St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

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.+

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent

There is a story of a man who loved desserts and candy. On his way to work every day, he would stop at the bakery and get donuts or cakes and he would eat them for lunch. One Lent he decided to give up desserts and candy. He devised ways to avoid the temptation; he even changed the route that he would drive to work so that he would avoid the bakery. One morning, however, he arrived at the office carrying a large, sugarcoated coffeecake.

His colleagues scolded him, but he only smiled and said, “What could I do? This is a very special cake. What happened is that, by force of habit, I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning and, there in the window, were trays of incredible desserts.”

He believed that this was no accident that he passed by that way, so he prayed, “LORD, if you really want me to have one of those delicious coffee cakes, let me find a parking space right in front of the bakery. And sure enough,” he said, “on the ninth time around the block, there it was!”[1]

Today’s Gospel awakens us to the fact that Jesus was human just as we are. As Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan tempted Him just as he tempts us. And we can be sure that the temptations Jesus experienced were far more serious than whether or not to buy a coffeecake. The temptations He experienced were about the kind of power that he could have as He was beginning His public ministry. His temptations were about how he could force his way upon the people and how wonderfully he could live under the influence of the power at His disposal.

However, He took on the role of suffering servant. Instead of being popular, He took on the serious issues in His day and challenged the people who might have made life very easy for Him. He resisted temptation and went on to complete His mission: proclaiming God’s kingdom, showing us how to put aside our own concerns to focus on the needy.

We are called upon to work through and resist our temptations: things like seeking the comfort and security we experience when we stay quiet in the face of injustice, when we look away from the needy, when we are indifferent to those suffering physical or emotional pain.

Ultimately, the only real comfort and security we experience is given to us by God and only truly experienced when we empty ourselves and surrender ourselves to the power of God in our lives.

In his book When the Well Runs Dry, Thomas Green likened this surrender to the physical act of learning to float in the sea. He says learning to float is difficult because “it demands much letting go.” The secret of floating lies in doing the opposite of what our instinct tells us to do. When we follow our instincts, we tend to fight the waves and we will tire and eventually sink. Yet, if we relax and float we are buoyed up by the waves.[2]

This is what we are to do with God if we are to both follow the His will and experience the comfort and security that only God can offer.

As we move through this season of Lent, may we use these days as an opportunity to empty ourselves of those things that keep us from trusting in God and those things that keep us from doing the work of God in our world. May we seek to work through the temptations that keep us from following God as we should. May our sacrifices and prayers bring us closer to God and closer to a willingness to give ourselves over to God’s will.+

 

[1] Bausch, William J., A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers, Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT, 1999, p. 390.

[2] Green, Thomas, When the Well Runs Dry, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN, 1998.

Homily for Saturday After Ash Wednesday

In today’s gospel passage, the scribes and the Pharisees ask why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners? For them, eating with tax collectors and sinners was to risk being contaminated by them. For them, it was better to keep oneself separate from such people in order to preserve one’s own moral health.

However, Jesus wasn’t concerned about that. Rather than the sin of others infecting Him, He knew that His goodness, the goodness of the Father in Him, would infect or transform them.

The LORD is never reduced by our failings; rather, we are always enriched by His holiness. That is why the LORD does not separate Himself from us, even when we might be tempted to separate ourselves from Him, because of what we have done or what we have failed to do.

The LORD is always ready to sit with us, break bread with us, to enter into communion with us, so that, in our weakness, we might draw from his strength, and in our many failings, we might draw from His goodness and love.+

Homily for Friday After Ash Wednesday

So often, when speaking to children and even adults about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I hear people speak of fear. I’m not always what people are afraid of; perhaps it’s different for each person.

I think, though, for most, the fear is fear of rejection or harsh judgment. Maybe they think the priest will think less of them or that God is angry with them; perhaps they are afraid of their own judgment of themselves. But the Sacrament of Reconciliation is about mercy, not anger. Specifically, it’s about God’s mercy, not God’s anger. God wants us to be close to Him and, when we pull ourselves away through sin, we simply need to turn to God with sincere remorse, and God will always be there to bring us close to Him once again.

May this Lent be a time when we truly become humble of heart and open ourselves to the ever-present mercy of God.+

Homily for Thursday After Ash Wednesday

In our first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear the words: “Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.

Our time on this earth, it seems, is a constant struggle to balance what we need in this life to live well and to be close to God, and the desire to attain all that we can in this life in terms of material wealth, and physical enjoyment. The keyword is “balance.”

Our readings today encourage us to seek, first, and foremost, the good things of the LORD. It is in these that we find true happiness; it is in these that we find true life in the LORD. This doesn’t exclude pursuing what we truly need in this life but we must put God and our need for God at the forefront of all we do.

May our prayer this day and throughout this season of Lent be that we put God before all else in this life and that our love of God may pervade all that we say and do.+

Homily for Ash Wednesday

Today we begin the season of Lent by gathering together and placing on our foreheads a mark made from ashes. It’s a pretty unusual thing for people to do but it is also something that has a deep significance and a long history for the people of God.

Ashes remind us of our helplessness and our dependence on God who alone is our help and salvation. The church traces the use of ashes from ancient traditions to outwardly remind us of the need to turn away from sin and turn toward God in whom alone there is forgiveness. It is by turning to God that we can move forward from darkness and sin into new light and new life.[1]

Lent is often a time when people give something up. Often, at the end of Lent, people resume whatever it is that they gave up. There is a certain value to sacrificing these things. Lent, however, is much more than giving something up for a few weeks.

The word Lent comes from an old English word for springtime, referring to the time when the earth is released from the cold grip of winter. Lent is the time for revival and renewal; it’s the springtime of the spirit.

As we get older, we realize that we won’t be completely transformed in a few weeks, regardless of the dedication and fervor we put into this holy season. Such total conversion is something that takes place throughout our lifetime. But each little step that we take is very important to the whole process of transformation. Lent is a time when we can take a look at one or two areas of our lives that need some work and to, hopefully, have some renewal during this time of focused prayer.

Each one of us has some part of our life that needs healing or reworking. Each one of us is called during this season of Lent to do more than giving something up for a few weeks. Lent is far deeper and far more important than that. Lent is a time for us to make lasting change; change that will make us better persons and change that will bring us closer to what God has called us to be.[2]

Let us pray for the wisdom we need to determine what areas of our lives are most in need of change and may we have the humility and courage to seek the help we need.

 

[1] Collins, Kenneth W., 2000

[2] Krempa, Rev. S. Joseph, Daily Homilies, Seasonal and Sanctoral Cycle, Volume 3, Alba House, New York, NY, 1985. Pp. 59-60.

Homily for Tuesday of the 6th Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus seems quite annoyed and frustrated with His disciples in the conversation He has with them in today’s gospel passage. Despite all that they have seen Him do in their time with Him, it seems to Jesus that they really have no idea who He is, but there was more to come. They not only failed to understand Him, but they would also eventually abandon Him. And yet, it was these disciples who would begin the now 2,000-year tradition of handing on the faith.

In the closing chapter of Mark’s Gospel, the young man sitting in the tomb tells Mary Magdalene and Salome, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; He is not here. Behold, the place where they laid Him. But go and tell His disciples and Peter, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him, as He told you.”

Despite their failure, Jesus met with them again in Galilee to renew their call. The gospel shows that Jesus is faithful to us even when we fail to be faithful to Him. He goes ahead of us into all the places in which we find ourselves. He is there, calling us from our failures in faithfulness to His call to begin anew.+

Homily for Monday of the 6th Week in Ordinary Time

More often than the other evangelists, St. Mark, in his gospel, refers to the emotions of Jesus. And we need to remember that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human; he experienced the full range of human emotions, but without sin.

In today’s gospel passage, Mark shows Jesus responding with a “sigh to the depths of His spirit” (also known as a groan) to the argument of the Pharisees and their request for a sign. Then He asks, “Why does this generation seek a sign?”

While listening to this story play itself out, it’s almost impossible to get beyond a sense of the Lord’s frustration in that sigh from depths of His spirit. We’ve all experienced that kind of a sigh, both within ourselves and from others. We know the emotion it conveys. But why was He sighing? What frustration was He experiencing as He dealt with the Pharisees?

Well, throughout human history, people who are religious have often been tempted to search excitedly for signs from heaven, for visions that are extraordinary and unusual. But Jesus is always directing us towards the ordinary moments of our lives as moments to find the divine: the sower who goes out to sow seed in his field; the woman who looks for her lost coin; the care given by a Samaritan (one who was looked down upon) to a stranger on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho; the man who unexpectedly finds treasure in his field; and the list goes on.

If we see God only in the rare miraculous moments, then we miss His presence in the ordinary moments of our everyday lives, where He dwells at all times. It is often in the ordinary that the mystery of God’s kingdom is to be found because God’s good creation of full of God’s glory.+

Homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A woman once told her therapist that she and her husband and couldn't say two words to each other without drawing blood. She that the second he walked through the door, they were at each other's throats. Deep down, she knew the love was still there, but it seemed hopelessly buried.

The therapist listening to her intently; then he reached into his drawer, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to her. "This is special water, holy water from a sacred spring in India," the therapist explained. "For the next week, whenever your husband is about to enter the room, take a drink, hold your tongue and look into his eyes. After a couple of seconds, swallow it. You should notice an improvement in your interactions right away."

The woman went home and waited eagerly for her husband to return. When he walked in, she took a swig of the blessed water and silently held his gaze. He gave her a suspicious look and then grinned curiously. She swallowed the water and asked how his day went. Amazingly, they didn't argue. In fact, they had one of the warmest and loving conversations they had had in recent memory.

The next night before he came to bed, she snuck another jolt of the powerful liquid, performing the same ritual. Suddenly, as if a veil was lifted, she saw him in a whole new light: she saw him as if it were the first time they met; and, of course, the predictable fight never came.

The following week, the woman returned to her therapist, proclaiming that the treatment had healed her marriage and that she needed to get more of this miraculous water — and fast.

 The therapist smiled and revealed that the potent elixir was nothing but store-bought Mountain Spring water.

It’s not the "magical" water that reconnects these two spouses — it’s the woman's desire to heal their relationship that brings about reconciliation. The miracle that healed the woman's turbulent marriage was not the water but her willingness to drink it: to stop and look at her husband with new eyes, to put aside her urge to lash out from her hurts and disappointments and speak, first, from the love they cherish in one another.

The request that the leper makes of Jesus — If you wish, you can make me clean — is a challenge to us who now seek to follow Jesus. We possess within ourselves the resources to heal and restore our relationships with others — what is needed first is the will to put aside our own fears and doubts and interests to do so. Christ promises us the grace to be imitators of his compassion and forgiveness whenever we are ready to take the first step in healing the wounds and cleaning the "leprosy" that afflicts us and divides us from one another.+

Homily for Saturday of the 5th Week in Ordinary Time

Paella is a classic dish in traditional Spanish cuisine. It is a simple combination of rice, seafood, and a few vegetables and flavored with the spice saffron and nothing else.

Saffron comes from a type of crocus flower. When it is in bloom, fragile stigmas and styles are delicately plucked by hand. These thread-like parts are then dried. The tiniest pinch of saffron, ground with a mortar and pestle, can spice up a dish of paella large enough to feed a dozen people. It imparts a strong, earthy fragrance and a flavor that leaves a deep mark on both the palate and the memory.

In today's well-known Gospel story, Jesus took the seven loaves and few fish given to him by his disciples and fed the large crowd. Much like the saffron and even the mustard seed of faith, God can take what seem to be meager offerings and make great things happen with and through them.

Let us pray that we will not see the little that we may have to offer, in terms of our gifts, talents, and stewardship, as being too little to bother. May we offer them in faith that God will use them in great ways.+