Homiy 8/25 Strive - Marathon

Audio: 9:30am Mass: click here

No room for complacency, cruise control, “taking it easy” in the spiritual life.

“broad road to destruction”  / “narrow road”

STRIVE – PERSEVERANCE – DISCIPLINE (virtue of Hope & courage)

Hebrews "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges." Endure your trials as "discipline"; God treats you as sons. 

Abraham. Isaac. Jacob. – they persevered, they strove with discipline in the journey of faith that lasted a lifetime.

Christianity is a race, and not a sprint race that’s requires one hard burst of ourselves.  Rather, a marathon.

Marathon Race – why I can’t beat my brother.  LACK OF DISCIPLINE to train.

We must make sacrifices for the sake of what we want.  We must organize our life for this one thing.

We must desire sanctity.  To be saints.  Holiness.  Discipline.

We were designed for this.

Revolution of Love

Audio: click here

The last verse of Hebrews Chapter twelve which is the conclusion of the exhortation we heard from today, says: For our God is a consuming fire.  The old testament reference in Deuteronomy, which the author quotes, also says the Lord is a jealous God.  Or other English translations say “zealous” because of the bad sense of the word jealous today that isn’t included in the original languages.  God’s heart is burning for us to live.  He created us to live a life in the fullest sense, and sin is the opposite of living a human life.  Sin is the least human thing about us, for we were created by Love, created in Love, created for Love.  God is that blazing fire of Love we were made for, and thus He wishes the world were ablaze. 

No, God is not an anarchist.  Except that he wants to see the revolution of Love take over the tyranny of selfishness, sin, slop and senselessness that we are swimming in day after day.

When you live for the Lord, it will mean opposition.  You won’t be creating much of a fan club with popular society if you spend day after day speaking against abortion, no-fault divorce, sexual immorality, immigration reform, and all the other things our faith stands for that go against the grain of our society.

It may not get you physically thrown into a pit to be left for dead, as Hebrews tells us “You have not resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  (though this is true for far too many Christians today).  But it will very easily get you thrown into other types of mud in what we call “smear campaigns” that can turn social media into a flash fire of hateful comments and writing people off.  Sometimes it seems it’s just as evil today as it was for Jeremiah.

 We should pray for courage as we follow our Crucified Lord on this campaign of Christian service, this revolution of love. 

CCC1808 Fortitude is the moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. It strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death, and to face trials and persecutions. It disposes one even to renounce and sacrifice his life in defense of a just cause. Psalm 118 says "The Lord is my strength and my song."⁷⁰ And Jesus tells us: "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."⁷¹

We must keep our eyes on Christ as we follow in the faith that Abraham showed us in the reading from Hebrews last week.  Jesus is the “author and perfector of our faith.” He is our guide who ignites our torches with the flame of love.  May we embrace the division that Love brings, and through merciful forgiveness, absorb the pain, and bury it with Christ so that a new kingdom can be reborn.

John of the Cross: “Where you do not find love, put love, and then you will find it.”

Homily 8/4/19 - Brian Garland - Brevity of Life

Audio only:

9:30 Mass - click here

11:30 Mass - click here

Homily - Christian Waiting

Audio (8pm): Click here

“Where your treasure is, there also your heart will be”

How do we tell where our treasure is?

1 - Look at your calendar, how you spend your time, and ask why.  Particularly perhaps how you spend little bits of free time: 20 minutes here, an hour there.

2- Watch where your money goes, and ask why.

3 - How do you spend your mental energy? Watch where your mind goes.  What do you get worried/anxious about, and why?  What are the things that you pursue?

It doesn’t so much matter what we carry in this life, but how we carry it.  For what we carry is ultimately received from God as a gift.  How we carry it is our gift to God.  “Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”

A huge part of the Christian life is waiting. 

Chrism Mass, or ordination Mass.  “hurry up and wait” seems to be the rule of such big Church events.  We have to arrive 30 minutes or an hour ahead of time, and then we are ready in three minutes, the next 27 is waiting in line to get into church.  Sometimes they give us instruction like “Fathers you are going to walk in and genuflect and kiss the altar and sit down over yonder, etc. etc.” as if this is rocket science that we’ve never heard before - and oh my goodness, I better take notes or I just might mess this up!

But in some ways that waiting in line with all those priests is kind of like what the Christian life is like.  While I wait in line, I am focused on one intention, one goal: getting into that Mass.  Just like all of us, in this life, ought to be focused one one intention, one goal: seeing God face-to-face in eternity.  That is where I want my heart to be.  So man, I need to be sure that my calendar, my wallet, my mental energy, and every other part of myself points to that one reality I’m supposed to be focused on.

When I’m in line for Mass, I have vestments on, I am not playing basketball or staring at my phone bingeing on Stranger Things.  My focus is where I’m headed, so I don’t get wrapped up in stuff that leads somewhere else.  I can’t, and I admit it by the fact that I’m in vestments and waiting in line.  Do we live our Christian life in such a way that emphasizes we are on the journey?

The liturgy is an opportunity to reflect on what life is about, and to wait in line for the fulfillment that God will give.

It is a good type of waiting.  It is a way that we “get in line” for where God wants to lead us.  But we have to do this in so many other ways.

Ask God, beg the Holy Spirit to show you, where we may need to readjust our treasures, so that our hearts can be more firmly rooted in the Sacred Heart of Jesus that is burning with love for you.  Your heart was made for His Heart.