Explanation of Passiontide, the 5th Week of Lent

There has been a shift in Lent in Week 5.  We veil the statues in purple and veil our senses in the purple of the Blood of the Lamb.  The mood intensifies, the Church settles in for the holiest week of the year.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass readings for the day

The Father Glories in the Suffering of His Servant

Then a voice came from heaven, 

"I have glorified it and will glorify it again."

James Jacques Tissot, the Voice from on High, 1896

Listen to my Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent (Passiontide):

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Readings for the 5th Sunday of Lent

Why?  Why Jesus, do you choose to leave heaven and unite yourself with those who suffer?  Why does love suffer?  Why is it that when we draw near to God he permits us to be purified by the Passion of His Son?

Jesus is the Divine Physician, but First Permit Him to Diagnose So You May Be Healed

"You're not listening to me.  I don't like your tone of voice.  How dare you speak to me that way.  We are going to the shop and your going to buy me this and you're going to do it now."

Sound like an adult speaking to a child?  No.  It was a little boy speaking to his mother.  It is what is called a satanic inversion.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the day

When a person tries to be God and tell God what to do, it is a wicked inversion of roles, where good is seen as evil and evil, good.  Yet the mystery of iniquity is at work in our hearts: rebelliousness, arrogance, resistance to grace, and so on.  Do not be afraid if you find this in your hearts, but turn and submit this sinfulness to the power of the Cross, where Jesus overcame our pride by his humiliation.  We need to drink of his humility every day to be washed free of our arrogant tendencies.

Lent is the time for repentance, the time when we are able to look at ourselves and have the courage to change.  It is the time not to distance ourselves from the idolatrous Israelites and prideful Pharisees but identify ourselves with them.  It is the time when we allow Jesus the divine Physician to begin to heal us by first giving us the diagnosis of our sins.

May the Immaculate and Penitent Hear to Mary pray for us and intercede for us sinners, that we may turn to God and find salvation and healing.

St Joseph: Patron, Protector, Defender, Provider - Man of God

The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid"

Listen to my homily for the Solemnity of St Joseph

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Readings for the day.

The glory and sublime vocation of St Joseph rest on the fact that he was the protector and guardian of the God-man and of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.  Such a person would need to be necessarily equipped with excellent graces, merits, and gifts to be the head of such an exalted family.

Yet we remember that this family had to live in poverty, exile, under worry of violence and death, and how docile St Joseph had to listening to the promptings of angels who spoke to him only in dreams.  We learn from him silence, contemplation, service and imitation of Jesus and Mary, and how to consistently humble ourselves before God and his holy plan.

St Teresa of Avila said that she had never been refused anything from his intercession on his feast day.  Let us therefore ask God through his intercession for protection, guidance, and defense of holy Mother the Church, and for every good intention in accordance with God's will.

Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote an excellent reflection on him called, Guardian of the Redeemer.

Awareness of God in Us Becomes Deadened by Sin but the Cross Not Only Restores but Creates this Life Anew

"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

Listen to my homily for today, Laetare Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent:

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Mass Readings for the Day


The first reading for today, taken from 2nd Chronicles, describes why the Israelites were exiled by God to Babylon, because by their sin they had exiled God from their moral conscience, "adding infidelity to infidelity."  They felt themselves estranged, alone, orphaned from their fatherland.  Even the great St Padre Pio prayed, "O Lord forgive me for may many infidelities."  How could a saint who was so close to God feel this way?  It is because saints are the ones who truly know they are sinners and are fully aware of Christ's salvation.  It is the one who has sin caked over his eyes that he thinks he does no wrong.  "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:10)  When God's light shines in us we see our sinfulness - dead, exiled, separated from God and very very alone.  Yet, according to the second reading taken from Ephesians

"Even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ -by grace you have been saved-, raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus"

And this is the ingenious thing about the Cross, that that which had formerly caused us separation with God, our sin, has now become through the pardon of Jesus Christ through his blood, the very thing which unties us closest to God.  This is what Jesus was referring to when he told Nicodemus 

"Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

When we gaze upon the Crucified we see two things.  First what our sin does: kills the presence of God in our moral conscience.  One mortal sin separates us eternally from God and for it we deserve and justly merit eternal punishment.  The effects of this in our souls is obvious: depression, sadness, fear, anxiety, even insomnia and psychological problems.  We see that our sin kills the life of God in us, i.e. sanctifying grace.  However, the second and more important thing we see is that by our sin God has revealed his great love, showing us that God is love and he loves us without condition or measure.  Undeserving of his love, this woos us, wins over our hearts, to discover the novelty of being loved by God without having deserving it so that we can boast only of our weakness and the wisdom of our loving God.

This is the experience every time we go to Jesus in the Sacrament of confession.  The Lord Jesus gave the power to forgive sin to his apostles in the upper room when he said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven" (John 20:23).  The psychological effects of receiving the actual pardon of God sacramentally are quite dramatic: emotional healing, peace, happiness, and freedom.

May Our Lady help us to experience the salvation of Christ in a powerful way this Lent.

Homily at the Wedding of Lee and Melissa Fletcher

Listen to my homily at their Wedding:

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Remember the Last Hour That You May Live This Hour Well

If we seek to recognize the hidden Resurrection, he who is the Bread of Life, we will seek the hidden Resurrection, the seed of eternal life, in every encounter with the Living Jesus Christ in the poor.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass Readings for the day

Jesus, Free us of Harsh Judgments that we May Not Be Judged Harshly

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Mass Readings for the day

There is one thing of which we may be most certain, that our judgment about other's value is often askew and inaccurate.  We do not know what another has been through, what upbringing or education they have had, what their interior experience is, what graces they have been given or have not been given.  We only know that our capacity to weigh them is woefully lacking.  Because we are most certain of our own incapacity to judge their subjective experience and how often we are erroneous about it, we can be certain that is wise to not trust our judgments, but instead to be generous in the way in which we might measure.  In fact it is best to not measure at all.  Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, "If we judge others we have no time to love them."

This does not mean that we render ourselves morally incapable of judging moral acts, because the law of God always measures these objective criteria perfectly, forming our way of assessing a situation.  It means that we refrain from assigning and thus condemning the interior culpability or fault that is due to others in that situation.  Love doesn't not blind us to sin, but reveals it and sharpens our vision, yet at the same time illicits our pity and compassion on those who have sinned.  In this way we relate to others as our heavenly Father does fulfilling Jesus' words, "Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate."

The Immaculate Heart of Mary is free of any trace of judgment.  If you find yourself imprisoned by a heart that tends towards judging others rashly and therefore imprisoning them.  She can help you grow in humble love and service to tend more to free others of accusations rather than making them, to excuse rather than accuse.

Christ's Light Appears Brighter in the Midst of our Temptations, Sufferings, and Loneliness

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Mass Readings for the 2nd Sunday of Lent.

The three children of Fatima, Portugal saw a vision:

"At the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: ‘Penance, Penance, Penance!'."

This was interpreted by the then Prefect of the Congregation of Doctrine of Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who said that Our Lady held up to the angel all of the penance of the faithful.  Lent is a season of penance and therefor a season of light, where we are illumined in the ways in which we are not pleasing to God and given the grace to change our lives.  It is a season of hope, where God affirms us in the capacity to cease doing evil and learn to do good.

This is the light of Jesus face in the Gospel, which shines forth even brighter when we see his light in our darkness.  The light of the baby at Christmas is that God is with us.  How much more resplendent is that light and the fact that God is with us when we are in the midst of temptation, suffering, isolation, abandonment, and fear!  Blessed Pope John Paul has said that the light of Mt Tabor is the same as the light at Mt Calvary as St Faustina, the Divine Mercy nun, has said that the light of Jesus in his resurrection and in his divine Mercy is the same light that issues forth from the face of Christ Crucified.

The light of God is that the Father has given his dearly beloved Son over to temptation for our sake, that we may not say that he does not know what it is like and what we are going through.  In fact, he took all our temptation upon himself and suffered it himself, conquering all our temptations personally in his own time in the desert.  Just like the first reading where Abraham suffered the test of God, God suffers our testing, trials, and questioning hearts, so that we may not doubt that he is with us in trial and pain.

The Eucharistic Lord illumines us brightly.  The Eucharistic Miracle of Santarem reveals this. A woman went to a witch in order to cast a spell on her unfaithful husband.  The witch told her that she needed a consecrated host.  The woman went to Church and stole a host at communion time.  It began to bleed so she locked it in a chest.  In the middle of the night, a light greater than the sun illumined the whole village, until the people asked where the light came from.  A priest took the host and placed it in Church, where it remains to this day.  The Eucharist contains our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, who is brighter than any light of the sun and when we receive him he consumes us in the rays of his love giving us the light and the love we need to change our sinful ways and begin to become pleasing to God.

This Lent, may the light of Christ bring us to a true communion of the Most Holy Trinity, who was manifest on Mt Tabor in the Father's voice to listen to the glorious Son, and the mysterious cloud of the Holy Spirit.  May the Immaculate Virgin Mary, whose love is like pure water in the midst of our aridity, refresh us and help us grow and change to become more like her glorious Son, Jesus Christ the Lord.

God Allows our Failings in Lesser Things to Humble Us, Laying the Necessary Groundwork for Growth in Charity

We are allowed to fall and fail in lesser things that the foundation of that which is greater may be laid, for the charity can grow only like a tree in greatness inasmuch as the depth of it being rooted in humility.  Do not be discouraged then if you find yourself failing in your Lenten obligations and promises.  Often times the Lord reveals in them our frailty and his unfailing faithfulness in always staying by our side.

Listen to my homily for today:

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Mass readings for the day

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Jesus' Meekness Conquers

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Mass Readings for the Day

Meekness is confidence in God's power and purpose in our lives, so that even amidst suffering and trial we hope that God's mighty goodness will be manifest.  This is what David exercised when he didn't retaliate against the man who cursed him in the Mount of Olives.  This is what Jesus did in the Mount of Olives later when faced with the huge mountain of our sins.  This is what anyone does who knows that it is the goodness of God that permits a present suffering that a greater good may come of it.  It is also what happens in the act of exorcism, which is primarily about confidence in the victory of Jesus Christ over the evil one.

We learn meekness from Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and from Our Lady.  May her prayers help us to be like our Eucharistic Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.

Jesus Teaches with Authority and Purifies Authority

Listen to my homily for today, the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time:

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Mass Readings for the Day

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."

The Unforgivable Sin Against the Holy Spirit - Impenitence

Every sin is forgivable except the sin of not wanting forgiveness.  A person may commit this actively or passively, either through presumption or despair, but either way, they limit the eternal and infinite mercy of God.

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Today's Mass Readings

Though God's mercy is infinite we pray frequently in the Our Father prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us," or in other words, inasmuch as I forgive others do I permit your infinite mercy to forgive me.  This can be very terrifying.  Nobody likes to think about "eternal sins" or "unforgivable sings," and frequently people say certain sins are unforgivable when clearly by the Lord's standards they certainly are completely forgivable.  According to him, the only unforgivable sin is that you don't want to be forgiven.  Blessed Pope John Paul II clarified this in his Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem when he quotes St Thomas Aquinas:

"unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of sin takes place."

This means that by its very nature it excludes the possibility for forgiveness.  Commenting on Aquinas the Holy Father says:

According to such an exegesis, "blasphemy" does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross. If man rejects the "convincing concerning sin" which comes from the Holy Spirit and which has the power to save, he also rejects the "coming" of the Counselor-that "coming" which was accomplished in the Paschal Mystery, in union with the redemptive power of Christ's Blood: the Blood which "purifies the conscience from dead works." 

We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in "dead works," in sin. And the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept this forgiveness, of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this "non-forgiveness" is linked, as to its cause, to "non-repentance," in other words to the radical refusal to be converted.

Or put plainly - nobody can be forgiven who does not want to be.

Mercy for us consists in God granting us the grace to desire final penitence for our sins. In the patrimony of Catholic prayers and devotions there are a few means we can acquire such mercy:

1. Praying frequently the Holy Rosary and the Hail Mary "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death."  Our Lady made 15 promises to those who pray devoutly the Holy Rosary as entrusted to Blessed Alan de la Roche, "Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church." 

2. First Friday devotion, by which Jesus makes the promise as entrusted to St Margaret Mary Alaquoque: The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under My displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments.  This is very powerful.  Last Thursday I anointed and gave the apostolic pardon to a woman who attended daily Mass and had made the 9 First Fridays.  She died minutes later. 

3.  Divine Mercy Chaplet, especially crucial for the dying: "Write that when they say this chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the merciful Savior"
(Diary, 1541)."At the hour of their death, I defend every soul that will say this chaplet as I do My own glory (...). When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God's anger is placated and his unfathomable mercy envelops the soul" (Diary, 811)."