Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul Homily

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul which is very special for us because we only have a one in seven year opportunity for this celebration to fall on a Sunday. This day is most special for each of us because it displays to us the need to put our words into action and through the unending ministry given by these two great apostles we are also shown the unity that must exist inside of the Church. Both of these men were called by Christ to become His apostle, both of these men were able to grow in their love for Christ each day, and eventually both of these men were willing to put their words into action by allowing themselves to endure a martyrs death. It truly is not always easy to put our words into action or to even allow ourselves to be totally unified in something. To be a Christian requires this of us because it is not just enough to claim that we know who the Son of Man is without being able to authentically display our belief through the action of our faith.

Through Saint Peter we are shown how Christ called a simple fisherman to abandon everything that He had and to follow after Him. Peter responded to this call and would follow Christ, but as we know through the scriptures He would have many moments where He failed to completely trust in Christ and thus fell into sin. If it was through the words "get behind me Satan" or the fact that he would deny Christ three times prior to the crucifixion we know that he fell into the human reality of sin. Despite this reality He would repent and prevail himself to the great mercy of God. This most human of figures was also chosen to become the first pope of the Church and was given the responsibility to keep it unified in the faith that was handed to us by Christ. Through His willingness to keep the Church unified in the faith and through His willingness to trust in God's infinite mercy each day He eventually embraced the death of martyrdom where he was crucified upside down.

Through Saint Paul we are show how the call of Christ can even come from the most unexpected of places. Paul of course was a great persecutor of Christians and was responsible for putting many to death for the practice of their faith. Yet despite this sinful past Christ came and called Him to conversion and to go out to spread the faith throughout the world. Through the many writings of Paul that are found throughout scripture we see how he was concerned with the unity of faith and also the abandonment of sin on the behalf of the faithful. He understood that the faith was so great that it was more than words placed onto paper, but instead it was about the acceptance of Christ, the daily abandonment of sin, and like Saint Peter and so many early Christians, accepting martyrdom. The martyrdom that befell Saint Paul was that of being beheaded for his unending belief in Christ.

 

Both Saints Peter and Paul are great examples for each of us concerning the path that we must follow to be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Saints Peter and Paul were not found worthy because they wrote about Christ or even because they were called by Christ to be His apostles, but instead they were found worthy because they always put their words into action. Through their martyrdom they show that their faith was so great that it was worthy of accepting any hardship that would befall them. Yes they would stumble along the way, but in the end they were willing to sacrifice all for the unity of the faith and for the reality of Christ. Their example is great for each of us, not because we must now walk out of this Church and accept the reality of martyrdom, but instead because each of us must take our faith seriously. We cannot only walk around holding onto knowledge or speaking the right words, but we must proclaim Christ always by the way that we live our life.

We must each ask ourself who we say that Christ is. In our response we must also analyze the way that we have lived up to the expectation of being known as a Christian. We can attempt to mold Christ into being accepting of our sinful behaviors, but to do so would only cause us to fail at answering with a truthful answer. In our life we have the freedom to choose as we wish, but through the faith of Saints Peter and Paul we see the need to not do as we wish, but instead to preserve the unity of faith that is found within the Catholic Church. May we truly allow Saints Peter and Paul to intercede on our behalf that we may always search after giving an authentic answer to Christ by the way that we live our life. In this manner we can stand with them one day in Heaven as we respond not only by our words, but by the way that we have lived our life. May we truly join with Saint Peter and proclaim: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Corpus Christi Sunday

"Amen, amen, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you." These words found within our Gospel tell us nothing about the Eucharist being a mere symbol, but instead they point towards the reality that the Eucharist is truly the Body and the Blood of Christ. What is contained in the bread and the wine through the words of institution that are given by the priest is truly Christ's Body and Blood. The Eucharist should become the central point of our life because through our reception of such a wondrous gift we are able to usher the presence of Christ into our life. From the words of the Second Vatican Council: "The Eucharist is the source and the summit of our faith." These words display the importance that the Eucharist should play in our life. The Eucharist should not just be important momentarily while we are in this Church, but instead the Eucharist should be held in high importance each and every single day of our life.

One thing that you will see within the Catholic Church is devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. You will not see this same devotion be given in Ecclesial communities of other faith traditions because they do not hold the same teaching on the Eucharist that we do. We instead agree with the words that Christ gives to us within the scriptures and we join them to the tradition of the early Church which has always seen the Eucharist as truly being the Body and Blood of Christ. Because the Church understands what we receive not to be only bread and wine, but instead the Body and Blood of Christ traditions of devotion have grown out of the reception of the Eucharist. We have the practice of Eucharistic Adoration because it gives one the opportunity to spend time with Christ in a most intimate way. Today, for example, we will have a Eucharistic Procession which will be made in order to draw attention to Christ who is truly present in the Eucharist and to usher this same devotion to Him into the world.

What is found within the Eucharist is truly the most beautiful thing that we can ever encounter. If we can rediscover the beauty that is found within the Eucharist, we will not run away from it, but instead we will be drawn towards it. Our world is drawn towards beauty, but the beauty that it finds is often empty and without meaning. We place so much stock in how someone or something looks and we are led to believe that this is the beauty that we are in search of. People spend so much time being concerned about makeup, cologne, perfume, or the choice clothing that they are led to believe that things such as these signal to us the reality of true beauty. Therefore when we look at others or ourself we are led to believe that we are beholding what is beauty. In actuality beauty is contained within the Eucharist! Within the Eucharist we join with Moses and those who were gathered in the desert to behold the beauty of the manna that came down from Heaven in order to feed our hunger. 

The Eucharist is truly the meaning of beauty because this is not mere bread which will pass away, but instead it is truly God made flesh. What we will receive here, if worthy, will be most beautiful because it will be Christ's Body and Blood. In the Eucharist we find beauty because here we will find God Himself who became flesh and died upon the cross in atonement for our sins. Beauty is not a mere decoration that we can receive or put on, but instead beauty is a reflection of God. If we desire to truly become beautiful, and thus a reflection of God, we would model our life around this most beautiful of sacraments. Our soul desires to discover beauty because it desires to discover God. In the Eucharist we have the ability to discover God in a most intimate way and the challenge to depart from here to continue to model our life around this most intimate encounter. So much out there attempts to sell us upon a false sense of beauty, but with the Eucharist we are given a true glimpse into what beauty really is.

When we receive the Eucharist this day we are inviting the beauty of God to enter into our life. Hopefully we do only allow the beauty of God to enter into our life for a mere moment, but may we allow God to continue to dwell with us always. We take so much time to pattern our life after our wants and our desires, but often forget to place the Eucharist at this place of prominence. May we truly foster in our homes Eucharistic devotion allowing our home to become a manifestation of God' s great beauty. At the conclusion of this Mass we will be told to "go in peace" not that we are now given the chance to leave and forget what we have received. Instead we are to go in peace to enter into the world, as we will do with our Eucharistic Procession, to bring the beauty of Christ that we have received into the world. We can only bring this beauty into the world if we make the Eucharist a priority in our life, and thus model ourselves after the beauty that is found within the Eucharist, because the Eucharist is truly a reflection of God's great love for each of us.

Holy Trinity Homily

We all have the desire to be loved. We see this desire play itself out each and every single day with the many choices and desires that we have. These choices and desires, both good or bad, are made because we secretly have the desire inside to be loved. To be loved or to give to another out of love is a good thing, but of course we can easily misuse this most healthy of desires and end up twisting it for our own gain to the point where we become trapped within our actions. In the misuse of love we can quickly become slaves to something within this world or we can use the concept of love to mask the desire to lower another's humanity to the point where we cease to see them as a human who was made in the image and likeness of God. True love is never about only me without true concern for others. Instead true love is the ability to enter into total, unconditional, service to others. Through the Holy Trinity we are truly able to discover the fact that God is love.

This desire to be loved is seen throughout our lives, but maybe we do not realize that is what we are actually in search of. I think we can easily see this if we glance into some of the things which are springing up as the norm of what is acceptable within our society. In each of these "so called" norms what we find is people who are in search of love, but in the end find nothing more then a path that leads them towards an exclusion of others and thus into pure loneliness. And so what are these "so called" norms that are ever growing in our society and maybe within our own life and how are these "so called" norms leading us towards a false sense of love? This is a good question for us to spend time reflecting upon because in our discovery of this answer we will be able to see how it is love that we are actually attempting to discover. We don't actually want to be trapped in a false sense of love, but instead we have the longing that exists inside to be loved and to also love. Again, within the Holy Trinity we see that God is love.

So many advertisements that we see on television attempt to sell this false sense of love. They promise that their product will make you happy, will attract the opposite sex to you in droves, and will earn you a lot of friends. Advertisers are very smart because they are speaking to our inward desire to be loved and they want us to believe that their product can earn us this love that we are in search for. An issue for our modern day society has become the use of pornography which through its gratifications never brings us to discover the love of another, but instead leaves us in a false sense of love which leads us towards loneliness and the abuse of others for one's own gratification. This gratification of another and reality of loneliness can even seep into marriage; where one is unable to forgive and unable to change for the good of their spouse. We even see many couples living together outside of marriage and even entering into the sexual act with one another, but these couples never discover the real love they desire. We must combat these notions of looking at love in such a fragmented way and begin to discover it through the wholeness of love that can only be found within the Holy Trinity.

 

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity which is a celebration of the reality of true love. Within the Holy Trinity we will discover the love that we desire because in this love we will realize that it will not lead us towards loneliness, the abuse of others, or ourself. Instead this love that is found within the Trinity will open the way towards happiness and true liberation to live as someone who has been created in the image and likeness of God. The Trinity is able to elevate every human love because it is the meaning of love. In the teaching of the Holy Trinity we know that there are three persons in one God. Understanding this teaching is most important because through this statement we are able to profess that the Trinity is not about the self infatuation of an individual, it is not about only being enamored with only one person, but instead with three persons we are able to see a love that is both mutual and sharing. In this image of the Trinity we see a love that is most true because it is constantly pouring itself out for another.

The Holy Trinity is the love that we desire to find and share within. The Trinity shows that authentic love is more then the clothing or items that we posses. The Trinity shows that using another for one's self gratification is not actually entering into true love. The Trinity shows the importance of Holy Matrimony and how it is something that is creative, mutual, and life long. In The Trinity we see that God the Father loves the Son so much that He allowed Him to be brought into this world. In the Trinity we see that God the Son loved the Father so much that He allowed all of His words to reflect His great glory. In the Trinity we see that God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as a reflection of this great love that is found between the Father and the Son. The love of the Trinity is so deep that we are able to come to the great conclusion that God is love. Here we are able to see that our whole life is about the giving of ourself out of love and thus truly sharing within the life of the Most Holy Trinity.

Pentecost Homily

April 20th seems like it was such a long time ago. It has now been 50 days since that date and the world around us has entirely moved itself away from that great celebration. Now 50 days removed it is hard for us to fathom the reality that the Church has proclaimed all along. Today the Church celebrates Pentecost Sunday and with this celebration we come to the conclusion of the Easter season which began only 50 days ago. The world around us spent so much time preparing through buying jelly beans and decorating eggs that once Easter came and the egg hunts were finished so to was this beautiful season. But we began to prepare ourselves differently ,first, by passing through the penitential character of Lent and then we moved into the joys of the Easter season that we have now remained within for these past 50 days. Pentecost is a huge celebration for the Church because it signals to us the reality of transformation. Transformation is something that all of us are greatly in need of. None of us have yet received our heavenly reward and therefore we must strive to undergo transformation in our daily life.

All of those who were present in the Upper Room on Pentecost Sunday encountered great transformation. This was so because with the coming of the Holy Spirit they were said to be baptized in fire. This is to say that the Holy Spirit came down upon them and then they were transformed into something new. We can picture in our mind that this event made them clean as our baptism does for us. This event did not just spring up out of the blue, but this event was something that Christ had prepared them for. He told them that He would send the Holy Spirit upon them and even in our Gospel He breathed upon them as a foreshadowing of what would soon come. They did not just rush into this celebration as if it were just another day, but instead they were found together in prayer as they prepared themselves for what would soon take place. Through the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them they were truly transformed. They were transformed because now they were held in union with God and were given the great gifts that were necessary to proclaim the Gospel to the world and to draw souls to the triune God.

In this whole period we have been preparing ourselves to undergo this same transformation. The problem is that it is so easy to get sidetracked along the way and therefore we do not allow ourselves to be properly prepared for such a wondrous event. We live in a world that does not want to stand still even for a minute. We are always ready for the next activity on our schedule and due to this quickness of pace we allow so much to pass us bye. Before we know it we are a year older, a child has moved out of the house, we are advancing a grade in school, or we are even moving towards the end of our life. Pentecost was not just rushed into, but instead it was prepared for during a ten day period with prayer and fasting. Through prayer and fasting they were prepared for the great transformation that was going to take place within their life. Indeed any time that we allow the Holy Spirit to enter into our life we will be transformed in a positive way. The Holy Spirit is constantly coming upon us and guiding us towards truth and love, but we might be to busy or prideful to allow such a transformation to take place within us.

 

Pentecost is a celebration that is about the transformation that is encountered in our life through the gift of the Holy Spirit. This transformation was begun in our life when we entered into the waters of baptism and this was eventually brought to its fulfillment through our reception of Confirmation. Confirmation has been modernly made out to be one's adult acceptance of the Catholic faith, but this notion is not true. Confirmation is about the Holy Spirit being called upon us as it was upon the apostles and anyone else who was present at Pentecost. Through our Confirmation we partake in the event of Pentecost and thus we are forever transformed because we are given spiritual growth and strength. In baptism we were transformed through birth where we were granted new life from our state of sin. Through the Eucharist we are transformed because through our reception of it we are given nourishment in order that we may be sustained in our faith. These three sacraments are known as the sacraments of initiation and are concerned with our transformation that we may better conform ourself to Christ

Now that we have come to the end of the Easter season and joined within this great celebration of Pentecost may we allow the gift of the Holy Spirit to enter into our life and truly allow this gift to transform us. We are indeed a fast paced society and due to this we must be willing to take time out of our day to pray and to be drawn into relationship with Christ in order that we may be prepared to undergo such a transformation. Yes, the promptings of the Holy Spirit may seem to be most difficult to accept, but when we do embrace them we will encounter a true sense of transformation that will open us up to God and lead us towards the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Ascension Of The Lord Homily

Today we celebrate the great mystery of faith that Christ ascended into Heaven. We could easily believe that due to His ascension we now have an absence of Christ upon this earth. This belief is not true because through the ascension of our Lord we are able to join with Him in Heaven while we remain here upon earth below. His ascension opens up for us the very place where we can go to join with God for all time. As Christ ascends into Heaven on this day we should allow our hearts to also ascend with Him. If we allow our hearts to ascend with Him we must leave our sinfulness behind and begin to orient our sight upon Christ and all that dwells above in Heaven where sin cannot be found. This transformation that should take place within us is the reality of the Ascension and its effect upon the believer. To remain unchanged by the ascension is not a choice that we should accept if we truly take our baptismal promises seriously because the ascension is a life changing event not only for the apostles, but for all of us.

Saint Paul's words to the Ephesians should ring true in each of our ears: "may the eyes of your hearts be enlightened." We here upon this earth have so many issues which cause us grief and hardship, but with our hearts enlightened and thus raised to Heaven in the ascension we can and will find comfort. Taking care of a family member who is struggling with health issues can become a burden at times. The uncertainty of job security can raise one's anxiety to great heights. The never ending banter of bills especially medical bills can seem to be an unending litany. Breaking ourself from an addiction or a serious sin can seem to be to difficult to endure. With our hearts enlightened we will see the true fruit that comes to us from the ascension. This fruit that comes to us is that of hope in the moment of trial, perseverance in the moment of temptation, and joy in those moments of despair. With the ascension we are not left alone in those many moments of hardship, but we turn ourself towards Heaven to encounter true hope, perseverance, and joy.

At the moment that Christ descended from Heaven to this earth we must remember that He never ceased to be God and therefore remain in Heaven. Likewise, we must remember that because Christ ascended into Heaven does not mean that He has left this earth, but instead He continues to dwell with us to lift our hearts and minds towards Heaven where we will one day be able to join with Him for all eternity. This is important for us to remember because He descended upon us out of love in order that we might be redeemed. In descending He joined with us in our humanity and was crucified upon the cross in order to bring about our salvation. In ascending He returned to His Father in Heaven, but in as much as we are able to join and trust in Him we are also brought into Heaven and given this most glorious glimpse. From sacred scripture: "No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven." By our love and our trust we join with Christ who both descended and ascended.

 

Therefore each of us must ask ourselves what causes us to cease to love Christ? We must mediate upon each and every single thing we place before our relationship with Christ and ask why we allow these things to impede our ability to join with Him in Heaven while still being here upon this earth. We must take our fears, temptations, and struggles and not allow them to overcome us, but instead may each of us grow in our love for Christ and therefore encounter true hope, perseverance, and joy as we ascend to where Christ can be found. On this day we celebrate the great joy of Christ's ascension into Heaven and hopefully this great joy that we celebrate on this day makes us desire in our heart to join with Him in Heaven. Towards Heaven is the place that the ascension delivers us if only we can trust and love our Lord. In sin and despair we cannot say that we love Christ or desire to be joined with Him in Heaven. By casting away sin and despair from our life we begin to truly love and trust in Christ and therefore we allow ourself to be raised up to Heaven.

 

As we proclaim before the preface to this Mass. "Lift up your hearts." "We lift them up to the Lord." Despite all of the fears that plague us, despite all the crosses that are forced upon us, despite the many injustices which spring forth in this world, despite our own relationship to sin; we are able to say these words with great faith. That is because through the ascension Christ was raised to Heaven and we in return are raised to Heaven with Him. May our trust truly be turned towards Christ that we may continue to lift up our hearts to the Lord in all things. When the ascension is depicted in art we will notice that the eyes of the apostles are lifted towards Heaven. Our very life should follow this posture, with our sight not cast downward, but instead above with the desire to be lifted up towards the Lord. From Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: "We know with holy and Catholic Faith that what was not assumed, was not redeemed." May we truly allow ourselves to be assumed towards our Lord holding nothing back as we lift our hearts up to Him this day.