Audio on Soundcloud!

Audio on Soundcloud.

Now my recordings will be uploaded to the parish Soundcloud account. Here is the address: https://soundcloud.com/stthereselittleflowersb


Also, see what else is happening at our parish: https://littleflowerchurch.org/

Finally, look to the right for links to Audio from other good resources!

Saturday, September 15, 2018

"What do people say about me?"

The diocese's communications office has asked the following note to be read regarding Bishop Rhoades' investigation that we spoke of last weekend.  I would like to read that before the homily.

We can be grateful for Bishop Kevin Rhoades, not to mention our predecessor Bishop D'Arcy.  Although he may not necessarily do everything perfect, and I'm sure he doesn't please everyone 100% of the time, but I know that our bishop is a good man at his core.  In the way that the twelve disciples, who followed Jesus around for his three years of public ministry and truly saw into his heart, I am confident that Bishop Kevin has a good heart for his people.  How did Peter know this so certainly about Jesus?  It was written in Jesus' actions.  Our actions speak louder than our words, right?  Then the way we see others live on a daily basis is more fundamental to understanding their character. 
That is why Peter could make his claim of who Jesus is.  He called him the Messiah because he saw Jesus' actions speaking as a strong support to the Lord's words.  Many people of Jesus' time claimed to be the Messiah.  Go back to the book we got for Lent title "Case for Jesus" and you will find examples of that.  But all those false messiahs could not back up their words with actions like Jesus' healing of a deaf-mute like in last week's Gospel.
What others think about us is important, but not as important as what God knows about us.  Building  our lives around what others think about us is like building a house on sand.  It may start out fine, but the odds are small for it to endure the test of time.  Founding our sense of identity on what God knows about us, both what are the intentions of our hearts and what our actions are showing day by day, that is building a house on solid rock.  For popularity is much cheaper than integrity.
Jesus gives us a great example of this.  He knew integrity was worth much more than popularity.  Despite what others thought about him, He knew how His Heavenly Father looked upon Him with Love and was well-pleased with Him.  Like the prophet Isaiah, he was true to his identity in the midst of opposition, even to the point of death on a cross.  And in that time of trial, Jesus revealed his true self by his actions.  He didn't just say "the Son of man must be rejected" and "take up your cross after me," but he lived it.  Even when Peter tried to tempt Him away from God's will, to take the easy way out, to be a different type of savior, he said an emphatic NO.  Rather, he laid down his life.


For it is the cross that makes a saint.  We cannot be saints without the cross.

 He put this Eucharist into action on the Cross.  Let us, from this Holy Communion, live a life founded on integrity and on what God sees in us, a life that takes up the Cross after our redeemer.

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Poverty before God



Audio (Sunday 9:30am): Click here!
St. James’s letter makes clear that distinction and factions are not allowed in God’s house, at least not when judged by worldly standards. 

All the poor are heirs of the kingdom of God as much as we are, if not more.

We ourselves must make ourselves poor in order to receive the Eucharist worthily. Not necessarily materially poor, for even the rich have a place to worship at the altar of God that St. James describes, although Jesus does say if you forsake earthly things you will gain heavenly ones. But really we must be poor in a different way to receive the Eucharist - poor in spirit. It is the hungry who are filled with good things, the blessed Mother tells us in her Magnificat.
Pope St. Leo the Great: When Christ says “blessed are the poor in spirit,” he shows that the kingdom of heaven is to be given to those who are distinguished by their humility of so rather than by their lack of worldly goods.  Spiritual poverty is first and foremost a type of humility.  We must be humble before God to realize we need God and all the other blessings of life that He freely showers upon us.

Think about this: how many Pharisees and scribes were healed by Jesus? I don’t think any are mentioned in the Gospels. That's because they weren’t able to express their need, to acknowledge their poverty.  The one Pharisee I know who was healed by Christ was Saint Paul, who first had to be blinded by Christ.  The Lord had to break him down so that he could raise him up.  He had to make him poor in a certain way, in the way that was most important to Paul, so that he could realize his need.  Not only was he blinded, he was told by the Lord Jesus that he, Paul, was persecuting Him, that he, Paul, was doing exactly what God did not want him to do: consenting to the killing and arresting of Christians.

Like Paul, If we aren't humbled, we will be humiliated.  Which ultimately, it taken properly, will be something that saves us.  Pride is the worst of sins.  Thinking we don't need God or others, or that we have earned all our blessings on our own.

Perhaps this is one of the blessings that God is offering to the Church in the U.S. and other parts of the world that are suffering through current events.  It seems God is reminding us of our poverty, stripping us of any ability to rely on our own powers.  In the first days of his papacy, Pope Francis cried out, "Oh how I wish the Church to be poor and for the poor."  Not materially poor only, but poor in spirit and grounded in true humility.  Indeed, God is answering our Holy Father's cry from the heart, and it is a mercy and a grace.  Amen. God's will be done.  

We must be like that dry thirsty ground spoken of in the first reading.  For it is then that God can transform us, make us whole, and heal us.

May we receive the same poverty of spirit in our hearts so that God can truly work in us.  May we be small like Therese, and may our little deeds, our little flowers in God's garden, be noticed and smiled upon by Our Loving God.