Divine Mercy Sunday Homily

Audio:https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0R0NwREsxMHkyR1pPVlZSYU5yMzVEWDlSOFpN/edit?usp=docslist_api

Thomas Aquinas' poem-hymn to the Eucharist Adoro Te Devote, talks about today's Gospel in verse 4. Speaking to Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament, each of us pray these words: Thy dread wounds, like Thomas, though I cannot see, / / His be my confession, Lord and God, of Thee, / / Make my faith unfeigned ever-more increase, / / Give me hope unfading, love that cannot cease.

Today when Our Lord Jesus comes among the apostles, he brings "peace," a peace that we see in the newspapers is so much needed across the globe, but if we look sincerely into our hearts we find that it is needed here again and again.  That peace comes from knowing that God has reconciled us to Himself in Christ Jesus.  It is a gift, and as we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, we call it a "mercy," too.

It is important that we remain connected to our Holy Father especially in his important words and actions.  So for today, I want to read a longer-than-usual section of P. Francis lecture to his priests in Rome on retreat in March 2014 (link here):

We are not here to take part in a pleasant retreat at the beginning of Lent, but rather to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking to the whole Church of our time, which is the time of mercy. I am sure of this. It is not only Lent; we are living in a time of mercy, and have been for 30 years or more, up to today.

This was an intuition of Bl. (now St.) John Paul II. He “sensed” that this was the time of mercy. We think of the Beatification and Canonization of Sr Faustina Kowalska; then he introduced the Feast of Divine Mercy. Little by little he advanced and went forward on this.

In his homily for the Canonization, which took place in 2000, John Paul II emphasized that the message of Jesus Christ to Sr Faustina is located, in time, between the two World Wars and is intimately tied to the history of the 20th century. And looking to the future he said: “What will the years ahead bring us? What will man’s future on earth be like? We are not given to know. However, it is certain that in addition to new progress there will unfortunately be no lack of painful experiences. But the light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to return to the world through Sr Faustina’s charism, will illumine the way for the men and women of the third millennium” (Homily, Sunday, 30 April 2000). It is clear. Here it is explicit, in 2000, but it was something that had been maturing in his heart for some time. Through his prayer, he had this intuition.

Today we forget everything far too quickly, even the Magisterium of the Church! Part of this is unavoidable, but we cannot forget the great content, the great intuitions and gifts that have been left to the People of God. And Divine Mercy is one of these. It is a gift which he gave to us, but which comes from above.


And this gift that we celebrate in the Easter season is exactly why Pope Francis decided to formally declare (link here) last night what he mentioned in passing a few weeks ago: an extraordinary jubilee year dedicated to mercy.  We all should read this letter in full before December 8, when this Jubilee Year begins.  It is written to us and for us, and will prepare our hearts to make next year effective.  This is different from the current year for the religious life, because jubilee years usually only occurs every 25 years or so, with the Pope having entire freedom to determine its time and purpose. For us, starting December 8, God wants us to reflect on God's Mercy, which was poured out from the wounds of love that Christ endured in His Passion and the apostles all encounter today.

We ourselves, and our bleeding and crying world need the Lord's mercy.  This is the time of mercy, and the Lord wants us to receive it and to carry it to others.

How do we experience the Lord's Mercy?
1. Confession
2. Eucharist

How do we share it?  In a million ways, but especially the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, which we should all have memorized.  Our Savior Himself told us, "Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be theirs."  May the Living and Reigning victor over Sin and Death strengthen us as he did the apostles to be missionaries of His Mercy.  Amen.

2015 Easter Sunday Homily!

Audio: https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0eWRXNEdBYlJORWdNcjRtcHhZa0gyYWFKWnhZ/edit?usp=docslist_api

 What would life be like without Jesus? Have you ever considered this? How would the past 2,000 years of history have looked if it weren't for the truth that God became man, forgave sinners by dying on the Cross and healed them all the way to the very core of their illness by His Resurrection, and established the Church to carry out the work of saving souls of every generation from their sins? Would the U.S. even exist at all or would we even recognize it?  Would the hospital system, so deeply founded in the Christian principle of love of neighbor and universal dignity of every person, have ever been thought up? How about the university, founded on the Christian principle that the world was created by God and that universal truths can be discovered and applied?

But most importantly, how would we view death if it weren't for Jesus? Without the Resurrection, we would be stuck with only the other proposals of our world: Buddhism, that death is nothing. Atheism, that even life is nothing. Egyptian embalming in hope of preserving earthly life forever. Greco-Roman ideas that our spirits live on in some mysterious half-life. Judaism, which began to hope for some type of afterlife and reward for the just, but remained only a distant prayer to God.

Allow this question to really help you appreciate Easter: what would your life be like without Jesus?  Only then do we begin to understand the importance of Christ, and it is precisely the mysteries we complete today that make His story the most important in all of human history.
The Resurrection is absolutely fundamental: without it, our faith is pointless.  But thanks be to God it actually happened.  Indeed, the only explanation for why the twelve apostles would waste their lives running to the ends of the earth, leaving their families behind, being for the most part completely rejected by their Jewish communities, living mostly in poverty as outlaws of the Roman government, and eventually killed.  Why would Paul change, almost overnight(!), from a vicious hunter to the strongest witness to the faith, changing his entire value system so that he can say ("life is Christ and death is gain") unless he truly did encounter the Risen Lord Jesus on His way to Damascus?

These witnesses of the Resurrection testified before the world - something that we are all called to do as well.
Pope Francis says that every disciple is a missionary disciple. Blessed Pope Paul VI said the world listens to witnesses more than teachers, and if it listens to teachers, it is because they are witnesses – that is, they live what they teach.  In order for the world to believe in the Resurrection and the transformation Jesus won for us by his Paschal Mystery, we have to draw them in by showing “the Joy of the Gospel” in every part of our life.  We have to show them that we are different, because we are called to be in the world but not of it, and if Christians are simply riding the wave of the culture, then they cannot steer that culture to a higher good. So how do we witness as missionary disciples? Do we go across the world and preach like Peter and Paul did? Not necessarily.  Right next door to us we all know souls that are lost and broken in this world, forgetful or perhaps never taught of the Love God has for them.
And the first way we do that is we let Christ transform us – deeply, entirely, a complete fresh start, breaking ourselves down to nothing so we can be built up completely anew. I would like to propose four specific ways that God is inviting every one of us, churchgoers or not, to a higher and deeper life transformed by the truth of the Resurrection and sure and certain hope of eternal life.

They come from a book called The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic by Matthew Kelly, which I encourage you all to order from the website, DynamicCatholic.com. The book outlines four things we can do throughout this entire year to allow the Lord Jesus to recreate us into the new creation, the redeemed and restored human person that lives life on a deeper plane.

1. Prayer - Spend ten minutes a day in prayerful conversation with God.  Schedule it daily and make it a part of your "daily essentials" like food or sleep or your version of relaxing.  If you wish to know peace in your life, know Our Lord Jesus Christ in personal prayer.
2. Study - Learn more about Christ, the Bible, Church History, or the teachings of the Church.  This could include Catholic books or CD's or podcasts or blogs; our Catholic radio station, Redeemer Radio 95.7FM, or attending faith-strengthening events in the parish or beyond.
3. Generosity - Give 1% more of your income to the parish or to your choice of charitable organization.  A life of  generosity is way beyond giving money, but this is a starting part to looking beyond your own life and focusing on others as Christ did, and will flow into the rest of your life.
4. Evangelization (Witnessing) Sharing your faith seems intimidating, but it is really as easy as sharing a CD or book or blog-post with someone who you know, family or friends.  When your life has daily prayer time, and you are learning more about the faith and living a life of sharing with others, you can't help but share your love for Jesus and witness - both with words and more importantly with actions.

Thanks be to God for the Easter.  May the Resurrection of Christ be the center of our lives.  May it transform us and help us become the new witnesses that our broken world is longing to hear from.  Amen.

Holy Thursday

Audio: https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0Vi1idEhhelA5eGFYTnpVb25FQWZWN1JzdjdF/edit?usp=docslist_api

 Dear friends, as we recall the gift and mystery of the Priesthood and of the Eucharist, I'm about to do something that I am pretty sure our pastor won't like, but hey, too bad, I got the pulpit buddy! What I'm going to do is walk over there and give Fr. Bill a big man-hug to thank him, on behalf of all of Saint Pius X, for all he has been for this parish for almost 14 years. 

This very day, when Jesus gives us Himself in the Eucharist and thus initiates the ministerial Priesthood, Pope Francis spoke to priests about weariness - both good kinds and bad kinds. It's been almost four years for me and I think I am getting a sense of what he means: there's a difference between the feeling you have after a successful day of hard work and the pain of heart we may allow to overcome us when things seem to go from bad to worse. I think every priest, really every person, is tempted to fall into this type of dejection of spirit, a sort of giving up. Certainly Jesus had every reason to feel the same: his closest followers are simple, sinful, blockheads; many of his family disowns him; the leaders reject him; Pilate doesn't stand up for Him; and Judas betrays Him. Despite these reasons Jesus doesn't fall into that trap. What He does, though, is wear Himself out for His people. He "loves to the end" as we just heard in the Gospel.

Now it's almost a nightly occurrence when I will hear, eventually, these words from the pastor's mouth: “Alright, let's pray! I wanna go to bed. I'm tired!” And let me tell you, this man earns it. You know, I wake up every morning thinking more like St. Therese of Lisieux and Blessed Mother Teresa, what “small things” can I do with “great love” today? Father Bill, nay nay! He wakes up and thinks, “Hmm... what can I build today? I already got an education center and a rectory. Well, how about a church?” This man goes big before he goes home! If I ever tried that, I'd be tired too!

But honestly, that daily exhaustion is a model of Jesus' sacrifice, of His tireless “foot washing” of the human race. Pope Francis today said to his brother priests: "The tiredness of priests! Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you experience? I think about it and I pray about it, often, especially when I am tired myself.… The tiredness of a priest is like incense which silently rises up to heaven. Our weariness goes straight to the heart of the Father."

I have been strenghtened in the true meaning of the priesthood thanks to the example of this priest, and many others, who are so visibly spent by the end of land and the Paschal Triduum.

This is spiritual fatherhood as it was meant to be, and is modeled in the Eucharist. Pope Benedict XVI (2009) "Breaking the bread is the act of the father of the family who looks after his children and gives him with a need for life. But it is also the act of hospitality with which the stranger, the guest, is received within the family and just given us share in its life. Dividing, sharing, brings about unity. Through sharing community is created."

"In the bread that is distributed, we recognize the mystery of the green of weeks that dies, and so bears fruit. Recognize the new multiplication of the loaves, which derives from the dying of the grain of wheat and will continue until the end of the world. At the same time, we see that the Eucharist can never be just a liturgical action. It is complete only if the liturgical agape then becomes love in daily life."

We all are priests. We have to spend ourselves like Jesus did. "This is how they will know you are my disciples, by your love for one another." 

When we are spent and exhausted because we have given ourselves, how do we do it again? Where do we find our source of strength? In many ways it is here in the Eucharist, in God given to us.

But also, we can see two things about Jesus that are good models for us.

In the Eucharistic Prayer, we reflect on two things about Jesus: His Hands and eyes. Priest must use His hands and eyes as Christ did. We all must use our hands and eyes as Jesus did.

"Raising his eyes to heaven, to you is Almighty Father"

Palm Sunday

Audio: https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0MDN6VEI1Y0pmb2JUNWFXazM2NGZFLVphNC1z/edit?usp=docslist_api

Saint Thomas in last week's reading when our Lord returns to Judah "Let us go to to die with Him"

Shroud of Turin

Jesus' shroud is bloody, sign of love to the end

Syndona

Follower of Jesus' "garment"

Passion play: as Simon, as a soldier, I know the terror of being pulled out of the crowd in order to participate in something so horrible. We recoil, we cringe!

When we are baptized we are grabbed like this man in order to share in the Lord's passion
We run away after baptism to save ourselves 

Brian Walch

"this time, if I'm asked to leave, I will stay because I feel called to mix my blood with the blood of Christ for the salvation of these people souls."

Dying daily

Audio only:

https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0UHNGWUJGUU12SG1SaWRWb2JoOEpTY0RVV0VB/edit?usp=docslist_api

Homily 5th Lent (B Readings)

Audio from 10:30 Mass (click here) Life without Jesus, brothers and sisters, isn't life at all.  I want us to try to appreciate the gift of our faith in Christ Jesus and how He has changed our lives.
The blind man today represents all of us.  Jesus looks upon us with compassion, for we are broken.  This man's is broken by being blind from birth.  All of us, in our souls, are broken by Original Sin.  Original Sin is not a sin by which we are ourselves responsible, but is still a reality we have to live with.  We are blind and broken in lots of ways, as the Catechism describes in pars. 399 & 400:
399      Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness. They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image—that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.
400      The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay.” Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground,” for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.(1607, 2514, 602, 1008)
If you have any doubts of this brokenness from birth, put a few 2- or 3-year olds down by some toys and sit back and watch.  Eventually there will be stealing, hitting, and wailing and tears.  That's the fallen humanity that Jesus looks upon today and reaches out to heal.  And he doesn't do it just for some "generic" humanity.  Jesus looks at you, comes to you, and heals you in the specific ways that you need it.  We all have specific wounds, unique pains, and particular defects that need healing, comforting, and strengthening by Christ.
Try to imagine your life without Christ Jesus.  What parts of your life has He changed for the better?  I don't know where I would be without God, without a loving Father in Heaven who has promised me a future; without a Savior who would have died on the Cross if I was the only sinner in the world; without the Holy Spirit who is poured into my heart and has shared with me His own divine life so I can become like Jesus, too.  Where would I be if I didn't know that love was at the center of the universe, was the very thing holding it all in existence?  What would my relationships look like?  Would I have ever learned to forgive those who hurt me the most?  Would I be living only for possessions or popularity or power?  Would my sins have gotten the best of me and perhaps even taken my life early?  
Life without Jesus, brothers and sisters, isn't life at all.  This is what Saint Paul is talking about when he says: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
This began for each of us at our Baptism, when we were "enlightened" by Christ, who opens our eyes and starts that journey of healing and restoration that continues throughout our life and will only be complete when we are in heaven and truly see Him face to face.  The more we confess our blindness and our need for healing, the more we live life as it was meant to be.  Today, we come before the Lord Jesus once again, when from this altar the Lord looks upon our brokenness with compassion and wishes to meet every one of us to heal us.  Will we let Him heal us?  Thankful for all Christ has done and all he will do, we once again beg the Light of the World to continue to heal us more and more from our blindness, so we may live fully in His Truth and His Love.

Homily - Jacob's well and us in the eyes of Saint Paul

Audio: https://docs.google.com/a/stpius.net/file/d/0B1r8CMMH17Y0QU1sTDlvdXhFSDJQdjJfcWJUMlIxUmFxdEhV/edit?usp=docslist_api

Today the symbols are numerous. Wells and fountains or springs and a desert and a woman's encounter with Jesus that changed both her life and the lives of many in her town because of her.
All these things are connected by the image of water and how essential it is for life. If you spend some time reflecting on it, water is amazing in its purity, its power, its versatility, and its presence almost anywhere on this earth. That is why water is such a great biblical symbol of the Holy Spirit. As essential as water is to our physical life, so too is the Holy Spirit to our spiritual life.
I think there are two ways to take this image of Jacob's well that we see today. First, that well is an image of us. We have in our hearts - which for the Bible means the core and center of our being, a combination of our soul and our mind – right in our hearts is a thirsting for God. Deep down within us, if we take the time to stop and look and listen, we will find an ache that is not satisfied with all the things we tend to feed it: money, power, food, popularity, lust, possessions, empty entertainment, constant noise, exercise, or any other false gods that we think we've outgrown but so often quietly creep their way back into our lives. Lent reveals to us that we aren't as strong as we think we are, and that nothing satisfies our deepest thirst except the Lord himself.
Second is the Lord's thirst for us.  He seeks to quench His thirst at the well also, going to encounter the woman and to draw from her heart the love He desires.
Today's second reading is often overlooked because of these powerful images. I want to focus on it, because I want you to really let it sink in.  The beginning of Romans ch. 5 is amazingly powerful, something I encourage every one of you to spend time in prayer with reflecting on the deep meaning of these words.   Did you notice the water imagery there too? Paul said: hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. This takes us to a reflection on the Cross, the Cross that we move so we can look at it in a new way. I invite you to come up to the cross and pray. No, not right now; don't jump out of your seats quite yet. But after Mass or before Mass or in the middle of the week, come kneel before this Cross and pray.  I have printed off a few prayers to pray before the Crucifix.  You could also simply just gave upon the Lord Jesus, the one that we thirst for, and the one who said from the Cross, "I thirst" because of His great thirst for your love, for your heart, for your response to His open-arm invitation to a deep relationship with your God.
Don't let the noise of the world distract you any more from this thirst.  That is exactly why in Lent the Church keeps the musical instruments toned down: we are drawn inward to our ache, to our thirst, and find the Holy Spirit there desiring to quench it by making us know our Beloved.