Paying the Taxes of this World that we Might Belong to the Kingdom of our Father

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Mass Readings for the day

What a novel question Jesus asks Peter about taxes.  He asks it in such a way that we reply that we do not belong to this world.  We belong to the Kingdom of our Father.  It is to him that every human heart aches to belong.  We try to feel that we belong to God but because part of us still may belong to this world, which is still under the power of sin, we feel taxed and tried.  We suffer that we belong totally and radically to God.

Jesus payed the ultimate tax of his sufferings and death to not only pay for us but show us how to pay our dues.  We all must suffer to enter the kingdom of God.  We must be taxed so that those parts of us that don't yet belong to God may be subjected to the power of Christ.

The Most Holy Eucharist is the place where we join our payment, our sufferings to the sufferings of Christ.  From this perspective, it is interesting that a host looks like a coin of payment.  When the faithful participate devoutly in offering the sacrifice of the Mass, they offer to the Father the greatest possible treasure as payment for their own redemption, Jesus' own taxation for our sins.

Our Lady helps us in the awkward process of surrendering our hearts fully to God.  She was taxed with Jesus under the heavy weight of his sufferings.  She knows what we suffer and can help us offer it well in union with the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Having an Elijah Moment? Turn to the Eucharistic Lord for Strength

Listen to my homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

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Mass readings for the day.

Elijah suffered terrible weariness through the prophetic vocation God gave him.  God strengthened him to do what he asked him.  God will strengthen weary hearts with the Bread of the strong, the Most Holy Eucharist, who is Jesus Christ himself, King of prophets and rest for the weary.  Those who draw near to the Savior who waits for us in holy communion will experience his fortification, strength, mercy, grace, and friendship.

St Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, Patroness of Europe, Shows in her own Person all the Blessings for the Continent's New Evangelization

Listen to my homily for today, the Feast of St Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, or Edith Stein, the Patroness of Europe:



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Mass Readings for the day

Prayer:

"O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace." 

"When night comes, and retrospect shows that everything was patchwork and much that one had planned left undone, when so many things rouse shame and regret, then take all as is, lay it in God's hands, and offer it up to Him. In this way we will be able to rest in Him, actually to rest and to begin the new day like a new life."

Love is a Gift and Responsibility: Wedding Homily for Paul and Daniela

Listen to my homily for Paul and Daniela:

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Marital spirituality is both encountering Christ in your spouse and seeking to answer his call to holiness in their needs.

Marriage requires us to defend the one-man, one-woman covenanted union.

May Our Lady obtain for married couples the courage and love to live their vows and us the courage to defend them.

The Light of Tabor and Calvary Prepare us for the LIght of Glory

Listen to my homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord:

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Mass Readings for the Day

As St Thomas Aquinas says,

Therefore it was fitting that He should show His disciples the glory of His clarity (which is to be transfigured), to which He will configure those who are His; according to Philippians 3:21: "(Who) will reform the body of our lowness configured [Douay: 'made like'] to the body of His glory." Hence Bede says on Mark 8:39: "By His loving foresight He allowed them to taste for a short time the contemplation of eternal joy, so that they might bear persecution bravely." (Summa Theologiae III.Q45.A1)

Mount Tabor helps us to endure Mount Calvary, yet the glory of Tabor is a foretaste of the lumen gloriae, the light of glory that we will have in heaven.

The world today needs witnesses who know where they are going i.e. heaven.  The best way to know this preeminently is to go to the mystical calvary, which is also the mystical tabor, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, to receive Jesus with frequency and intensity.

The Mother of God knows Tabor and Calvary well.  She was perhaps the only one aware of the first time God the Father permitted the beatific vision to overflow from Christ's divinity from his body, at his birth.  She was at Calvary.  She can help us to be transfigured witnesses of the Lamb of God and bring his light to this dark world.  May her prayers help us to do this well.

The Eucharist is the Sacred Manna - What is it - for you?

Listen to my homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

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Like the Israelites in the desert, the angels beholding the Eucharist ask, "What is it?" or in Hebrew, Manna?  There are many who may know the truth of our faith of the Most Holy Eucharist, who have been catechized and know that the Eucharist is:

-The true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. 

-No longer bread and wine but the very substance of the bread and wine have been changed by which we call this change most appropriately transubstantiation. 

-Every crumb of the host or drop in the chalice contains the whole Christ, that is, his entire Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, all his graces, merits, blessings, and life.

-The host and chalice have been changed completely and this change is permanent and therefore the sacred species that is left over must, in the case of the chalice, be consumed, or, in the case of the hosts, be kept in a worthy tabernacle in a prominent place for veneration by the faithful and for the needs of the sick and dying. 

-Because the Eucharist contains the very divinity of the God man it can and ought to be rightly adored and worshiped by the faithful as our living God made present on our altars. 

-A person must have the proper dispositions to receive the true Body and Blood of the Savior and therefore besides having a lively faith, authentic humility, and approach the mystery with a spirit of prayer, must not be in conscious mortal sin, for as the apostle says, "For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself." 1 Corinthians 11:29

 However, it is one thing to know the truths of our faith, and another to live them.  This is the real challenge.  Living our faith well comes especially in the hour of suffering.  It is here when we truly experience a transformation of our minds and hearts that the second reading for today spoke about.  Here we decide not only what the Eucharist is, but what it is personally.  We decide to truly worship God in spirit and truth, to offer in union with the Eucharistic Mystery, the very mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ in our own crosses and pains.  For it is here we are permitted deeper to enter into the life of Christ that is truly present in the host and chalice.

May Our Lady, Mother of the Eucharist, the most zealous defender of the Eucharistic Mystery, obtain for us a deep and true conversion of heart that our faith may be real and that we may appropriate our sufferings to Christ's and that we may offer them in union with his, for the glory of his Name.

Beauty Ever Ancient Ever New: Holiness for the Third Christian Millennium

Today we celebrate the memorial of St Benedict, Abbot. 

Mass Readings for the Day

Listen to my homily for today:

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Bands of roving hoards swept across the lands as St Benedict saw the great city of Rome crumble before his eyes.  Knowing that there was a need for a new way of life in keeping with the holy Gospel, he retreated to a cave in the hills in Subiaco.  Here God gave him the gift of the Ora et Labor, the prayer and work, of Christ.  Monastic life based on St Benedict's rule of life swept across Europe and there grew up a new civilization.

After the first Christian millennium the Church was choked by riches, God sent Francis to teach us the gift of Christ's simplicity and poverty.  Everything in the Church became franciscan.  The cistercians came to renew monastic life again, this time with an emphasis on community living.  In 100 years there were 1100 new monasteries with 10,000 monks living this new way of life.

It could be said that holiness in the first Christian millennium could be typified by the words, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind" (Luke 10:27).  The holiness of the second Christian millennium, with all its charitable works of hospitals, schools, orphanages, hospices, universities, could be described by the words, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Again Luke 10:27).  But the third Christian millennium how will it be described?  Blessed Pope John Paul in his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte at the close of the Jubilee celebration said we need the holiness, or "Spirituality of Communion."  This could be described by the words, "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34).

We need a new kind of way of living the Gospel for our age.  This is a holiness of relationships.  Pope Benedict recently said that the Second Vatican Council could be reduced to one word: Communio.  This kind of holiness is desperately needed to heal the very deep and great wounds in broken relationships of our day.

May the Holy Mother of God, Mary, Queen of Saints, pray for us to obtain in our age many holy men and women who can preach the Gospel of Communion in the way that they love one another.

Priesthood Helps the People of God Worship in Spirit and Truth

Mass Readings for the Day
Listen to my homily for today:

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St John Vianney said, "The Priesthood is the Love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus"


The priesthood helps the People of God be healed of idolatry we read about in the first reading.  It helps them become pleasing to the heart of our Eternal Father.  It is a gift of Jesus to lead them to "worship in spirit and truth."


Where do we get holy priests?  We ask.  "Ask and you shall receive."


The year that there was over 20 Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration chapels in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis dedicated to praying for vocations was the same year the seminaries filled up.


Let us ask the Lord for more laborers for the harvest.  Please pray with me now:


VOCATION PRAYER

Leader:  O God, we earnestly ask You to bless this archdiocese with many priests, Brothers, and Sisters who will love You with their whole strength and

gladly spend their entire lives  to serve your Church and  to make

You known and loved.

All:  Bless our families, bless our children. Choose from our homes those needed for your work.

Leader: Mary, Queen of the Clergy,

All: Pray for us, pray for our priests, Religious, and deacons. Obtain for us many more.  

~  Most Rev Harry J Flynn

Mary our Refuge in Whose Heart we find Jesus our God

Today's Mass Readings

Every Saturday in the Church's year belongs to Our Lady.  The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from Vatican II states:

103. In celebrating this annual cycle of Christ's mysteries, holy Church honors with especial love the Blessed Mary, Mother of God, who is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of her Son. In her the Church holds up and admires the most excellent fruit of the redemption, and joyfully contemplates, as in a faultless image, that which she herself desires and hopes wholly to be.

Listen to my homily for today:

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If Jesus lived with Mary, suffered, rejoiced, hoped, died, and rose with Mary, so we ought to feel that it is right and fitting for us to do so, for he gave her to the faithful to be a sure refuge and hope for divine blessings.  When he lived with her for 30 years, he invested in her as God all blessings, graces, merits, and fruits of redemption, so that we would find her Immaculate Heart to nourish, protect, guide, and nurture us.

There are different things Our Lady teaches us: unwavering faith, undying hope, fervent charity, virginal purity, childlike trust, and most especially the gift of humility.  Just as the Gospel for today speaks of accepting all things as a gift, i.e. placing new wine in new wineskins and not forcing new experiences to be placed in old expectations, humility allows us to bring forth the maximum glory of God in each new gift, new person, new day of our lives.

There is a Hunger for the Word of God: God's Hunger for Us

“Behold the Heart that so loved mankind and that has spared nothing in order to save them and show them my love,” Jesus told Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque as He physically showed her His Heart in 1675.






Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the Day.

We acknowledge that there is a universal hunger for God, as it says in the first reading for today, "there is a hunger for the Word of God," however, do we recognize that God insatiably hungers for man, seeks him out, desires his company, wants to dwell with him?

This is the Good news we read in the Gospel for today, the calling of St Matthew. God seeks man out, calls him, desires his intimate friendship, even though he may think of himself as a sinner, as someone unworthy of divine goodness. This is the novelty of the Love of God, that we may experience newly every time we receive him in holy communion.

The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus is consumed with fire for love of us. St Maria Goretti was consumed with this fire of love, and the courage of this love helped her to accept the crown of martyrdom, even though she was very young and her perpetrator was very cruel.

May Our Lady, Queen of martyrs help us to be set afire with God's love that we may have the courage and wisdom to witness this love to our generation

We Must Be Witnesses to the Sacrament of Reconciliation by Freeing Ourselves from Sin

"Courage, child, your sins are forgiven."

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the Day

"Only God can forgive sins," said the scribes.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms this, yet continues to explain that Jesus has entrusted this sacred power to his priests:

1441 Only God forgives sins. Since he is the Son of God, Jesus says of himself, "The Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" and exercises this divine power: "Your sins are forgiven." Further, by virtue of his divine authority he gives this power to men to exercise in his name.

Why do not more people avail themselves of the forgiveness that God himself gives in this sacrament of healing, reconciliation, and peace?  They have no one to show them.  We must be witnesses of the Mercy of God by bearing forth that royal seal of freedom from sin.  If we are very serious of being free of sin we will, as St Teresa of Avila says, "have a hatred of our venial faults," and confess our sins weekly.  Though scripture says, "the just fall seven times" a day (Proverbs 24:16), it is possible to be a witness to Jesus' mercy by falling onto Christ sacramentally.

May Our Lady help us to be witnesses of this great sacrament.

4th of July Homily- More Minnesotans Have Died from our Freedom Gone Awry than those who Died Defending Freedom in War

This homily was given at St Timothy's Catholic Church in Maple Lake, Minnesota at Holy Mass on the 4th of July , 2012, when Americans celebrate Independence Day.

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On the 4th of July Americans celebrate the gift of freedom which we believe is a gift from God, a gift which many Americans have died to protect.  Many countries around the world like to speak of rights and freedoms, but perhaps only in the USA is it truly, in actual fact, a land of opportunity.  I have lived all over the world and the more I travel the more I realize the Untied States of America must be a gift from God where anyone can come and seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a singularly unique way.  Freedom cannot but be a gift by which we are endowed by our Creator.

We therefore owe the Lord Jesus Christ our gratitude, who died on the cross that we might be set free from sin.  The most holy Eucharist is not only a sacrifice of expiation but one of gratitude, and how appropriate we should thank God for our country through the sacred liturgy.

We should be grateful to all our troops who have served and some have even given the very high cost of their lives, dying to protect our freedom.  Minnesota and Maple Lake itself has an excellent legacy of   veterans in wars.  

The First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first in the nation to answer President Abraham Lincoln's call for troops in 1861, and they courageously served with great distinction. The 262 men of the First Minnesota played a heroic but tragic role at the Battle of Gettysburg. 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment

Over 2500 Minnesotans died answering President Lincoln's call to end slavery.  Slavery was the key issue of the day.  Looking back, perhaps those who lived at the time might not have understood that it was worth fighting and dying to end such an evil.  Slavery might have appeared to them to be "just another political issue" but we can say for sure that it was THE issue, aside from which a person could not be said to be fighting for freedom unless he was working to end this abomination.

Here are a total number of Minnesotans who died in wars:

Total Number of Minnesotans Killed in Combat
Iraq*	86
Afghanistan	37
Gulf War (Kuwait)*	3
Vietnam	1,077
Korea	753
World War II	3,335
World War I*	2,200
Civil War*	2,504
Total Killed in All Wars	9,995
By Abortion in 2011 alone	11,071

*For these wars I couldn’t find a number only for Minnesotans, but I had to average out the number of states in the conflict with the total losses of those who died in combat.

As we can see from these numbers, more Minnesotans have died in the year of 2011 in the sanctuary of their mother's womb's than the total number of Minnesotans who have been killed in combat, and as we have not mentioned the number of those wounded in wars, the number that abortion wounds is also much greater, for a mother, a father, and those who have been deprived of a loved one.

How can we possibly say that we honor the memory of those who have died to protect our freedoms if we do not mention those who have died because of our "freedom" gone awry?  Do we believe as the Declaration of Independence says, which was published 236 years ago today,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

LIFE!  What has happened to the right to Life?  Let us not say that we celebrate freedom if we do not hold the self-evident truth, that all men are created equal, when unborn persons in this country are, like the slaves in civil war era, not considered yet to be citizens and therefore considered not worthy of all the rights and protections which we hold so dear, most especially the unalienable right to life which is endowed by our Creator!

No woman ought to be free to kill her baby and wound herself so deeply by abortion.  No woman - even in cases of rape, cases which many pro-aborts would claim is an exception.  Most of these people have never talked to rape victims and do not know them, what is on their heart and what they suffer.  After working in women's shelters on different continents, I know from experience what happens when a woman adds to the trauma of rape the horror of taking her own child's life.  One Minnesotan woman said that the child she aborted is the first thing she thinks of when she wakes up and the last thing that she thinks of when she sleeps, and that she has long since forgotten being raped because the psychological and emotional wounds from abortion are by far much deeper.  Another Minnesotan woman told me that giving birth to the child that was conceived by rape was for her the most beautiful experience of her life.  She even said she wanted to name the child "Sky" because she felt she could almost see the sky open up when she was being born!  She was so happy to give this child life and then gave the child up for adoption to a couple who couldn't conceive on their own.

If we are truly to celebrate this day we must celebrate authentic freedom, freedom that Jesus Christ gave us on the Cross by freeing us from sin.  Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want, for this is license that leads to licentiousness, permissiveness, and all sorts of evils. Freedom is the ability to choose the good so that you are free to love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself.  We must recognize, like those in the era when slavery was still decriminalized, that THE issue of our day, the political and moral issue that must hold pride of place is the end to Abortion and the to its decriminalization in legislation.  Killing in the name of Freedom is the deepest wound on our capacity to be truly free.  We must recognize our responsibility to let freedom ring in our legislatures and courts by enacting laws that will not attack but defend our capacity to do good.

Allow me to close with the momentous words of a great American, Martin Luther King, Jr.

"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, [let us add here born and unborn] will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Homily for the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle

God Enters into a Dialogue of Salvation with us That we May do the Same with Others

This talk, the second of three, was given on the very top of a tower located on the grounds of the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Krakow, Poland, as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area. 

The Lay Vocation: Sanctifying the Temporal Order to on Earth as it is in Heaven

This talk, the first of three, was given on the grounds of a palace in Jelena Gora, Poland, as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area. 

St John the Baptist is a Witness of Life and of Marriage

This homily was given at the shrine of the Infant of Prague, in the Czech Republic as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area.

Be Confident of God's Providence

This homily was given on the Mountainside near Jelena Gora, Poland, on June 23rd, 2012, as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area.

Be a Sign of God's Design

This homily was given at the shrine of Our Lady of Czestahowa in Poland on June 22nd, 2012 as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area.  The readings are from the Votive Mass of Our Lady of Czestahowa and speak about Our Lady as a sign of God's power and providential plan.

Be Witnesses of Pure Love

This homily was recorded near Jelena Gora, Poland, on June 21st, 2012, as part of a 40 Days for Life Retreat for young adults from the London area.  It is on the feast of St Aloysius Gonzaga, who witnessed both the purity and holiness of God.

Homily at St Anselm's Secondary School in Canterbury

Listen to my homily at St Anselm's on June 12th, 2012 for the feast of Corpus Christi:

Readings for the day

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This is my Body. This is my Blood. Homily for Corpus Christi.

Forgive me for my long absence from publishing on this blog.  My computer was in repair.  Here is the homily I gave on Corpus Christi.

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Here are the readings for the Mass of Corpus Christi.

Feast of the Visitation: God Visits His People

Happy Feast of the Visitation!  Today we celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ, God made man, not only descended into the womb of the Virgin Mary, but also through her, visited St John the Baptist in the womb of his mother, St Elizabeth.  How great should our reverence for persons in the womb.  How great should our attentiveness to Jesus who visits us in the difficult disguise of our sufferings and sorrows.  How do we train ourselves to the hour of his visitations?  In the Holy Eucharist we know that he comes to us in great mercy and in disguise that we may adjust our eyes to see him at all other hours of the day.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the day

Pentecost - Happy Birthday Holy Mother Church

Pentecost is the Birthday of Holy Mother the Church.  Jesus had given the Church a bodily form but it had not yet been animated with power from on high.  Pentecost is when the Body of Christ was given a soul.  He is the Soul of our soul, the evangelizer, animator, creator, life-giving lover of our inmost being.

Listen to my homily for Pentecost:

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Mass Readings for the day.

Who is the Holy Spirit?

Who is the Holy Spirit?  The men of Corinth had "never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."  This is like many today, living a life as if there is no God who can help us live holy lives.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass readings for the day

St Joseph Helps us to Sanctify Work and Be Sanctified by Work

Listen to my homily for the memorial of St Joseph the Workman:

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From Blessed Pope John Paul II's Encyclical On Human Work, Laborem Exercens

THROUGH WORK man must earn his daily bread1 and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself2, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth3. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.