This is How You Are to Pray: God's Gift of the Liturgy Where We Offer to the Father His Word

When Jesus says to his disciples, as he says in today's readings, "This is how you are to pray" he is saying that there is a specific way that God desires to be worshiped.  The Sacred Liturgy is the Father's Gift to us, that we might offer to him from our lips and hearts the very Word by which he is infinitely pleased, which comes forth from his throne and achieves its efficacious fruitfulness.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Readings for today

Spiritual Combat in Lent: 1st Sunday HOMILY

Lent must be real.  It must change you.  It is a battle.  The liturgy and the Holy Spirit prepare us and guide us, just as the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, he drives us deeper into self-mastery and conversion.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Readings for 1st Sunday of Lent

There are three traditional practices that aid us in our Lenten journey: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  These help us overcome the temptations and weakness of pride, lust and greed.  

LENT Liturgy is our Journey through the Desert of God's Sanctification

Listen to my homily for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday.

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Readings for the day.

Ash Wednesday Homily

Here is my homily for Ash Wednesday:

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Mass Readings for the day.

The Most Holy Eucharist is Both Sign of God, and the Signifier, God Himself

How many times have you asked God, "Can I have a sign?"  This can be a wonderful thing that asks God for his love or, if it is a means of perpetrating your will on God and demanding that he conform to you, can be very wicked.

Listen to my homily for today:

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He Took Upon Himself our Uncleanness that we Might be Made Whole

A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, "If you wish, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, "I do will it. Be made clean." The leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean. Then, warning the him sternly, he dismissed him at once. -From the Gospel for today.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Jesus touches a leper.  According to Mosaic law he becomes "unclean" while the leper becomes clean.  He takes our guilt we receive freedom.  He takes our sins and gives us life.  Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta tells us that the greatest poverty of our age, especially in wealthy countries, is that so many are unloved.  When we encounter Christ we discover how very loved we are.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we read #517:

Christ's whole life is a mystery of redemption. Redemption comes to us above all through the blood of his cross,¹⁷⁹ but this mystery is at work throughout Christ's entire life:
- already in his Incarnation through which by becoming poor he enriches us with his poverty;¹⁸⁰- in his hidden life which by his submission atones for our disobedience;¹⁸¹- in his word which purifies its hearers;¹⁸²- in his healings and exorcisms by which "he took our infirmities and bore our diseases";¹⁸³- and in his Resurrection by which he justifies us.¹⁸⁴

Just as all of Christ's life was a means of redemption, he asks us to be the same, that everything about us would help heal those around us, especially those closest to us, who are easiest for us to wound or to love, and therefore heal.  We must become a loving people that we become a healing people.

Every time we receive holy communion, God touches us.  When he touches lepers, blind, crippled in the Gospel and in our day, he heals them.  Jesus heal us!

May Our Lady and all the saints inspire us and pray for us that this come about.

Frequent Holy Communion Opens Our Mouths to Speak to and about God

At the end of our lives, one of the greatest consolations will be how frequently and how well we were able to receive Jesus in holy communion.

The Most Holy Eucharist opens our mouths that we may speak to and about God to a world which greatly needs prayers and to hear the saving truth of the Gospel.  It needs saints.  Let us hear the call to holiness from Jesus in the Eucharist, from the lives of his holy ones.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the day.

God Calls the Young to Greatness: Homily at St Anselm's Secondary

St Scholastica, whose memorial we celebrate today, was just a young girl when God called her.  God favors and calls the young, giving them an intense portion of his love, so that they may respond generously to his call to be holy as he is holy.

This homily was given at St Anselm's Catholic Secondary School:

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Gospel Reading for this Mass - Luke 10:38-42

Jesus Tests Us that We May Love More

A very important part of the pilgrimage is the journey to the holy place.  The reason for this is that the arduous and difficult road prepares us and disposes us to receive the graces that God wants to give us.  The journey makes us more humble, grateful, dispelling the myth of self-sufficiency, giving us courage and hope, that when we arrive we may enjoy for fully all God's benefits, graces, merits, and gifts.  This is also true for holy Mass.  The Word tests us that we may receive the Sacrament more worthily.  Also true for life.  By being tested and tried, love is purified and augmented that our heavenly reward may be better enjoyed.  God wants us to be as happy eternally as possible, and so he puts us in the crucible, for suffering and trial are the only way to bring about greater love.

This is exactly what he did to the Syrophoenecian woman.  He tested her to reveal to herself and those around her that she was worthy of a miracle.

YOU are worthy of a miracle when you suffer, when you allow the Lord, like a good shepherd, to bring you along the narrow path of the Cross, so that you more fruitfully may enjoy the joys and delights of the Resurrection.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the Day

You Must Be the Tassel on the Cloak of Christ that Touches this Sick World to Be Healed

The tassle of the cloak of a Jew was a sign of faithfulness to the covenant, so when the sick were touching the tassle of Jesus, it is a way of saying that they were touching the righteousness of the Son of Man.  The Holy Eucharist is the place where you touch the holiness of Jesus so that you may in turn touch the world and heal it.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the Day

Christian Prayer is to Drink the Living Water of the Holy Spirit

Jesus turned away from the sick and left them unhealed, left the ignorant untaught, left his disciples untended, and went to pray to show us that even the important things are not as important as turning to God in humble and persistent prayer.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the Day

Pope Benedict XVI's message to Consecrated Persons for Today

Today is World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life.  Here is an excerpt from the Holy Father's message for today from last year.  (As soon as he has one for this year I will post it)

Dear Brothers and Sisters, On today’s Feast we contemplate the Lord Jesus, whom Mary and Joseph bring to the Temple “to present him to the Lord” (Lk 2:22). This Gospel scene reveals the mystery of the Son of the Virgin, the consecrated One of the Father who came into the world to do his will faithfully (cf. Heb 10:5-7). Simeon identifies him as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Lk 2:32) and announces with prophetic words his supreme offering to God and his final victory (cf. Lk 2:32-35). This is the meeting point of the two Testaments, Old and New. Jesus enters the ancient temple; he who is the new Temple of God: he comes to visit his people, thus bringing to fulfilment obedience to the Law and ushering in the last times of salvation. It is interesting to take a close look at this entrance of the Child Jesus into the solemnity of the temple, in the great comings and goings of many people, busy with their work: priests and Levites taking turns to be on duty, the numerous devout people and pilgrims anxious to encounter the Holy God of Israel. Yet none of them noticed anything. Jesus was a child like the others, a first-born son of very simple parents. Read more...

Share the Holy Light of Jesus Christ

Today is Candlemass, 40 days after December 25th, when Jesus Christ was born.  In the levitical law each first born son must be consecrated to the Lord.  We also celebrate the World Day of Consecrated Life. Read Pope Benedict XVI's message for today (View Photos of his celebration of recommitment to religious life).

Rafael Valls, the Presentation in the Temple

Here is my homily for the day:

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Mass Readings for the day

We must live our consecration in Christ in order that this world may know the light of the Father's love.  We are called to be holy as God is holy.  Only living a life in imitation of Christ can bring show people the face of God.

Consecrated persons are called in a special way to shine the light of Christ.  May Our Lady, the mother of each vocation, help consecrated persons be faithful to their commitment and give new life to the Church and the world.