Consecration to Jesus Through Mary: INTRODUCTION

Want to love God more but don't know how?  Do you find yourself falling back into old habits that are not of God?  Can't find that extra kick you need to overcome yourself?

Consecration to Jesus through Mary is a spiritual boost that helps you to rid yourself of the world, the flesh, the devil, sin, and death, and opens your heart to deeper faith, hope, and charity.  It is a way of living your baptism more fervently and consistently.  Pray about this more and see if God is asking you to undertake this radical step in being more conformed to Jesus Christ the Lord.  For more info click here.

It is highly recommended that during the process of preparation that you read the book by St Louis Marie De Montfort, True Devotion to Mary.  Blessed Pope John Paul II said of the book:

I myself, in the years of my youth, found reading this book a great help. “There I found the answers to my questions”, for at one point I had feared that if my devotion to Mary “became too great, it might end up compromising the supremacy of the worship owed to Christ”. Under the wise guidance of St. Louis Marie, I realized that if one lives the mystery of Mary in Christ, this risk does not exist. In fact, this Saint's Mariological thought “is rooted in the mystery of the Trinity and in the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God”.

Preparation for Total Consecration

Choosing a Date

On what day of the year will you solemnly gift yourself to Jesus through Mary? There are a few things to consider. First, it should be a Marian feast day. There are many in the Churche's calendar to choose from, especially those principle feasts which mark the redemption that Christ wrought for us through his mother. Second, it should be something significant for you, personal, close to the heart. Third, it helps if it be publicly recognized by the community, even celebrated at a time when many are gathered to pray for you and also receive this witness.  Here are some days that people commonly consecrate themselves:

Start Day	Marian Feast	Consecration Day
January 9	Our Lady of Lourdes	Febrary 11
February 20	The Annunciation	March 25
June 13	Our Lady of Mt Carmel	July 16
July 13	The Assumption	August 15
August 6	Nativity of Our Lady	September 8
August 13	Our Lady of Sorrows	September 15
October 19	Presentation of Mary	November 21
November 5	Immaculate Conception	December 8
November 9	Our Lady of Guadalupe	December 12

WARNING: This ain't playing around folks.  This is serious stuff.  The devil will try to thwart you.  Do not make the mistake of thinking if you miss one day that you have failed and can't continue.  Do not let missing one or more of the parts be the obstacle of not completing the final consecration.  Give God your best.  Let him do the rest.  Persevere.  Pray.  Consecrate.

12 preliminary days of ridding yourself of the spirit of the world:
1   2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  2


Week of growing in the knowledge of self:

13  14  15  16  17  18  19


Week of growing in the knowledge of Mary:

20   21  22  23  24  25  26


Week of growing in the knowledge of Jesus:

27  28  29  30  31  32  33

Act of Consecration to Jesus through Mary

Should the Master Thank the Servant for Doing his Job?

Where is Jesus in my life, many ask.  Look down.  Look at your feet, at the part of you that is trampled upon, collecting smell and dirt, the part of you that seems to be unloved, broken, in need of God.  If you look with faith, you will have an amazing discovery.  Jesus is there, washing your feet!  In today's readings for Mass we are reminded that we are servants, and that we ought not look for reward.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening, click here.

It is so easy to get prideful for doing something good.  Jesus reminds us simply that it is our job to begin with.  We aren't doing God any favors.  He is isn't so blessed to have our wonderful selves be in  his service, rather it is the other way around.  He is permitting us to serve him, for serving the one who loves us is itself the greatest possible reward we could hope for.  Many times, our works are very lacking, full of errors, excesses, defects, faults, imperfections - full of self.  God often has to supplement our feeble works with his grace and correction, filling in our valleys and leveling our mountains.

This is true for anything God asks of us - in our marriages, in our workplace, in our families, in our nation. It is so important for us to encounter Christ serving in these places, so that we can follow him, see him serving so that where the master is there the servant shall be.

May Our Lady, whose mother's heart is one who serves, help us to have the beautiful humility and spirit of service necessary to follow Jesus, even to washing other's feet.

Homily: Catechesis on the Four Last Things

The Last Judgment of Michelangelo

The last few weeks of the Church's liturgical year speak about eschatology, or the last things.  Traditionally  we speak about the four last things of death, judgment, heaven, and hell.  The readings for today's Mass, the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, speak a great deal about the eschaton, or the end of the ages.  It is important to remember that Jesus Christ is the Eschatos, the last One, the first and the last, alpha and omega, by whom each person will be judged, by whose life we are all measured.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening, click here.

Because there is such great ignorance and of teachings of Christ on the last things.  I will give in this homily a brief catechesis.

First we have to know from where we get our doctrine of the faith.  Is it from personal revelation, speculation, or good studying habit of the bible.  No, definitely not.  There are over 40,000 different "Christian" denominations based on personal opinion, especially those more obscure passages of Scripture.  Christian faith, whereby we say it is not our teaching but the very teaching of Jesus Christ himself, comes from the unity of presentation of Scripture, the teaching of Christ passed on through the ages we call Sacred Tradition, and the authoritative teaching of the successor of St Peter, the Pope and all those united with him.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the united and authoritative teaching of these sources of the one Christian Faith, the very teaching of Jesus Christ himself.  Anything else is simply not the Church's teaching and not the teaching of Jesus Christ.  And so, what does the Catechism say about the last things?

The human soul
Each human soul is created immediately and directly by God himself out of nothing at the moment of conception when a child's mother and father cooperate in the act of co-creation.  It is immortal and made for God.  Man is a moral being and all of his acts either contribute to the quality of his goodness or lack thereof.


Death
When we die, our soul is separated from our body and we are immediately judged by God based on our acts, upon the measure of charity in the human soul.  This is called "particular judgment."  Or as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says in 1022:

Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven- through a purification or immediately, or immediate and everlasting damnation.  At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.

Hell

Hell is real.  It is a place or torment for those who have rejected God's grace and love.  We read in the Catechism 1035:

 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

Purgatory

How many people when they die are perfectly kind, unfailingly patient, unwaveringly charitable?  Not many.  Thanks be to God for the gift of purgatory, which is a place for those who still need to be purified before entering eternal life.  Thanks also to God's mercy for the gift of indulgences that can remit all temporal punishment due to sin, i.e. a get out of purgatory free card.  Read about them here.  Also, if we love our dearly departed, we will offer masses for the repose of their souls, something which has been done since the very first Christian century.  The Catechism says in 1030:

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

Heaven

Heaven is the reward of the just, the place of eternal enjoyment of the blessedness of union with the Most Holy Trinity.  It is the place where every tear will be wiped away and all will praise and glorify the Lord for ever in holy communion as God's holy family.  CCC 1023

According to the general disposition of God, the souls of all the saints . . . and other faithful who died after receiving Christ's holy Baptism (provided they were not in need of purification when they died, . . . or, if they then did need or will need some purification, when they have been purified after death, . . .) already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment - and this since the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into heaven - have been, are and will be in heaven, in the heavenly Kingdom and celestial paradise with Christ, joined to the company of the holy angels. Since the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, these souls have seen and do see the divine essence with an intuitive vision, and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature.

Final Judgment

Jesus shall come again to judge the living and dead.  This is called the Second Coming.  There is not an intermediary coming of Jesus as some might say, calling it a "rapture" where those who are faithful to Christ will be taken up into the air before having to endure the final tribulation that is said to immediately precede the Lord's coming at the end of time.  This teaching has been invented in the past few generations and is not coherent with Scripture and the Church's Tradition of martyrs who won their glorious crown by perseverance through trial.  In the CCC we read in 1038:

The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust," will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man's] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment." Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him .... Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.... And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."[623] 

The New Heavens and New Earth
After the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the chaff, the good and evil, have been sorted, God will divinize the just and make a new heavens and new earth.  Where God will be all in all, Christ will be all things in all men.  CCC 1043:

Sacred Scripture calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, "new heavens and a new earth." It will be the definitive realization of God's plan to bring under a single head "all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth."

What does this mean for us?
If you knew you would be dead by the end of the day, how would you live?  Our end in life makes clear what we do now, and how we act.  If we are clearly aware that we may merit either eternal reward or punishment for our actions and that we are responsible for leading others to life, we can be sure that will act differently.


You can make your marriage, your workplace, your parenting, your relationships, your very life here on earth a kind of heaven or hell, and may very really receive either as your eternal destination.  We ought to think about these things frequently to put before our eyes what is truly important in life.

Be Cunning in Forgiveness as Jesus is Cunning

The limit that we can place on the infinite Mercy of God can be quite terrible, quite inhibiting, yes, even quite damning - literally.  For we utter those fated words every day, "Forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us."  In our Mass readings for today, Jesus praises the dishonest steward for his cunning in forgiving the debtors of the Master.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening, click here.

An example of how Jesus is cunning in getting us to forgive others and thus be forgiven is the Promises of First Fridays, which require us to receive holy communion on the first friday of the month and go to confession.  A person who does this nine months in a row may have a business mindset, even a kind of consumer approach to religion, but the cunning of Christ is that no one can confess their sins nine months in a row and remain the same.  They will be eternally changed.  Their heart will be drawn to mercy, to forgiveness, to God himself.

Another example we have of the holy cunning is today's saint, St Charles Borromeo, who was a major player in the reform of Trent.  He implemented the reform by taking as his own their principles and generously putting them into practice, especially with regard to visiting priests, bishops, and founding seminaries.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary, whose innocence and humility is a the ideal of holy cunning, lead us to bring as many as possible to the fount of God's mercy and holiness.

Special Plenary Indulgence you May Obtain for the Holy Souls

This is from the Archdiocese of Southwark, where I am currently serving:

A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the holy souls, may be gained once in any church either on All Souls' Day, on the preceding or following Sunday, or on the feast of All Saints, on the usual conditions, viz: a visit to a Church where the Our Father and Creed are recited, Sacramental Confession, Holy Communion and prayer for the Holy Father's intention. Those who visit a cemeterybetween 1st and 8th November and pray for the faithful departed, may obtain a plenary indulgence, applicable to the holy souls (and at other times a partial indulgence).

 The conditions to obtain a plenary indulgence are the following:

1.  The faithful must receive the sacrament of confession, either eight days before or after the act is performed.
2.  Receive Holy Communion on that day.
3.  Recite prayers for the intention of the Holy Father (In this case an Our Father and a Creed)
4. Absence of attachment to mortal or venial sin (I find this part incredibly sanctifying for the one attempting to obtain the indulgence)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains about indulgences:

It is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man." (1472, 1473)

One of Two Days in the Year Where Priests are Encouraged to Offer 3 Masses

There are two days of the year when the Holy Church encourages priests to offer three Masses.  Christmas Day there are three different liturgies.  In my religious community we usually offer all three: Mass at Midnight to commemorate his birth, Mass at Dawn to commemorate the adoration of the shepherds, and Mass of the Day to commemorate the joy of the angels.

The other day is today, the Feast of All Souls.  If you look in the Sacramentary, the book the priest prays Mass from on the altar, you would find three different liturgies for three different intentions:

1.  The intention of the priest himself
2.  For all the faithful departed
3.  For the intentions of the Holy Father

I offered two of these masses privately in a row.  As always, they were very sanctifying and inspiring hopefully to set my heart on the right course this month to be constantly praying for the holy souls.

During one of the Masses I felt a great deal of gratitude from the souls of those I had helped reach the final destination of heaven.  It is a great privilege for a priest to be able to offer a dying person, the apostolic pardon, where he offers that person a plenary indulgence and the blessing of the Holy Father to cleanse them of any remaining temporal punishment due to sin.  This gift is especially joyful when a person has been far away from God and his great mercy is exercised in not only reconciling them to himself, but removing any remaining obstacle in this life or in the next.  A soul that reaches its final reward has a special bond of charity to the person who helped them get there.  When we pray and offer Masses for the dead, do you not think they would like to return the favor by helping us reach heaven with them?

 

Our Friends in Purification - All Souls Day

Were you to see a man suffering bitter pains and hunger, would you not help him?  What if it was your great grandfather, or distant cousin?  It is an act of holy charity to help the souls in purgatory reach their final purification and enter into heavenly peace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1030-1031)  teaches:

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire.

This is a dogma of the Church and the teaching of Christ.  There are some who deny this teaching, but this is usually because of a lack of faith and a loss of the sense of sin, but what is easily forgotten are our brothers and sisters, real living persons in purgatory, neglected by our foolish doubt and inattentiveness.

St Gregory the Great says:

“As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.”

Do you know anyone without completely perfect patience, unwavering kindness, and pure-hearted sincerity?  If you are like me you might be able to count such souls on one hand or maybe not at all.  Purgatory is a merciful gift of God for those of us who are not yet perfected in charity when we die.

Yet these holy souls are greatly aided by the Church militant offering the Lord on their behalf works of charity, prayers, alms, and most especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  A very good thing in the month of November would be if each Catholic would offer masses for all of their faithful departed relatives, and even for those souls for whom no one prays.

One All Souls Day I was walking in a cemetery praying the Rosary for the holy souls when I asked them sincerely to reveal to me our final end and the purification that awaits those not yet perfected.  As I prayed I felt two very powerful inspirations that have changed my life forever:

1.  Do not underestimate the effects of sin, even of minor faults, or venial sins, for many souls stay in a luke-warm state because they do not develop sufficient hatred for sins, no matter how small we may think they are.
2.  Rely on the strength of charity to acquire the patience necessary to accept each moment as a gift of God to be filled always with the majesty of his Presence, the holiness of his Will, and the power of his divine Love.

This is the cemetery in Subiaco, Italy, in which I walked
and asked for inspiration.

May Our Lady, the refuge of sins, consolation of the afflicted, inspire us to live holy lives, and to grow in holiness by exercising charity toward our brothers and sisters in purgatory.

I Want to Be A Saint

"I want to be a saint"

This is what the 15 year old St Therese of Lisieux said when asked what her intention were in entering the cloistered religious Carmel.  Cooperating with the grace of God, she did just that, she became a living replica of Jesus Christ.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening click here.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, the day on which we thank God for the the heavenly cohort of men and women who have "washed their garments in the Blood of the Lamb," who passed the test of this life and gained heaven.

The word sanctus, or holy in Latin, means different.  This is what you encounter in someone who is holy, someone who has a unique sincerity about them that can only be the fruit of a pure heart that is set like flint upon the face of Jesus Christ.

How do you become holy, how do you become a saint.  The answer is in the second reading for today:

Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,
by letting us be called God’s children;

Holiness is living in the realization that you are deeply beloved of the Father.  In Christ the Eucharistic Lord who visits us, we find the immeasurable and unconditional Love of the Father.  Frequent and devout reception of the Holy Eucharist is one of t he surest and quickest roads to holiness.  Our problem is that we approach the Lord without expecting him to be God, with little faith.  So we go away even from God himself without being transformed and without permitting him to act in his divine Power in our lives.

The saints inspire us to, as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "To give God permission to make us holy as he is holy."  The lived a life in which, as St Teresa of Avila said, they "wholeheartedly trampled upon the spirit of this world."

May the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, the Queen of Sainst, inspire and pray for us to obtain for us the gift of sanctity.

2 Things to Help Children with the New Translation of the Mass: PowerPoint and No Parents

I am pleasantly gobsmacked and happily flabbergasted at the first attempt to offer Mass in the New Translation at our parish school of St Augustine's Catholic Primary in Hythe, Kent, UK.  For the first time, the children all participated in loud and clear voices.  Their attention was kept the entire time, and they pronounced every word.  Well almost every word, "Con, con, con, con...substantial" I heard lisped out during the Nicene Creed.

There were two reasons why the headteacher, or principal as she would be called in the States, and I could see made all the difference.  The first was the use of a PowerPoint display that had all the words necessary for the fruitful, active, and conscious participation in the Mass.  I first noticed it during the Gloria.  I thought I would be reciting it solo, but a great majority of the school enthusiastically pronounced all the words.

Here is the powerpoint we used:



If you have trouble viewing this click here.

The second was that their parents did not attend.  In the past this has caused them to wave, to follow their parents poor example of chattering while mass is being prepared to start, and to try to show off to them.  Ultimately it turned Mas into a show, where the parents did not go to pray, but to see little johnny and sally do something or read something on the stage.  With their parents not around they were able to focus on praying.

And pray they did.  It was most apparent during communion time.  There wasn't a lot of fidgeting, flustering, or flippity flobbering around by the younger children.  I had asked them to pray very hard for someone who needs their prayers and to ask God to make them holy.  You could see their eyes being clenched tight and you could almost hear their little hearts crying out to the Lord in supplication.

I remember attending a seminar last spring about how to present the new translation to children.  One of the presenter's, a priest, main question was, "What can we get away with?" meaning, what part of the new translation can we avoid or leave out or manipulate.  I would like to ask the question in another way.  What can we get away with in not changing it, but in presenting it well to the kids?  What can we get away with so that they are elevated by the new translation to lift up their hearts and minds to the mind of Christ who loves children and calls them to sanctity through the words and gestures of the Sacred Liturgy?

Christian Love - Without Expecting Return

How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?

To a child their whole world is the mommy and daddy.  From their earliest moments of consciousness they see these people who care for them and give them shelter, nourishment, protection and life.  There is a day in the life of each person where they realize this debt.  Part of loving them in return is what is called filial piety, or giving them what is their due, to honor our father and mother.  They are an icon of the eternal and infinite providence of our loving Father.  The readings of Mass for today show us that we will never be able to repay God for his goodness and that loving our neighbor is a means of justly giving back to God what he has given us.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening click here.

The world teaches us the error that we love only those who love us, give to those who give to us and proportionately, that we forgive only if someone forgives.  This is not the way we love.  A follower of Christ MUST absolutely break out of this error.  If not the only way he will get out of it will be in the fires of purgatory.  This worldly way of loving is a very deep obstacle to sanctity and to authentic peace of heart.  We must wage a holy war against ourselves in this respect.  Prayer, frequent reception of the Sacraments, and placing ourselves in the line of God's gratuitous and undeserved charity, is the way to over come this obstacle eternally.

May Our Lady, whose Immaculate Heart is a white hot furnace of holy charity, help us to love as Christ loves, not expecting anything in return.  Loving others not because they are worthy, but loving them that they may become more worthy.

The Fatherhood of God Perpetuated in the Church

My Father, the deacon, and I at my first Mass

Recently a woman found herself apologizing for crying on my shoulder and taking up my time.  I reminded her that God consecrated me for that very purpose, that she would know especially in pain and sorrow, that God deeply loves and cares for her.

Listen to my homily today:

If you have trouble listening click here.

In the readings for today, the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, we see that a priest is a sign of the tender Love of God the Father, who arranges to give us very real and incarnate signs, or sacraments that we may know his love.  A priest is an alter Christus, another Christ, who has been given the sacrament of holy orders so that the people of God may filiate themselves to the Father in very real ways.

How many people find very real consolation, strength, blessing, life, and holiness in their relationship with the priests God has given them!  For it is clear that it is the will of God that the relationships of the Most Holy Trinity would be marvelously perpetuated in the Church.  When the faithful live as sons in the Son and filiate themselves to the fatherhood of God present in the priesthood of Christ, God is glorified and man is fortified.  Yet, on the other hand, there are some priests that do not give consolation but afflict the children of the Church.  In recent times we have been very aware of this, almost too aware.  The failure of priests has become often the most favorite topic at the bus station, in the grocery store, at homes and workplaces, so much to the point that it would seem that priests may be terrible villains.

It must be remembered that priests, while the dust has been kicked up a lot lately about the sex abuse crisis, are the lowest number of perpetrators and the management of the Church has handled it as the harshest of juridical penalties that civic law would never allow.  In Germany, the anti-catholic criminologiest Christian Pfeiffer claims that priests are the least number of offenders as .1% of all cases.  In the United States this number is even lower at .03%, while the insurance claims for married clergy are more than double this number and teachers triple.  Yet why are priests targeted?  Because they should be 0%.  They represent God's fatherhood and for this reason the damage is exponentially greater.

Thanks be to Jesus, who gave us this beautiful scripture, to "Call no man on earth our father" (Mt 23:9).  He said this so that when we do encounter the sinfulness of the Church, we will not ultimately allow this to shake our faith, because ultimately there is only One Father who is worthy of the name, before whom all other fathers whether spiritual or human appear as a very insufficient substitute or stand-in for the real thing.  Now, many so called "bible christians" interpret this scripture out of context.  The Catholic principle of interpreting scripture is context.  Let the bible interpret itself in light of itself and in light of the Catholic tradition, the magisterial teachings, and the teachings of the fathers and saints.

What is the context?  In Exodus 20:12 we hear to "honor our father."  In Matthew 3:9 and Luke 3:8 we see that Jesus himself called human men fathers such as Abraham and David.  The Blessed Virgin Mary called Abraham as father (Luke 1:55).  The Apostles Paul, who surely knew how to interpret scripture called himself father of the disciples in Corinth (1 Cor 4:5) and Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:11-12), and even called St Timothy, a young bishop, his son.  Clearly the New Testament tells us that it is right and good to call men by the title father.  So what IS the context?  Jesus immediately before this passage warns us of those teachers who do not practice what they preach, who

"They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them"

It is clear that this passage ought be interpreted in light of that seemingly harsh first reading for today:

You have turned aside from the way,and have caused many to falter by your instruction;you have made void the covenant of Levi,says the LORD of hosts.

It refers to those priests who do not teach the teachings of Christ present through the legitimate authority of the Church, and therefore rather than help souls enter into life, they impede them.  For those Catholic priests who oppose the teaching authority of Christ present in Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium, it is time to tremble.  The penalty God speaks of here is very severe.  But the faithful, ought not get too caught up in their failure, they ought not lose their faith because a so called, "father" or "teacher" has not taught them the correct doctrine, for they share their fatherhood only in a participatory or instrumental way.

In closing, I would like to share with you the words of Archbishop Chaput, which he gave in his homily for the national convention of the Knights of Columbus in Denver, Colorado on August 2, 2011.  Watch video here.

"Bishops, priests, and deacons are too often weak and sinful.  We need to be held to high standards.  Some of us deserve to be chastised.  The Church's leadership, the clergy, should always be marked by humility and service, and never by a sense of entitlement.  But it is important to remember that men and women did not found the Church.  They don't own her and they have no license to reinvent her.  The Church belongs to Jesus Christ.  The different roles within the Christian community, clergy, laity, and religious life - have equal dignity but different purposes.  Certain failures, including the sins of the clergy, need to be named, but when people deride their bishops and priests out of pride or resentment or some perverse desire for what they perceive as power, they undermine the Church itself, and they set themselves against the God whose vessel the Church is, and that, as Scripture suggests, leads in a painful direction.  All real reform in the Church today requires two things….renewal begins not in vilifying others but examining ourselves, honestly, repenting of our own sins, and changing ourselves.  This applies to every baptized person, from the Pope to the average man or woman earning a wage.  We are all sinners.  We are all in need of repentance and in need of God's mercy.  When we really understand that we can speak to each other with honesty and love and the reform of the Church can begin.  The second thing we need for reform in the Church is faith, not faith as in theology, or faith as a collection of doctrines and practices, although these are important, but faith as a single-minded confidence in God.  Faith as the humility, and in a sense, the passion and recklessness to give ourselves entirely to God.  That kind of faith changes people, that kind of faith shifts the world on its axis, because nothing can stand against it,"

VIDEO: Call No Man Father?

We call priests and the men who gave us the issue of life Father because God wants us to know his love and his fatherhood in a very real way.  Yet because we do fail in this regard, Jesus tells us to "Call no man on earth our father" (Mt 23:9) so that we don't get too caught up in their lack of fatherhood.  Instead we may entrust ourselves to the real Father, who is the only one ultimately worthy of the name, for whom every other father, spiritual or human is a very poor substitute and stand-in.

Interpreting the bible according to the bible tells us that Jesus called Abraham Father (Mt 9:3; Lk 3:8), Mary spoke of Abraham as Father in her magnificat (Lk 1:55).  St. Paul called himself Father (1 Cor 4:15; 1 Thess 2:11-12).  St Peter and St John called David their Father (Acts 4:25).

Colloquium for the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy

Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity

Yesterday and the day before (October 27-28, 2011) were days that will nourish and illumine my priesthood for a long time.  I spent them at the Oratory in Reading, UK, for the first ever Colloquium for the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy.

There were three great speakers, two of whom are bishops of the Church.  Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett spoke about the impact that the confraternity of catholic clergy had on the Church in Australia.  Msgr Andrew Wadsworth spoke about the gift of the new translation of the Roman Missal.  However the highlight of the whole conference was certainly the exhortation preached by Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury.

One comment stood out to me among the rest of the inspiring words and meditations, "The New Evangelization means that bishops and priests first must accept that they need to be newly evangelized and converted before speaking of anyone else."  I went away from his talk wanting to be evangelized, wanting to be holy, wanting to become a saint.

The other powerful gift of this meeting was encountering so many holy priests whose witness has deeply touched my life and showed me how much I am in need of repentance and growth.  Particularly touching were the different times we prayed together, offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass together, and knelt in quiet adoration of the Blessed Sacrament together.  When I heard the sound of the priests singing the ancient Latin hymns of the Church, it was almost as if I could hear that holy harmony of the everlasting hills, the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Here are the photos from flickr:

You Are Beautiful. You are Good.

This is the little girl I spoke about in my homily

You are beautiful.  You are good.  The Holy Spirit who dwells in the heart of a baptized soul tells this to a person who listens, revealing to them the very goodness in which God created them.  In today's readings for Mass, St Paul tells us that "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,” for our hearts cry out, "Abba, Father!"

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening, click here.


In the Gospel we have a living encounter with the Lord Jesus, who comes to us as the comforter of the afflicted and the affliction of the comfortable, the healer of the broken and the breaker of the "healed."  The Pharisees had a nice little fortress and stronghold, content to make decrees and proclamations that were not in keeping with the Gospel of the Lord, which is a Gospel of healing and restoration.  We find in them a very strange tendency to resist healing and redemption, to want to have it on their terms.  It isn't that hard to find ourselves in this situation, if we, like the Pharisees, have set up our little kingdom of self love and self affirmation, not allowing others to love us or affirm us, especially our Father, whose love will always make us go beyond ourselves and rise above where we are ready to go.

The Love of the Father when we are young is an amazing affirmation, but when we are more mature in the grace of God, his affirmation comes in the form of the Cross.  We know that his love cradles us, but he doesn't want to coddle us.  He says to us, "STAND UP TALL AND WALK STRAIGHT!  BE A MAN!  BE A WOMAN!"  We then are affirmed by finding that we can carry whatever cross, whatever suffering, trial, or temptation that our Father permits us to endure.  We also find that he asks us to be his voice, to present to others through spiritual paternity or maternity his very fatherhood so that we too show others how beautiful they are and how much loved they are by God.

Charity to Go Beyond Ourselves

Today we are faced with a terrible disease: egotism.  It is the most predominant form of idolatry in our time that bears the commandment: love thyself, serve thyself, worship thyself.  In today's readings for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus shows us how to overcome self-idolatry with true charity that is love of God and of neighbor.

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening click here.

In our first reading we learn to come to the aid of the widow and the orphan and in the second we learn to live lives free of idolatry.  St James sums up nicely when he says,

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world."

True charity, to love God above all things and to love one's neighbor as oneself consists in living this way. It is not easy.  We are tempted to selfishness, to narcissistic self-concern and preoccupation with our own condition.  That is why the Holy Eucharist which we receive both is where we offer our charitable works to God in purity of heart and also where we receive the strength to be charitable.  Jesus is Charity itself, love Incarnate, the Father's Love made visible in the world.  When we receive him with humble faith, by a gift of his love he fills our hearts with the charity we need to love the poor, beginning with the poor ones in our very own homes.

May Our Lady, mother of divine Charity, help us to follow the law of God that we may love one another as Christ has loved us.

Spirit of Opposition to Your Loving Father

Why do you do things that you really wish you didn't do?  Why is part of you for God and part of you not?  In the readings for today's mass, St Paul tells us:

For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Listen to my homily for the day:

If you have trouble listening click here.

What is really happening is that our bodies participate in that spirit of rebellion, of opposition, of sin, against the Love that Our Father has for us.  Separated from his Abba, man becomes fearful and arrogant at the same time, building up his ego so much that if his Loving Father tried to break through the fortress, the mask, and the armor, he would dig his heals in and consider it an attack.  This is really where this spirit of opposition to God comes from.

How do we get rid of it?

The Cross.

It is a lot of work, discipline, and a lot of perseverance to submit that part of our hearts that is in opposition to the goodness and love of God, that it may be subdued and quieted like a baby who at first strikes the face of his daddy, but when he realizes he is safe is lulled to sleep in his hands.

Frequent, intense, consistent meditation on the passion of Our Lord, especially on Fridays, which are days of penance in the Church, can help free us of the evil that still lies at the door of our hearts.

Our Lady, who herself was at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, stands at our crosses, helps us graciously die to our selves.  May she help us and obtain for us from her Son the grace to be transformed in Christ Jesus.

The Love of God is a Consuming Fire

Jesus, the mighty Lion of Judah, tells us from today's Mass readings, 

"I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!"

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening, click here.

Blessed Pope John Paul II, wrote a book about the human person called, Person and Act, but most people know the translation called, The Acting Person, in which he tells us that since man is a moral being whose actions are always leading him to the good or away from it, his actions, words, thoughts either build up the quality of his moral being or detract from it.  In a particular way, this is true for the body, which itself has its own memory.  The first reading talks about this:

For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity

and to lawlessness for lawlessness,

so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

We can either grow in holiness or in impurity with our body.  The part of the body that can perhaps sully or  sanctify our body the most is our lips.  We must always be careful to use our mouth to build up rather than destroy, to bless rather than curse, to bring healing rather than ill.  This is true in our day with our use of the media.  We should think before we use our fingers to type something that can be spread abroad for the tearing down of another.  We should ask first, 

"Is this truly going to help my brother, is it what he really, really, needs to hear that will help him, or will it rather contribute to the huge mass of useless, careless, needless, and even dangerous communication that already clutters up the internet?"

In the Gospel we see that even if we have sinned with our bodies, the fire of God's holy Love can consume us, especially when we use the same lips that we have sinned with, to confess our sins in the sacrament of peace and reconciliation.  When someone comes to me in confession with a sin of the lips, cursing, guile, or has spoken malice or oppression to another, I always ask them for a penance to allow the Eucharistic Host to remain on their tongue for a while.  Let Jesus bless, sanctify, and heal your body, beginning with your mouth.

Our Lady's Immaculate Heart could be said to be a white-hot, immaculate furnace of the consuming love of the Most Holy Trinity.  May Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity pray for us and help our words, thoughts, and actions set this world ablaze with the love of God.

My Vocation Was Born in Russia 19 Years Ago Today - Слава Богу!

"My son has gone very far astray and I don't know what to do about it."
"The only thing left to do is to give him to Our Lady."

This was the conversation between my mother and a priest as they stood outside Red Square in Moscow on October 18, 1992.  A group of pilgrims that filled two 747 planes full, or 20 busses by land, had just crowned Our Lady as queen of Russia in Red Square and as they filed back to the hotels, my mother approached one of the priest chaplains that accompanied them on the journey.

She knelt down in the hotel lobby and the priest placed his hands on her head.  He asked her, "Do you believe that by your maternal right you can be a proxy, a stand-in, for your son?"  "Yes," she replied.  The priest then declared, "I consecrate you, Samuel, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary with the protection of all the angels and saints."  In this act of intercession was the cry of desperation of a mother for her boy.

Heaven heard a mother's cry.

Three years later, after having been the singer in a punk rock band, after having tried to slice up a piece of the American Pie of the pursuit of happiness and coming up empty, after having been promised to a lady marriage, after having been terrifyingly bored of the path on which I was beginning to tread, I heard the call of Jesus Christ to become a priest.  It was the clearest and most lucid moment of my whole life.  I remember where I was sitting in my apartment in Southeast Minneapolis, Minnesota, the clothes I was wearing, the song I was listening to, but most importantly, I was given in one instant a very clear knowledge of the eternal reason why God created me as clear as I knew my own name.  I was born to be a priest.

Soon I also came to understand that it wasn't only a calling to be a priest, but also to serve in Russia.  Two years later after my mother's plea in Russia yet before I felt the call to priesthood, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I began to study Russian at the university I was attending.  Then when I entered my religious community, the founder of SOLT, Fr James Flanagan, verified my calling, "Our Lady is calling you to go to Russia, for it was there that the seeds of your vocation were planted."

Aren't all these events and spiritual things a bit too much?  Well, I began to think so.  I doubted and asked God for confirmation about this missionary vocation to Russia.  Soon after I began a novena for clarification on this matter a Russian Orthodox deacon from Moscow walked into my Roman Catholic theological faculty in Rome and looked me straight in the face and told me that it would not be easy to go to Russia but would be for the good of the unity of the Church for which Christ prayed.  That day I met fifteen young people from eastern Europe whose common conversational language was Russian, and I got a tutor to teach me the language better.  So much for clarification.

Bishop Tomash Peta, of Kazakstan and I at the
2006 Asian Mission Congress in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Time went on, and my community's mission in Russia folded.  It seemed that I wouldn't ever go there, and foolishly I asked God again for clarification.  This time I was in Thailand at the 2006 Asian Mission Congress.  It was the 14th anniversary of my mother's consecration of me in Moscow.  I found myself in chapel with several Cardinals of the Church celebrating Mass.  After it was over and we had walked out the door there was a bishop from Russian speaking Kazakstan, who brought with him some Russian speaking missionaries.  He asked me if we could celebrate Mass in Russian!  It was the first time I had ever attended a Mass in Russian and he asked me to do the first reading.  Afterward he approached me and told me that, although I had never set foot on Russian soil, I did not have an accent when I spoke Russian, unlike many Polish, Italian, or American missionaries in his diocese.  I told him that Our Lady was calling me to go to Russia.  He gave me a big Russian bear hug and said, "The Mother of God loves you very much."  I walked out of the chapel and there was the largest billboard size picture I had ever seen of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to whom I was consecrated in Moscow 14 years previous.  I told them I would never doubt again.

Will I still go to serve in Russia?  I did get a chance to visit in 2009 but with no clear plan from my community to start a mission.  All I know is that I am called by Our Lady to Russia.  When and how this will happen is not really up to me.  Wherever I am called I will go.

Let My Flesh Be Ground Like Wheat for the Eucharist

Today we celebrate the memorial of St Ignatius of Antioch, bishop and martyr, the patron saint of my home parish in Annandale, Minnesota.  St Ignatius tells us:

I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the Bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire His blood, which is love incorruptible. (Letter to Romans 7:3) 

Listen to my homily for today:

If you have trouble listening click here.

In the Reading for Mass today, we learn that we must fight against greed with almsgiving, the greatest almsgiving is given to us in the Eucharist where Jesus offers us the sacrifice of his very Body and Blood.  May our receiving of the Holy Eucharist enable us to become generous in offering the Christian witness of charity.

Why Abortion is THE Issue of Our Day - Render Unto God what is God's and Bears His Image

In the Gospel for today, the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus teaches us about the two realms of faith and government as his disciples have dual citizenship both of this world and of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Listen to my homily for this Sunday:

If you have trouble listening click here.

A coin bears the head of the person in charge of the state on it and his name.  A human person has inscribed within the very image and name of the Creator, bearing a divine dignity and rights with which he is endowed.  To say then that faith can have no bearing on the state is a lie.  Anyone who doesn't allow their faith to bear influence on their own political views, the social and economic sphere, not only has dead faith, but actually the words of Jesus apply to him, "You hypocrite!"

THE issue in our time for faith and government is abortion.  The reason for this is because the fundamental right to life, and to treated as a human person from the moment of conception is being violated by governments.  For those who say that we cannot be stuck on one issue, I would simply point out that Hitler was an ingenius leader who did everything legal but had one little issue of exterminating a portion of the population.  Why get stuck on one little issue of genocide?

Like hitlerian germany and the environment of slavery, we are now in an environment where millions are deceived into thinking that a fertilized embryo ought not have acccorded full rights of a human person.  When then does their personhood begin?  The fertilized embryo is not that of a duck, nor is it simply a tissue, or a machine.  It is a person who is simply very small growing every day into a larger person.

In our time, the young, in particular, seem to not have the same fear or reverence for the lie that a child in the womb is not a person, and it is the young that are doing the most in the pro-life movement.  A 22 year old woman, Lila Rose, started uncovering the illegal and unethical activity of Planned Parenthood, the world's largest abortion provider, and now it is being defunded slowly of taxpayer's money.  A young 23 year old founded 40 days for life, the world's most successful pro-life campaign to stop abortion.

When we look back at hitlerian Germany or times where slavery was decriminalized, we ask those people living in the time, why didn't they see it?  Why couldn't they see the evil right in front of them?  Why didn't they do anything to stop it?  Will generations from now ask that about us with regard to abortion?  It isn't going to last forever.  Eventually the image and likeness of the human person will be restored.

The question Jesus asks you today is,

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Authentic and Catholic Faith of Pope St Calixtus I

"All you have to do is take Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior."  I heard this recently from a delivery man.  Really?  What about the part about acting on your faith to show that it is real?  In today's readings for Mass we hear about the faith of Abraham and the lack of the authentic faith of the Pharisees.  Together with the witness of Pope St Calixtus, whose memorial we celebrate today, our faith should be authentic and fully catholic.

Listen to my homily for today.

If you have trouble listening, click here.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."(Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 5).  For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. "The righteous shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17; Galatians 5:6) Living faith "works through charity."

So it is not enough to simply make an interior act of belief.  One must put it into practice by submitting one's inmost being to God, by offering one's life to him in obedience of his will, by graciously and trustingly accepting all the crosses that come to us through his kindness.

Contrary to the Pharisees, faith is not a matter of appearing to have it, but ultimately of sacrificing our whole being, our time and energy to the living and Eucharistic God who comes to us in humble circumstances and situations.

Pope St Calixtus fought the inauthentic faith of the modalists and adoptionists, which both deny the inner power of God, while proposing an exterior veneer.  Modalism is a heresy that says God is one in being but wears three different masks or modes.  Adoptionism is heresy that Jesus is not consubstantial with the Father, but just a man who has been divinized.  Many today follow this heresy saying that Jesus is just another profit and that therefore all religions are all the same.

Like Pope St Calixtus, we must fight these lies with gently and confidently proclaiming the one and true authentic Eucharistic Jesus who is God, to whom we offer our lives in worship.  We ought not fear those who may harm us for this proclamation, but rather fear God and worship him.

VIDEO: Prayer and Kindness Stops Abortion