would not follow Him when things got really challenging.

We, too, are invited to drink from the LORD’S cup, the cup of sacrifice, the cup of suffering, the cup of the Eucharist. When we do so, we express our willingness to go where He leads and walk in His way, with all its challenges and joys.

Jesus teaches that His way of selfless service of others is that to which we are called. We pray that, in drinking from the LORD’S chalice today, we will be faithful to what that action signifies: walking in the footsteps of the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve.+

Homily for Tuesday of the 2nd Week of Lent

In today's Gospel passage, Jesus places blame on the Pharisees for imposing heavy burdens on ordinary people's shoulders. By contrast, His invitation was, "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) 

Most of us have to deal with various burdens as we go through life. Some of them are necessary and unavoidable; they are the burdens of love, from having responsibility for others. However, Jesus rejects the needless burdens place upon others. 

We are called to make life less burdensome for the people around us and help them in any way we can. This would be in the spirit of the One who promised to give us rest from our labors.

May we turn to God when we are burdened, and may we allow God to work through us to ease the burdens of those around us.+

Homily for Monday of the 2nd Week of Lent

We often measure our success in life through what we have compiled, whether it be money, belongings, or achievements.

The person of faith, however, is called to invest love, caring, and compassion in people without seeking a reward. In God’s eyes, love and mercy are what matter most. Jesus calls all of us to love one another as God loves us: unconditionally and without limit. And in the end, God will reward us with the things of heaven.

Let us pray that God will open our minds and hearts to look at the things of heaven as the ultimate reward for all that we do in this life.+

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent

When immigrants from Norway and Sweden came to the United States in the early years of the Twentieth Century, they brought with them a staple of the Scandinavian diet: yogurt. However, they brought it in the form of what they called “yogurt slips.” A yogurt slip was a small, clean piece of white flannel, dipped in yogurt, and set out to dry in the sun.

The cloth, a few inches square, dried like a stiff piece of cardboard, and then it was stored. When they settled in their new homes, the Norwegians and Swedes would take the yogurt slips they carried with them to America and place them in a glass of warm milk. The culture on the piece of cloth would turn the milk into yogurt.

Family members in the old country would often enclose new yogurt slips in letters to their relatives in the new land.

Within each one of us, we possess the Spirit of God’s compassion and justice that enables us to “transfigure” our world. Too often, however, the temptation is to remain mere “slips” filled with potential but unable to bring the culture of God’s grace into the mix of work, play, and school.

On the mountain of the transfiguration, the disciples see in Jesus the very life and love of God that dwelled within Him – that same love of God lives in each one of us, as well, calling us beyond our own wants, needs, and interests.

Love that calls us beyond ourselves is called transforming. The challenge of the disciple’s call – our call – is to allow that love to transfigure, that is, to radically change our lives and our world, just as those yogurt slips would change the milk into yogurt. In the transforming love of Christ, the Messiah-Servant, we can change despair into hope, sadness into joy, anguish into healing, and estrangement into community. Today’s Gospel invites us to make the prayer of St. Francis our own:

 

LORD, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

 

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.+

 

Homily for Saturday of the 1st Week of Lent

From 1979 until 2008, cartoonist Lynn Johnston created a wonderful comic strip about the simple joys and struggles of family life called “For Better or for Worse.” In one strip, teenager Lizzy has had a fight with her friend Candace about a boy. The two are not speaking.

In the first panel, Lizzy and Candace walk right by each other. "There's Candace," Lizzy says to herself, "I do not know her!"

In the second panel, in the corridor on the way to class, Lizzy says to herself, "She's going down the hallway, so I'll go the other way. If she sits near me in class, I'll move!!" 

In the third panel, in class, Lizzy says to herself, "Here comes Candace. If she talks to me, I'll pretend I didn't hear her; if she looks at me, I'll pretend I didn't see her."

In the final panel, with Candace sitting in the background, Lizzy sinks her head into her hands, and realizes, "Whew! I didn't think hating somebody could be so much WORK!”

Hatred calls for a great deal of wasted time, energy, and emotion. God’s gift of life is not meant to be wasted on estrangement and alienation, but to be celebrated in the love of family and friends.

The challenge of the Gospel and one of the primary challenges of Lent is to be ready and willing to take that first difficult step towards forgiving and seeking forgiveness. To imitate the forgiveness of Christ means putting aside our own need for the justice we may believe is owed us for the good of others and never letting bitterness close our hearts to someone, regardless of how deeply they have hurt us.+[1]

 

[1] Jay Cormier, Connections

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 a key 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 not only prevent evil actions but also to lead us to a recreation of our minds and souls.

The deeper 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 deep transformation within us. We already know this in the words of the well-known prayer: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.”

This prayer asks the Holy Spirit to re-create deep within us the love that is God; it prays that the roots of that deeper virtue and standard may grow within our hearts and minds and helps us to become what God truly wants us to be.+

Homily for Thursday of the 1st Week of Lent

Jesus encourages us to be seekers, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” What are we to seek? What should we ask for? The simple answer is to seek the LORD and His will for our lives. Many such seekers are mentioned in the gospels. Zacchaeus comes to mind among many others. His story reminds us that the LORD whom we seek is always seeking us. While at table with Zacchaeus, Jesus spoke of Himself as the Son of Man who came to seek out and to save the lost.

Because we can never fully find the LORD on this side of eternity, we will always be seeking Him for as long as we live on this earth. We are always on a journey toward the LORD, without ever fully arriving at our destination. Like Abraham, we are always embarking on a journey in response to the LORD’S call. In the words of Saint Paul in his letter to the Philippians, we strain “forward to what lies ahead;” [Philippians 3:13] we press on towards our goal, which is the LORD. Jesus assures us in the gospel that if we remain faithful to that search for the LORD, and the journey to which it gives rise, we will be given good things by God. In our seeking the LORD, we open ourselves to His many gifts and graces.+

Homily for Wednesday of the 1st Week of Lent

Our Psalm response today — A heart contrite and humble, O God, you will not spurn. — comes from one of my favorite Psalms: Psalm 51. Sometimes, I actually give it out to people as a penance during the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

While it touches heavily upon the sinful nature of the human person, it is a Psalm of incredible hope; hope that a truly repentant heart cannot be ignored by God. It is filled with hope that the human person can be cleansed of sin and created anew in the deepest recesses of the soul. It speaks, too, about the fact that nothing will earn God’s forgiveness more than a truly contrite and humble spirit; no offering, no action, no matter how great, earns the merciful attention of God than a sincere word and spirit of being sorry for our sins.

Throughout this season of Lent, may we 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, and may we use the grace God gives us to do so.+

Homily for Tuesday of the 1st Week of Lent

In our reading from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear that God’s Word, going forth from His mouth, does not return to Him void, but achieving the end for which He sent it.

Each one of us has been given life by God and each one of us has a calling to spread God’s love and mercy to those around us. By our cooperating with the will and call of God, we do His work on earth and return to him with the fruit of our labors.

May this Lent help us to see how it is that we must be ambassadors of God’s love on earth and, thus, return to the LORD all that He has given to us.+

Homily for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

The feast that we celebrate today, The Chair of St. Peter, Apostle, is not about a piece of furniture. Instead, it is about the authority that Jesus bestowed upon St. Peter and his successors. And this authority is not St. Peter’s authority but the authority of Christ. The Chair (or Cathedra) is the symbol of that authority. This is where we get the word “Cathedral” which is the seat of authority in any diocese.

Jesus’ authority or power, we know, was never used for His own purposes; it was used to do the will of His Father in heaven; it was used to heal the sick, give comfort to the brokenhearted, to give hope to the downtrodden; to help the needy. So, the authority He bestowed upon St. Peter was less power and more responsibility; a responsibility of faith, love, and compassion. This is reflected in Bernini’s sculpture of the Chair of St. Peter under the dome of the Basilica in Rome: On the inscription on it are the following words: "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 feast day, then, let us pray especially for our Holy Father: that the Holy Spirit may ever guide him as he continues to act as the Vicar of Christ on earth. May his work, his prayer, and his very life be an example to us of how to use the gifts we have received to bring the love and grace of God to all those we meet.+