Homily

FR. BILL'S HOMILY AT TENT MASS (sorry for background noise, best I could do.)

If you take Jesus seriously, he is one of three things: 1. Evil, possibly possessed by a demon.  2. A totally crazed person who doesn't know what He is talking about (insane).  3. Who He says He is: God.
Lewis says the one thing you can't do with Jesus is exactly what people do today: water Him down and push His "eccentric" comments about divinity to the side, separating them from His "more sensible" teachings on the moral life and say: yah he was a good guy and we should admire Him.  You can't make Him just some kind of moral-spiritual guru without being dishonest about the rest of who He was and what He did and said.  No. you either 1. are afraid of Him, 2. pat Him on the head as a painless cuckoo, or 3. worship Him as God.

Pope Pius X, like Peter today, declares his faith in Christ as the one source of true human flourishing, as the Messiah who came to restore God's people, and even, as Peter would come to realize, the Lord and God Himself who loved His people so much as to become man and die on a cross to raise us to new life.  This is the point of Pius X's motto: Instaurare omnia in Christo. (Renew all things in Christ)

That also then, must be our anthem of life, our battle cry, our daily breath: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Now 100 years after P. Pius X's death, we celebrate the same mystery here that He did.  We do not admire Jesus as some nice spiritual guru who gave us some good advice.  No, we worship Him as God.  Jesus is for us the Lord of our lives.  We say with Peter, "You are the Christ."

And with Pope Pius X, who by God's design was the instrument of a new springtime for the Eucharist at the center of the Christian life, we  gather especially for this great mystery of the Eucharist.

P. Pius XII, on the feast of our patron's canonization, said these words:
In the profound vision which he had of the Church as a society, Pius X recognized in the Eucharist the power to nourish substantially its interior life, and to raise it high above all other human associations. Only the Eucharist, in which God gives Himself to man, can lay the foundations of a social life worthy of its members, cemented by love more than by authority, rich in its works and aimed at the perfection of individuals: a life, that is, “hidden with Christ in God.”

A providential example for today’s world, where earthly society is becoming more and more a mystery to itself, and anxiously searches for a way give itself a soul! Let it look, then, for its model at the Church, gathered around its altars. There in the sacrament of the Eucharist mankind truly discovers and recognizes its past, present, and future as a unity in Christ. Conscious of, and strong in his solidarity with Christ and his fellow men, each member of either Society, the earthly and the supernatural one, will be able to draw from the altar an interior life of personal dignity and personal worth, such as today is almost lost through insistence on technology and by excessive organization of the whole of existence, of work and even leisure. Only in the Church, the holy Pontiff seems to repeat, and though Her, in the Eucharist which is ‘‘life hidden with Christ in God,” is to be found the secret and source of the renewal of society’s life.

Thus for us, in this Eucharist, we rely on the prayers and the faith of our patron, as we say anew today the words of St. Peter, "You are the Christ, Lord Jesus, and I place my life in Your hands!"

Homily for Sunday

LISTEN HERE

Sometimes God waits.  Sometimes He doesn't give us an answer right away in order to test our faith.  It can be hard to take but it ultimately helps us to live closer to Him.

Saturday morning (yesterday) in Chicago for a wedding of a high school buddy and a wonderful lady from Louisiana, I ran from the hotel to my uncle's coffee shop.  Since he was gone, I had a nice little talk with one of the baristas.  I told her I was a priest etc, and she asked the question about how I felt about not marrying. I've shared my thoughts on it as I have many times before, and finished it with a funny quote I've heard from another priest. When a married man asked him about how he could do that, the priest made it very easy to follow.  He said, "Think of it this way: when you got married, you said no to every other woman in the world except your wife.  Well when I got ordained, I said no to every other woman in the world, and your wife."

But this is in fact a serious question for anyone discerning their future vocation: is God calling me to a fruitful love in married life or in a life of consecrated celibacy??  For me I always felt like I could be celibate or married - I could be happy in either way of life and God could help me to live both freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully.

In seminary, this was a long, slow question for me.  It felt like forever.

I wanted an answer, but it really took me years to get to that point of saying, "Yeah, I think this is what God wants me to do."

Years. Waiting for years for one of the most important decisions of your life is not fun.  It eventually demands a lot of dying, of abandoning to what you want,  your plans and timeline, and finally realizing in a deep way that you have to let God be God because you are not.

I would say that is my point today and one of the messages of today's gospel.  This Gospel seems tough for our western ears to hear because it seems Jesus is treating this woman like dirt.  But he is not, really.  He is just testing her faith. She is a pagan who is more a true Israelite than many of the Jews. Paul in Romans is very interested in how the Gentiles are saved, and we see the same dynamic in the Gospel: Jesus came for the Jews first, and later the Gospel will go to the pagans.  But this woman shatters those typical lines that we draw, as she manifests a faith greater than so many others.  As her words don't earn an immediate response but only bring on a nagging sense of unworthiness and dismissal, she perseveres.  She gets louder until she gets a response.  She is a true member of Israel.

I'm sure many of you had to wait and wait for an answer to a deep question in your life.  Does that mean that God doesn't care? No.  Does it mean that you should just drop the subject? No.  It means you are invited to place an even deeper trust and faith in Him.  A simple faith that says, like the woman today: "Lord, help me."  Here is where I am hurting or in need.  Please, do what you will.  I know you know best.

If you can do that, then the Lord will indeed respond to your request - in His own time, in His own way.  But it will bring you closer to Him and therefore closer to your true happiness.

Homily for 19th Sunday of OT

I RECORDED THIS HOMILY AT THE 10:30 MASS - CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Fear is often where God is
Our Holy Father receives a lot of accolades for his stunning use of symbolic action to teach and preach the Gospel.  The actions, it is said, speak louder than words.  I wonder, do we often listen to his words?  Do you think he chooses them with any less care and concern?  I think we should read what he has written and hear what he says.  I wonder how many people in the world, if they really listened to what Pope Francis says, would be shocked and afraid by what he asks of us?  What he is emphasizing and what he challenges of us is not always easy to stomach:
- "How I would like a Church that is poor and for the poor!"
- We must "get out of ourselves and go toward the peripheries."
- (at Lampedusa) "the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep!" 
- "It is not a good strategy to be at the center of a sphere. To understand we ought to move around, to see reality from various viewpoints."  
- "In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples"

Paul says he is sad for the Jews - those who should have "gotten it" and were once a part of God's great plan but turned away when they were challenged. Perhaps he, like Pope Francis, would be saddened by those Catholics who treat the church and their faith like a time card (in and out and back to real world) or like  aspirin (take a few only when you need them).

I can become afraid with the Pope's challenges.  All of us have a limit to our comfort zones.  Mine is short in many ways.  Sometimes I feel courageous but in other areas not at all.

I can go to a hospital, kneel down and hold the hands of a dying person even when they might be very contagious.  I can kiss the forehead of a 70-something woman waiting for cancer to take her home to Jesus. But I have a whole lot of trouble giving a holy card to the person at the cash register or saying "I'll pray for you" to a stranger.  Or going to that person that doesn't look all-together and speaking to them face to face, learning their story, bringing up how God can help them.  That's hard for me, and we all have things that are challenging demands.

Then I think of what Christians in other areas have to go through and I feel like my challenges are nothing in comparison.  The Christians in the Iraqi city of Ninneveh are leaving without food, water, or money in order to keep their lives.  Churches are bombed and people are threatened with death for becoming Christians in Nigeria.  No matter where we are and what we are doing, there's always the temptation to give in to fears.  But we were not given a Spirit of fear.

But fear is present in today's readings, and God is there alongside it. Elijah is literally running for his life away from an army, and now God calls him to go back and carry out His work again without fear. In the Gospel, the apostles carry out the challenging demand to cross the sea against the storm, their fears bring them the greatest consolation.  In the midst of those fears, knowing that Christ has called them to it, they find Him right there in it.

Jesus says "do not be afraid."  God is with you in your fears; He is greater than them; He is in control of the chaos we often experience. When doing His will is difficult, look around and find Him and listen to His sometimes still, small whisper that says "do not be afraid!"
What storms do you have in your life right now?  Find Jesus in them, and like Peter put your faith in Him, then the storms won't matter anymore.

Homily - The Kingdom is Worth it!

The Kingdom of Heaven is worth any cost.  It's worth it.  With these last parables, we reach the end of our three-week review of Matthew's teaching section from Chapter 13.  We hear about the Kingdom of Heaven, something we should always keep our eyes fixed on as we continue to wait expectantly.  The Kingdom of Heaven begins in Christ Jesus, whose first words in the New Testament are: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Repent and Believe in the Gospel!"  The last parable, in the common Jewish parallel structure, resembles the about the weeds and the wheat that are not to be separated until the end.  We ourselves must be patient until that Kingdom is fully revealed, but until then we can and must live within the Kingdom through our relationship to Christ.
For you see, that is part of the great Good News: we don't have to wait.  In Christ, the Kingdom is breaking through.  If you live within the life of the Church and in a deep personal relationship to Jesus, you are already part of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And you will never realize what you are missing until you start to really follow Him as a disciple, really pray to Him as your friend, and really love Him your Savior.

But the trick to getting to that point of deep and lasting happiness is making a sacrificial choice.  The choice to be a true disciple of Jesus and begin living within the Kingdom of God by that relationship - that choice means we have to both give some things up, as well as pursue something else.

But The Kingdom of Heaven is worth any cost.  It's worth it.  I just got back yesterday from two beautiful days in Nashville, TN.  The beauty, my friends, was not in the architecture, or the oppressive humidity or 91-degree temperatures, nor in the great music (though there was all of those things!).  The beauty for me was in watching the mystery of the Cross unfold in the life of the Church.  I went down for two occassions that coincided: a final profession of five sisters in the Dominican Sisters of St. Caecilia, and an ordination of nine, that's right, nine, men to the diocesan priesthood.  I knew 4 of them from seminary and 1 of the sisters from college.


What have I turned away from for the sake of the kingdom?

Throw away CDs or DVDs. Left friends or potential friends.  Lost popularity.  quit wasting huge chunks of time on video games. Given away inheritance etc. (Katherine Drexel and Francis)

What have I gone after for the sake of the kingdom?  

Went on retreats. Went to Byron Health center. Got up to pray a rosary on Thursdays. Morning Mass.

Do I truly value it? Like the pearl and the treasure?

This is true wisdom: to see the big picture and how day-to-day fits into it. To know what's worth your time and what's not. To know what to spend yourself for, to never quit on, to fight for. To drop what is a waste of your finite resources of time, energy, and love.

Sunday Homily 7-20 Led by the Spirit in our prayer

I would like to start today with our second reading. A great biblical scholar, Jesuit priest named Daniel Harrington, said chapter eight is the most important chapter for arguably the most important book of the bible (I think he was talking about its huge impact in Church history).

Today we hear about how our prayer is meant to be guided by the Holy Spirit. We must, as Pope John Paul II describes of himself in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, be led by the Spirit in our prayer for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

We groan with inexpressible groans when, for example, we think of the some 500 lives lost in two Malaysia airline flights, or the excessive injustices occurring perhaps a lot closer to home. Our pain and our looking to God for healing is a prayer, a request for the resurrection to be present anew in our world.

But the Spirit leads us in our prayer, or He should. Our prayer should be a lot more of the words “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” rather than “Listen, Lord, your servant is speaking.”

Getting to the Gospel parables, we can look simply at the power of Christian meditation: reflection on the mysterious truths of our faith and how they connect with our life.
This allows us to see our life with a spiritual vision: as God sees it.
With today's parable(s), for example, we can reflect on how our world is a mixture of good and evil, but at the end God's merciful judgment will be exacted upon each of us individually.
We can see our need for greater patience, perhaps as parents or with our friends.

The Blessed Mother Mary is a great example of this type of Christian prayer.  Many times the scriptures say that she "held all these things, reflecting upon them in her heart".  This is meditation and reflection.
As we draw closer to her during our 33 Days diocesan retreat, let us ask her to teach us to practice this prayer so that we can know the Holy Spirit's voice and let Him guide us throughout our days.

Sunday Homily - Being sown... and Being sowers!!

One of Pope Francis' key phrases is that the Christian message needs to reach the peripheries. Here today we see Jesus doing exactly that when he goes out of the house (a symbol for the faith community) and engages the crowd and entices them further along discipleship.

We can do the same on the peripheries of our hearts, our souls, our lives.  We all have parts of us that are interested and intrigued but not yet fully committed to following Jesus.  That's what original sin has left in our souls - it's residue, even after initial conversion, is a tendency toward sin called concupiscence that always need to say "yes!" to following Jesus in a deeper way.

We have to let Jesus speak to us and reach those parts of our soul that are longing for Him.  This has to be done in the same way that Jesus does it today: by an enticing invitation to go further.  Information can be part of that invitation, as Christ uses a parable to teach a type of lesson. Experiences can be part of it, too, for we often learn in such ways.  The goal, however, is a deeper relationship with the person of Jesus, and this cannot be forced or taught.

Christian Media can be great tools for this type of invitation to grow.  For example, with Music. Audrey Assad, Matt Maher, Jars of Clay, Rich Mullins, and Caedmon's Call.  Even local songwriters like Liz Cotrupi and Joshua Comeau who make beautiful worship to God.
Also there are great movies on the lives of saints, though sometimes you may need to be a little patient with the production or acting or storyline. Also, many mainstream films are clearly faith-based, such as The Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings series.
If you've never really given Christian media a try, do it!...especially in the realm of music, which is a personal favorite of mine.  You'll be surprised what it can do for your faith.  Putting good things into your mind and soul is just like feeding your body the right foods: it's the simplest way to promote health.

Now this all fits in with today's parable of the sower.  God, represented by this extremely generous sower, is sending us messages all the time, but so often we fail to notice it or to accept it.  His grace is always sufficient for us, so the problem is in the soil, not the seed.  We want to be that good soil that allows the Word of God, as Isaiah says, to achieve the end for which it was sent, just like the rain never goes back to the heavens wasted.  Just like the soil, all kinds of weeds want to grow in our hearts, too, often more aggressively than the good plant of the Word of God.  So we have to do our part, and thinking of God and our relationship to Him throughout our daily lives is perhaps the best way to prepare that soil of our hearts.  That meditation, along with intentional daily prayer, is what gives God the space he needs to work with on the front lines of the battle for our heart.
So faith-based music, films, and books are all ways that help provide that space.  They are logs for the fire of a soul burning with love for God, keeping the flame going.  They are like the plow that breaks up the soil of our hearts and minds, so we can truly receive the messages God is always trying to send us through the Spirit that Paul reminds us has been planted within our souls through Baptism.

Reading Sacred Scripture and getting a sense of how God has worked in the lives of the saints helps us to understand how God is working in our world today.

The next step is sharing the fruits of what has grown in our hearts, just like the sower himself.  You may not think about this every day, but we Christians are meant to change the world.  And although that starts with us, changing the world means touching the lives of others, and that's not has hard as you think.  If you shared a book, film, or CD with someone once a month, you could change a lot of lives.  If this whole parish did that, it would have eternal effects.  So let's be like the generous sower of the seed, our loving God, and allow the fruits of his word overflow from our hearts into the lives of those around us!

Marian Consecration: Give your heart to someone you can trust!

I wish to encourage all of you to participate in the Marian Consecration that Bishop Rhoades has organized for the entire diocese.  Go to this website and listen to the Bishop’s words about the consecration: http://www.diocesefwsb.org/33-Days-to-Morning-Glory

Using the simple and accessible work of Fr. Gaitley, 33 Days to Morning Glory, there are a large amount of resources available.  The most fundamental is the book with the included prayers that prepare you over the 4.5 weeks for August 15^th, the feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. 

This is like an extended novena plus a book study.  I did it myself just last August and it requires about 10-15 minutes of your time each day.  I hope reading this makes you say, “I can do that!”  And it is worth it.  I have found it pays great dividends in the spiritual life to understand Mary’s role in our journey to holiness and seek her help.

However, you do not have to do this alone: there are many wonderful ways to participate in small groups with other resources or just discuss the book and pray the prayers together.

Below you will find more information regarding the Consecration, especially to participate in that weekend's things.

Thank you for your courageous response to this diocesan-wide initiative,

~FT

33 Days to Morning Glory – FAQ’s

What is a “Total Consecration to Mary”?

A Total Consecration to Mary is a beautiful exercise to increase your spirituality and ability to truly serve our Lord Jesus Christ. Consecration means to set aside for a sacred purpose. Mary’s life was set aside for the sole purpose of serving our Lord. By following her example, we, too, can completely give ourselves to Christ in a way that consecrates us to Him.

Why do this?

We consecrate ourselves in order to be more devoted to the Lord and His Blessed Mother. It helps us grow in holiness and increase our faith, hope, and love. It is a prayerful and focused method of drawing closer to Jesus than ever before.

Who is this for?

Consecration to Mary is for anyone, Catholic or not, who is old enough to understand the love of Jesus and Mary. It is easy to grasp and simple enough to put into practice. It is excellent for anyone who does not have a lot of time, yet still desires to grow spiritually. Bishop Rhoades is inviting all to participate.

How will the diocese “as a whole” participate in this Marian Consecration?

The diocese will use the book written by Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC, “33Days to Morning Glory” which includes the works of Blessed Mother Teresa, St. John Paul ll, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Louis de Montfort (who developed the original Marian Consecration). Parishes are invited to participate in a way that best suits their needs and may include:

• a format where small faith group(s) meet once a week for 6 wks to watch Fr. Gaitley’s DVD and discuss the daily readings (generally 2 pages) with the aid of a companion manual, or

• a format where small faith group(s) meet once a week for 6 wks to view the DVD and discuss daily readings (without the aid of the companion manual), or

• a format where participants read and ponder the daily meditations on their own.

When will this take place?

This six week retreat begins on or before July 13th. It will end when Bishop Rhoades rededicates our diocese on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 2014 in a special Marian Consecration at the 6pm Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Immediately following Mass, Bishop Rhoades will lead a Marian Procession to Headwater’s Park to mark the beginning of the 3rd Annual “Festival of Faith”. For a listing of “Festival of Faith” events on August 15 & 16th, visit www.kofcfestival.com.

What if I would like to partipate but cannot attend the Consecration?

You can watch a live video stream of the Mass on your computer by visiting the Diocesan website at www.diocesefwsb.org or you can listen to the live audio broadcast on Redeemer Radio 106.3 FM or www.redeemerradio.com

How do I get started?

Check with your parish to see if it is providing the format to form small groups or if you will need to participate on your own. Your parish may choose to order the materials (book and guide in bulk).

Where can I order the book and companion guide if I want to do it on my own?

Please contact Marian Specialist, Ida List, idalist@gmail.com or at 574.453.3143 (evenings) or 574.376.0046 (cell) for questions and ordering.

To find out more information on the Total Consecration to Mary, you can visit http://www.allheartsafire.org/33days/overview.php or listen to Fr. Andrew Budzinski, Parochial Vicar at St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Fort Wayne, share the experience of a Total Consecration to Mary by clicking on http://www.saintv.org/departments/Parish_Life/Homily/FrAndrew/2014/2014-05-11%20Fr%20Andrew%204th%20Sunday%20Of%20Easter.mp3