If we go back to the book of Genesis we see that the history of salvation began with a breakdown of trust.  That is in a nutshell what original sin was.  The devil tempted Adam and Eve by making them suspicious of God.  He undermined their trust in God by saying: “Did God really tell you that you could not eat the fruit of these trees?  You will not really die if you eat it...”  When they stopped trusting in God, their relationship with God was shattered.  The human race was cut off from its source of happiness.  From that moment on, we needed a Savior.  We needed someone who could reestablish communion between the human race and God.  That was Jesus’ mission and why He came in the first place.  Christ’s cross has rebuilt that shattered trust.  Christ’s cross is a bridge of trust that makes it possible for us to return to communion with God, the source of our happiness.  On the cross, Christ is trusting His Father for us, in our place.  He is reversing Adam’s lack of trust.  That’s what the mystery of the cross is all about.   In the cross we see the perfect love of God.  Along the way of the cross we see people who look into the eyes of Jesus, from Saint Simon of Cyrene to Saint Veronica to Saint Longinus who all left changed by looking at the gaze of Jesus.  When one encounters Jesus its impossible to leave neutral and we leave either changed or not changed.  So when we look at Jesus, especially in light of the events of Good Friday how could we ever leave not changed.  Have a good Good Friday everyone!

When It Comes To Jesus There Is No Such Thing As Neutral

This is the first talk of the retreat with Msgr. Stuart Swetland at St. Mary's parish in Pontiac, Illinois that was recorded on Sunday February 23, 2014...the topic of this conference was "Faith"  In this dynamic and exciting conference, Msgr. explains what is faith, how we are called to live it out by God in the bible, and understanding the different elements needed to live out a dynamic and exciting faith.  This talk is absolutely phenomenal and worth your time!  Enjoy everyone!    

Msgr.  Swetland Retreat Talk #1

There is a quite a bit happening in today's celebration of the feast of the Transfiguration...Takes place 2 weeks before Jesus’ Passion...Only Peter, James, and John get to witness the Transfiguration event...Peter because he was the first pope, John to whom Jesus would entrust the Blessed Mother to, and James who would become the first apostle to be martyred for the faith in Spain a short time after Jesus’ ascension into heaven...Think about the fact that Jesus was seen talking to Moses and Elijah...who represented the law and the prophets...The three apostles present were shown what Jesus looks like in heaven and its so big and bright that they are blinded and cannot see or even look at it...The location of this event is Mount Tabor...Mount Tabor is just above the valley of Miggedo (the place where the book of Revelation says the final battle will take place before the end of the world happens)...Then there is the fact that as they are coming down from the mountain before they catch up with the rest of the group, that Jesus tells them not to tell anyone what they saw or heard until after the resurrection of the dead takes places.
      So as we can see quite a bit is happening here today.  However, despite all that is going on with the Transfiguration today there is still one more amazing fact to ponder, when God the Father Himself opened up the heavens and spoke out loud for everyone to hear.  This is super rare in the bible and when something like this happens it is very deliberate and meant to get our attention and not forget it.  He said, “This is my beloved son with whom I am pleased, listen to Him.”  Interesting choice of words if you ask me, God the Father could of said anything He wanted to and all He did was give testimony to who Jesus was and told the apostles to listen to Him.  This little part of the Gospel though got me thinking this week about the art of listening, why it is important to listen, to ask ourselves how do we listen, and to ask ourselves are we good listeners or this something we need to improve upon.  And so in the rest of the homily I expand on how we can better listen to God and trust that God is always listening to us.  Happy feast of the Transfiguration everyone!

The Art of Listening to God

This is the audio recording of the 1st night of our parish mission with Catholic speaker, Hector Molina.  Hector in this talk focused on finding hope in this time of anxiety and fear in our world, how the season of Advent is meant to inspire us to fall deeper in love with God and to trust Him, and how Advent is mean to serve as a wake up call to sleeping humanity that salvation is at hand and that God is truly with us.  Thank you Hector for a wonderful first evening meditation and reflection on Advent.

Hector Molina Mission Talk: 1st Night

Last night was our final night with Hector Molina and his advent Mission talks at Our Lady of Guadalupe.  In this talk Hector gives practical tips and advice on how to answer the call to holiness and how to become a saint with the help of God's grace.  He shares many biblical insights in this talk, along with the wisdom of the saints on how to become holy.  Thank you once again Hector for your wisdom and inspiration.

Hector Molina Mission Talk: 3rd Night

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Family, a feast celebrated within the Christmas octave, which reminds us that our family is meant to be a bedrock of love and the foundation of life in the world.  We count should be able to count on family and our family members should know that they can count on us.  That bedrock also reminds us that we can always count on the love of God as well as we part of His family.  In today’s First Reading, Sirach reminds us that we should not take our family for granted.  A family is a gift, and our family is our family no matter what they do or do not do on our behalf.  We feel that all too well when we don’t respond to the love shown by our family, or lose a member of our family unexpectedly.  We count on our family, and that reliance reflects the reliance we should have on God. When we cannot count on our family, it is hard for us to count on anything else, even God.
	We all know of truly tragic and heart-breaking family situations – divorce, children lost to drugs or other addictions, squabbles over inheritances, misunderstandings, even betrayals – but even in those situations we do not lose sight of the ideal Sirach describes: a father and mother set in honor and authority over their children, children revering and praying for their parents, obeying them and caring for them when they grow old, and the blessings God showers on children who do so.  This model of mutual respect, help, and reliance is meant to be reflected in our society as well, so when it is not lived in the family, it’s no surprise that society suffers as a result.  Our family is more than what they do or don’t do for us, and more than what they mean or do not mean to us: they are our family.  God’s given them to us, and us to them.  Our families is where we build a foundation for life and the stronger the family units are in the world the stronger the foundation on which society is built on overall.    And so in the rest of the homily I explain the importance of forgiveness in the family life and of each member playing a vital role in each family.  Happy solemnity of the Holy Family everyone!

Set A Good Example: Become A Holy Family

This is the full audio of the homily I gave this Sunday at Mass for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time...

     As we begin back into ordinary time, it means we are starting to think about the everyday life and mission of Jesus.  As we look at this first set of readings in ordinary time, they teach us that Jesus not only calls us to help Him in His mission of evangelization, but also appeals to something greater within us.  In today’s First Reading for example, Samuel, with Eli’s help, gradually realizes that the Lord is calling him to be His prophet.  Samuel’s mother was so grateful for having him after entreating the Lord to bless her with a child that she entrusts him to the Lord in the Temple.  Samuel is precious in the Lord’s eyes too, and the Lord starts calling Him, but Samuel is too young and inexperienced to understand what is going on.  He turns to the priest Eli and, at first, Eli does not understand what is going on either and they are both confused together. 
	We can imagine him groggily sending Samuel away the first time, then perplexed when the boy returns a second time.  His advice to Samuel on the second occasion is good advice for any situation: listen to the Lord and tell Him his (or her) servant is listening.  Today’s first reading concludes by saying no word of Samuel’s was “without effect” for the rest of his life.  That was because Samuel became the Lord’s prophet and a significant one who be closed associated with King David and his rule over Israel.  Samuel would be the prophet to anoint David as king and be his close confidant and advisor throughout his rule of Israel, Samuel faithfully answered the higher calling God gave him in this life. 
	Saint Paul in today’s Second Reading reminds us that, in Christ, we are already part of something greater, and what we do or don’t do influences more than just ourselves whether we realize it or not.  Through Baptism we are joined with Christ and our fellow believers in a communion of life and love.  Our sins not only have repercussions on ourselves, but on everyone with whom we are in communion.  They not only hurt Jesus, but they hurt the entire body of Christ.  If the sins are mortal sins, they enough they can even break that communion.  However, on the flip side, the good we do not only helps Our Lord, but others as well.  We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, so what we do is for the good or ill of the entire body.  We are also temples of the Holy Spirit.  We bear something precious in us that must be cherished and nurtured.  That is why while we are in our bodies, we have been given a higher calling to not commit immoral deeds and actions.  Will you answer that calling and put an end to all immorality in your life?  That is Saint Paul’s challenge to us today.  Happy 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time everyone!

It's Your Turn To Become A Saint

This is the audio recording of the homily I gave at Mass for the 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time.
       My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I would like to begin today with a very powerful and honest quote from a movie called, The Usual Suspects.  The quote goes like this, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he does not exist.”  Let me say it again because it so true, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he does not exist.”  We live in a world today, where more and more people seem to believe that hell does not exist or at least they have convinced themselves they cannot possibly end up going there when they die even if it does exist.  And as result of that sort of faulty mind set, far too many people do not believe that the devil does exist or if he exists, he exists only as a figment of your imagination.  Make no mistake about my friends, hell does exist and yes there are souls who have gone there and will be there for all of eternity; and yes the devil does exist.  The devil is already in hell and will do everything in his power to take as many people down with him there for all eternity.  If this talk of devil seems like hogwash to you, just look at today’s readings and see just how real is.
	Already in the first chapter of Saint Mark’s Gospel today, we are witnessing a dramatic encounter between Christ and the devil.  The devil makes his appearance through one of his slaves, a demon who has taken possession of a child of God.  When Jesus, the Savior of sinners and conqueror of evil, approaches this possessed man, the demon cries out in panic and desperation.  Jesus silences the demonic and frees the possessed man.  The devil is not a fashionable topic for those of us who live in the post-modern world.  Yet, there is no denying it, the story of Christ’s life and ministry simply cannot be told without referring to the devil.  The Apostle John, in his First Letter (4:8), actually sums up Jesus’ mission with the following words: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”  The Gospel writers carefully distinguish between cases of mere physical sickness and cases of a demonic character; both of which Jesus cures.  Jesus frequently refers to the devil in His parables and other teachings, and the devil himself tempts Jesus in the desert and returns again later to engineer Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.  This Gospel theme teaches us an undeniable, if uncomfortable lesson: yes the devil is real, and yes he is interested in sabotaging the work of grace in our hearts.

There's A Battle For Your Soul Going On

This is the audio recording of my homily from the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time...
      Today’s readings remind us that if the Gospel is really good news to us, we should share it.  Yet why are we afraid to share the good news with others.  Evangelization is one of the greatest callings that we have as followers of Christ, to give witness to our faith and to try to draw others closer to Jesus by our witness and testimony.  You never know who might need to hear what God is inspiring you to say or could be touched by your witness, possibly even to the point of conversion.  Just look at today’s First Reading, Job is in desperate need of some good news after being so afflicted.  He has just lost all of his property, family, and health.  Life has become pure drudgery for him with the rest or reward that should follow still far from sight.  How many of us mid-week have a similar attitude?  It seems the next break; the next paycheck is too long in coming in the face of the daily grind.  We have to admit that when that lunch break or paycheck comes it doesn’t satisfy us for very long, and we go right back to the drudgery.
	In what feels like a hopeless life, there’s little to no good news to share.  Yet even Job in his desperation knows his Redeemer lives.  Life is not entirely hopeless for Job and he knows that his Redeemer is with him and will never abandon him.  Job knows now that he has to walk by faith and not by sight and that is how he is to evangelize.  In today’s Second Reading, Saint Paul reminds us that the Gospel is good news that is meant to be shared as well.  Spreading the good news for Saint Paul is not just something he wants to do, but something he felt obliged to do.  There’s no catch.  He’s not trying to sell anything.  He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the Gospel is received as good news.  Saint Paul’s example teaches us that as Jesus came to bring people hope through the salvation He offers us, so too are we to be witnesses of hope to the world today through what we say and do.  And so in the words of Bonnie Raitt, "Let's Give Them Something to Talk About..."  Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Amen Alleluia!!!

Let's Give Them Something To Talk About

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for the 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time...
     I think it’s safe to say, that in today’s world, we can all use help with our prayer life, and the leper in today’s Gospel passage gives it to us.  He severs as a teacher to all of us and reminds us of two key elements in a healthy life of prayer: confidence and humility.  The first thing to note is that this leper has no doubt that Christ can cure him.  He says to the Lord, “If you wish, you can make me clean.”  It’s hard for us to have so much confidence.  After all our secular culture is constantly dismissing God.  This tends to make us think that we can solve all our problems ourselves, through science, technology, or hard work.  But if we think like  that, then we do not really have faith in God; if God is irrelevant, He’s not much of a God, after all.  But the leper did not live in a secular culture; he lived in a religious culture, one that recognized the reality of sin and evil, and the need of God’s grace to overcome them.  And so he came out of his isolated and self-destructive bubble of self-sufficiency and exercised his faith.
	The second thing to note is that the leper also recognizes that he has no right to demand a cure from Jesus, just like we do not have the right to demand anything from God either.  The leper does not act like a spoiled child and say, “Cure me, you owe it to me since I believe in you, cure me now.”  Instead he says, “If you wish...”  It’s as if he were saying, “You know what’s best; if curing me will give you glory, please do so, but if not, I will still believe and trust in you.”  Only the humble heart can tap into the stream of mercy that flows from Christ’s Sacred Heart, mercy which not only cured the leprosy, but touched the leper, something no one else had done since the disease began.  The moral of story is simply, if our prayer weaves together confidence and humility, God will be able to do wonders in us as well as He did for the leper.

Two Basic Tips That Vastly Can Improve Our Prayer

This is a link to the audio recording of my Ash Wednesday Homily for 2024...
      As I began to pray about what to preach about this year for Ash Wednesday the Lord brought to my attention Luke 13:22-30 to pray about and reflect on for Ash Wednesday.  If you do not remember it is the passage where Jesus is asked if many will be saved...Jesus never directly answers the question, but says instead to try and enter through the narrow gate.  The path to hell is wide and there are many ways to get there, but the path to heaven is narrow, difficult, and only way through the narrow gate.  Lent is our yearly reminder to strive to enter through the narrow gate into heaven.  Jesus says many will try, but few will find it and do it.  Repentance, conversion of heart, humility, is how we get through the narrow gate and Lent is our yearly reminder to strive to enter through the narrow gate, that now is the time to change and convert, and with the help of God's grace we can get there.  Don't forget to go to confession also as that is a huge help in entering through the narrow gate.  Have a blessed and holy Lent everyone!

Lent: Our Annual Reminder To Strive To Enter Through The Narrow Gate

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent...
      I don’t know about all of you, but I love this time of year growing up as a die hard sports fan because it’s time for the NCAA Basketball Tournament begin!  It’s March Madness and what’s not to love.  As over the next four weeks a national champion will be crowned and all sorts of upsets will take place.  As March Madness begins, I read an interview a few years ago that stuck with me and I want to share part of that interview with you today. That particular interview was done with legendary college basketball coach, Speedy Morris.  Morris coached for nearly 40 years at the college level and is well respected within the college ranks.  During the interview Morris shared an interesting story that caught my attention and I want to share it with all of you today.  Speedy recalled in the interview a story that took place during the high point of his coaching career.
	According to Morris, “one day he was in the upstairs bathroom shaving when his wife told him he was wanted on the phone by Sports Illustrated.”  For the coach of a Division One basketball team that’s a great honor, and Speedy said he was so excited that he accidentally cut himself with his razor.  He grabbed some toilet paper and pressed it to his face and rushed out of the bathroom so he could get to the phone.  So with blood running down his cheek he descended the stairs two at a time.  He did fine for the first few, but then lost his balance and literally rolled down the last half of the stairs.  He wasn’t sure is he had pulled or broken anything, and limping he got to his feet and hurried the last few feet to the phone.  “Sports Illustrated” Morris asked.  “Yes”, came the reply from the other end of the phone, then woman proceeded to say, “And for only 75 cents an issue you can subscribe for an entire year.”  Morris then realized that Sports Illustrated did not want to interview him for the magazine, but rather they tried to sell him a subscription and disappointment sank in, and he began to realize how big of a fool he was for reacting the way he did.  
	The real moral of the story today is that it is frustrating to think someone is interested in you only to find out differently.  It’s tough to be let down, especially something looks very promising.  Sometimes we get our hopes too high.  And if a salesman or a politician or a sports team lets us down it can be irritating, but on a deeper and more important level when a person of faith does it, it can be devastating and that is exactly what happens in today’s Gospel.  Jesus today is devastated and let down, by the people of faith who are more interested in money than in worshiping God and being able to assist others so that they can more fully participate in worshiping God and making atonement for their sins at the temple.  In feeling let down, we see Jesus get angry and cause quite the co-motion, something that we do not see Jesus do often in the bible.  Jesus gets angry because He sees hypocrisy and that is something that He did not tolerate for alleged people of faith.  Don't do it, don't be a hypocrite, it ain't worth it.  Happy 3rd Sunday of Lent everyone!

Don't Do It, Don't Be A Hypocrite

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent...
     I don’t know about all of you, but we have had some hard readings this Lent so far. Constantly being reminded to fast, pray, repent, and so forth.  It can almost seem like a drag sometimes, but did you notice that today there is a different tone in the readings.  The reason for that is that we are celebrating Laetare Sunday, which means “joyful Sunday!”  Which then might lead us to ask, why does the church invite us in the middle of the penitential season of Lent to rejoice?  The amazing story of a little incident that took place in Mainz in 1456 when Gutenberg was printing the first completely printed Bible ever can help us with the answer. 
	The printer had a little daughter, Alice, who came into the printing press and picked up a discarded sheet with only one line of print.  That line of print read: “God loved the world so much that he gave...”  Now, those were times when popular religion was a matter of living in fear and trembling before the awesome wrath of God.  So Alice put the paper in her pocket and kept on thinking on the fact of God being so loving, and her face radiated with joy.  Her mother noticed her changed behavior and asked Alice what was making her so happy and Alice showed her mother the sheet of paper with the printed line.  Her mother looked at it for some time and said, “So, what did God give?”  “I don’t know,” said Alice, “but if God loved us well enough to give us something, then we need not be so afraid of Him.” 
    In the rest of the homily I explain the three Greek words for love and how God shows humanity "agape" love and how we are to show agape love back to God and neighbor in how we live our lives.  Rejoice everyone, we are more than halfway to Easter and God loves you too.  Happy 4th Sunday of Lent everyone!

Even During Lent We Are To Rejoice In The Lord

This is a link to the audio recording of the homily I gave for the 5th Sunday of Lent...
     Whether you realize it or not, we are now one week away from Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week, and in today’s Gospel you can feel the tension in the air rising, both on Heaven and on earth.  The Gospel starts with a simple request to see Jesus, but, by the end, Heaven and earth are crying out about what’s about to happen, something that we will remember at Holy Mass in a special way next week: the Passion of the Lord, and our Redemption.  Heaven and earth are exulting today because the Lord’s wish expressed in today’s First Reading is about to become a reality.  The Lord wants to go beyond just being a legislator in our lives of a Law. It is for our good, but that Law seems to too strict, too hard, too impersonal to keep.  The Law is how the Lord tried to stay in the lives of his people Israel for thousands of years, and, as He laments, they broke it over and over in the wilderness.
	Nevertheless, as a good Father He had to be strict with them so that they would keep trying.  Since the Law was the way they could be re-united with Him.  The Lord wants to write that Law on our hearts because once written there it cannot be erased: when we go against our conscience, that Law in our hearts keeps reminding us that we should have done something different in our lives.  When we break that Law it not only puts distances and barriers between God and us, but all of humanity is kept away from him due to our lack of love.  Jesus taught us that we should build our lives on two fundamental commandments from which all others flow: to love God above all else and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  All God asks for is love, and that does not seem unreasonable, considering all the love He has shown us, but, despite all that love He’s shown us, we still treat Him many times like a cold-hearted legislator bogging us down with rules and regulations.  In our lives we know there’s no substitute for God’s love.  We cannot even find it just by loving ourselves.  His Law, written in our hearts, shows us how incomplete we are when we do not have His love and do not share His love with others.
	By the time we come to the moment in Jesus’ life that is recalled in the Gospel today, there’s a big void of love that everyone is feeling, but that no one can fill.  It’s a void that begun and has grown since the Fall of Adam and Eve.  It’s caused by our sins, which put distance between us, God, and others.  Our Lord was sent by the Father to bridge the gap, fill the void, and enable us to love the Father again and be reunited with Him, but that comes with a price, a price about which Jesus today is “troubled.”  In a few weeks time from when the Gospel takes place today, in the garden of Gethsemane, we will see Him tremble: in His heart, He knows that He can fill that void of love by obeying His Father will and suffering and dying on the cross to reunite us with Him.
    I also share the amazing story of how Jesus appeared to Saint Peter to convince him not to run away from the persecution in Rome, which would lead to Saint Peter's arrest and death (in the photo you see how Saint Peter was curcified upside down)...In the end Jesus is trying to rally his apostles and to prepare them before the events of Good Friday.  Happy 5th Sunday of Lent everyone...

Jesus Prepares Us To Face Our Trails In Life

Here is a link to the audio recording of the homily that I gave on Holy Thursday 2024...
     Growing up as a child, easily one of my favorite Masses every year was the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening.  My mother took my brother and I every year, and we never missed it in our parish.  Attending every year gave me personally a profound respect for Jesus present in the Eucharist, but also a profound respect for the gift of the Catholic priesthood, and rightfully so.  After all, on Holy Thursday we celebrate the institution of the priesthood and the institution of the Eucharist.  They both go hand in hand.   I would like to begin tonight with a quote by Saint John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests.  He once said, “If we were to fully realize what a priest is on earth, we would die: not of fright, but of love… Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail.  It is the priest who continues the work of redemption on earth… The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you.”
	If society today had any idea the gift that God has given to us in the priesthood we would be completely in awe.  Sometimes I need to remember this when I run from thing to thing and then I get to the end of the day and realize how God has used me to speak to people, to touch them, to heal them, to help bring them closer to God and dispense God’s graces to His people on earth.  God desires to touch us with human hands and he does so in the priest.  And yet one of the things I hear too often as a priest is: “I don’t need to go to mass on Sunday, I can pray to God on my own.”  Followed by another common one: “I don’t need to go to a priest for confession, I can go right to God.”
	Think about that for a moment in light of tonight’s Gospel where we heard: “Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.  He came to Simon Peter, who said to Him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?”  Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”  Peter said to Him, “You will never wash my feet.”  Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”  If you think about it, when Peter says to the Lord, “I don’t really need you to wash my feet.” He is really saying “I don’t need Jesus to wash my feet” is just like saying I don’t need to go to mass to experience God graces in the Eucharist or confession to be forgiven.  And Jesus says very strongly – “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”  In the Gospel of John, chapter 6, Jesus says “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you will have no life with in you.”  In order to get to heaven need to feed on the Eucharist and be absolved of your sins in confession, and you cannot have either if you do not have priests.  It’s all interconnected by God and His plan for the world....In the rest of the homily I explain through the priesthood, how bread, wine, oil, and water changed the world....Happy Holy Thursday everyone!

Thank God For The Eucharist and The Priesthood

This is a link to the audio recording of the homily that I gave on Good Friday at Our Lady of Guadalupe...
     In my humble opinion one of the most powerful scripture passages ever recorded was by Saint Peter when he wrote, “He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live in righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).”  We have all heard it said before that it was by Jesus’ wounds that we are saved and of how much Jesus loved us by dying on a cross for us, but it wasn’t just about Him dying, but also about how much He suffered for us before He eventually died.  Through his suffering, Jesus brings suffering into what we can call “a new dimension,” the dimension of love, salvific love.  The Son of God strikes evil at its very root, conquering sin and death with the power of love.  “He conquers sin by His obedience unto death, and He overcomes death by His resurrection” (Salvifici Doloris 14).  In His passion, Jesus took all human suffering upon Himself.  He gave it a new meaning.  He used suffering to accomplish the work of salvation.  He used it for good.  His love transformed suffering so that this awful reality that is connected to evil might become a power for good.  
	So suffering now has a saving power.  And that is how we, as Christians, can find meaning and purpose in suffering, what before we might have thought was totally useless.  In the great apostolic letter of Pope Saint John Paul II on the Christian meaning of human suffering, we read the following: “Human suffering has reached its culmination in the passion of Christ.  And at the same time it has entered into a completely new dimension and a new order: it has been linked to love, … to that love which creates good, drawing it out by means of suffering, just as the supreme good of the Redemption of the world was drawn from the cross of Christ, and from that cross constantly takes its beginning.  The cross of Christ has become a source from which flow rivers of living water” (SD 18).  So Jesus has not only redeemed us from sin and death, He has also redeemed suffering. He has made it redemptive. He has made it a source and means of something good: redemption and eternal life...
      In the rest of the homily I tell the story of Vicktor Frankl, a survivor of Aschswitz and how he found hope in the horrible conditions at the camp and tie his experience into how we can find hope a sad day in history.  Easter is coming, do not be afraid, this is not the end of the story.  Have a blessed Good Friday everyone!

Behold The Wood Of The Cross

This is a link to the audio recording of the homily that I gave for Easter 2024...
      Believe it or not, we were created by God to be joyful people.  Given the world that we live in today you might not believe that.  However, it’s the truth and God desires to fill your heart with joy this Easter.  You never hear someone say, “You know, this whole joy thing is not for me.  I wish I had a little bit more misery in my life.”  We are created for joy, but we come to realize that it’s not something we can just buy at the store.  Think about the most joyful moments of your life.  Isn’t it true that they were a surprise?  The gospel gives us an idea of the surprise of discovering the empty tomb today.  Saint Mary Magdalene had been there at the foot of the Cross.  She had seen Jesus beaten, crowned with thorns, carry the cross and then die from everything He went through.  Let’s be honest, crucifixion was not a joke.  It was such a horrible way to die that the Romans eventually outlawed it.  So Mary Magdalene was not expecting an empty tomb.  She knew that Jesus had really died.
	So when Mary Magdelene sees the empty tomb she does not know what to make of it.  So she runs and tells Peter and John.  They both run to the tomb.  John runs faster and gets to the tomb before Peter does.  John looks in, and then he waits for Peter and allows him to go in first to investigate.  Peter was appointed the first Pope and so John wanted to let him go in first.  Peter enters the tomb, and then John goes in.  What they saw surprised them.  Or better yet, what they did not see surprised them.  The body of Jesus was gone and left behind were the burial cloths.  Actually the original Greek text of the bible says that the burial clothing was lying there in the tomb.  It seemed that the body of Jesus had just evaporated and left the clothes lying there as though there were still a body.  But there was no body.  Imagine their surprise.  What has happened here?  And then the gospel says that John saw and believed.  He believed that Jesus had risen from the dead!
	The surprise must have overwhelmed him.  But as he began to believe, he was filled with joy.  This why joy is the best response to Easter.  Who could have ever imagined that death could be conquered?  That’s what Easter means.  Your death and my death is not the end.  Just as Jesus rose from the dead we will rise from the dead.  Body and soul, we will live forever.  Suffering and pain do not have the last word.  Death does not have the last word.  The love of God, given to us in Jesus Christ has the last word.  This is why the psalm today shouts out: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us REJOICE and be glad in it!”  On Easter, we also are surprised by the presence of the Risen Jesus.  And we too are filled with joy. When we realize the gift of Easter, joy is the best response.
       In the rest of the homily I talked about how Easter inspired the saints, in particular, Saint Philip Neri...now its our turn to share the joy of Easter with the world around us and to inspire others by our faith and the way we live in response to Easter and the truth revealed by Jesus.  That is not the end, the devil does not win, but the love of Jesus which conquered sin and destroyed death forever.  He is risen, He is alive!  Alleluia!

Be Joyful, It's Easter!!!

This is a link to the audio recording of the homily that I gave on Divine Mercy Sunday 2024.
     Where have we been and where are we going?  Last week we see the empty tomb and much has happened since Easter, but instead of going to Galilee like Jesus asked apostles to do, they instead decide to stay in Jerusalem and lock themselves in the upper room, where the last supper took place out of fear.  And so Jesus today comes to them and his first words to them are there to comfort them and then get them back on track with the mission entrusted to them.  This is the perfect reading to set the mood for Divine Mercy and the message behind today's feast.
       Divine Mercy is a relatively young feast day in the church, instituted in the year 2000 by Saint John Paul II.  I talk about Saint John Paul II and how the message personally inspired him and his ministry.  I share an amazing story about how Saint John Paul II showed Divine Mercy to a man in confession as well.  And so today if we open our hearts to the message of Divine Mercy it too change our lives and fill us with peace and joy.  That's all God wants to do is fill your life with peace and joy through His Divine Mercy.  Happy Divine Mercy Sunday everyone!

The Life Changing Power of Divine Mercy

This is the audio recording of the homily that I gave for the 3rd Sunday of Easter this year....
     	I don’t know about all of you, but I think we have had quite an amazing start to our Easter celebration.  On Easter Sunday we remembered that Christ is risen and that sin and death were destroyed once and for all.  Last Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ Divine Mercy and love for humanity, and today we have something else to talk about: Peace.  As I began writing this homily, something amazing hit me.  Have you noticed, ever since Easter Sunday in our readings that Jesus uses one word more than any other and that word is “Peace”.  It is virtually always the first word on His lips when He appears to His apostles, as in the passage we just listened to, where we heard, “Peace be with you.”  Every time we celebrate Mass, we hear these same words, spoken to us in the here-and-now of our lives, right before we receive the body and blood of our Lord in Holy Communion, “Lord Jesus Christ,” the priest says, “you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you.”  Jesus did not give this peace before His resurrection, but afterwards He gives it, and He gives it because we need it.  
	Make no mistake about it, Christ’s peace is the antidote to most problems of our modern, secular society, problems that include: stress, depression, and anxiety.  We have all been affected by those problems at some point or another in our lives.  As our friendship with the resurrected Lord grows deeper, we are gradually healed of those disorders, because Jesus brings us His three-fold peace.  First, peace for our mind.  When we look at His wounds, which He still bears in His glorified body, we know for certain that His forgiveness is everlasting; once He forgives our sins, we are truly forgiven; our conscience can be at rest.  Second, peace for our heart.  When we see the spike marks in his hands and feet, we know for certain that we are loved with an undying, unconditional, personal, determined love - Christ’s love.  Third, peace for our soul.  Christ is alive, and he is ruling and expanding an everlasting Kingdom, and He has invited each one of us to help him do that by building up the Church.  We have work to do that matters, that is worthwhile, that will satisfy our thirst for meaning.  The peace of the resurrected Christ is what we really need.
      In the rest of the homily I talk about finding God's peace in our lives and how the saints found peace in their lives.  I tell the amazing story of Saint Ammon and his companions and also tell the true story a parishioner who died and was at peace with her life before passing.  At the end of the day, all God wants to do is give us his peace and fill us with joy.  Have a great 3rd Sunday of Easter everyone...

All God Wants To Do Is Give You Peace

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday...
       In today’s readings, we see a common theme with Our Lord described as the cornerstone on which the Church is built, the big brother who always watches out for us, and the Good Shepherd who not only was willing to lay his life down for us but actually did.  The common denominator of all these images is the charity of Our Lord and the importance of building our own lives on that charity.  For example, in today’s Gospel, we see the concern Jesus has for every soul, a concern He describes as like a shepherd toward his sheep.  Throughout Church history, this has been seen as “pastoral” concern for others, and in today’s First Reading we see the Good Shepherd has entrusted His sheep to Saint Peter and the Apostles without relinquishing them so that their pastoral needs can continue to be met.  Saint Peter has made a great commotion in healing a crippled man who begged at one of the entrances to the Temple area for a long time today.
	However, Saint Peter does not take credit for it: he did it in the name of Jesus.  Just as Our Lord worked signs for the sake of the Gospel, Saint Peter has received the power and the authority to preach in the Lord’s name.  Saint Peter speaks today of Our Lord as the cornerstone: a stone essential to maintaining the stability of a structure.  A sheep cannot take the place of a shepherd, which is why Jesus now and forever remains the Good Shepherd, the key to pastorally caring for us, his sheep.  The foundation of our pastoral well-being is his death and resurrection, and it continues to be so.  In today’s Second Reading we’re reminded that Our Lord laid down His life so that we could become not only His, but His adopted brothers and sisters in the kingdom of heaven.  In the Old Testament, a treasured lamb is described as being like a family member to their owner, but Saint John reminds us that God is not just our Father metaphorically.  Our adoption as sons and daughters is thanks to the Son, our big brother.  Just as He shows and ensures a pastoral concern for us, He also watches over us as a big brother should.  In the rest of the homily I explain how in several other passages of the Gospel Jesus reveals Himself as the good shepherd....Have a great 4th Sunday of Easter everyone...

Christ The Good Shepherd We Need To Follow

This is a link to the homily that I gave for the 6th Sunday of Easter...
       	I have often said that our Catholic faith is simple and that following Jesus is not complicated, yet how often do we complicate the faith ourselves and make it more difficult when its not supposed to be.  In fact, today Jesus reduces the essence of what it means to be His follower into one simple sentence.  This sentence is His New Commandment, a commandment that summarizes everything that He has taught: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  If we do that correctly, then we are on Christ’s path, and we will experience the joy and meaning that only God can give.  And to make it even simpler because God knows that we tend to complicate things unnecessarily, Jesus also explains exactly what He means by the word “love,” a word the Devil is always trying to distort: “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.”  In other words, love is self-giving, and so, the greater the self-giving, the greater the love.  That’s the part we tend to complicate and make difficult the call to genuinely be self-giving and self-sacrificing.  
	Again, it’s not really that complicated.  In short, when we put our lives at the service of others, when we live in order to give and not to take, when we are willing to suffer so that someone else can rejoice, then we may call ourselves His disciples.  But Jesus went even further in order to make sure we would understand.  He did not explain the meaning of true love just with words; He also explained it with His deeds, with His own suffering and death.  Jesus accepted mockery, humiliation, torture, rejection, injustice, misunderstanding, betrayal, and finally death, not because He was too weak to resist, but to show us what love really is: self-giving, self-forgetful generosity.  Jesus Christ hanging on the cross; bearing the weight of our sins; thinking not of Himself, but of the men and women He came to save, even pleading for their forgiveness up until the very end; giving without counting the cost, even without asking for something in return - this is God's idea of love.  But honestly, is it ours? 
       In the rest of the homily I use an example from "The Lord of the Rings" to explain what it means to love as Jesus loves and challenge everyone to move beyond self love and into the realm of agape self-less love as we have been called to by Jesus today.  Have a great day everyone!

What It Means to Love As Jesus Loves

This a link to the homily that I gave for Ascension Sunday 2024...
      It's amazing how many times Jesus warned the apostles that He was going to die and rise again, and yet on Good Friday and Easter they did not get it.  Then this past week in five separate readings we hear Jesus preparing the apostles for His Ascension into heaven and to open their hearts to the Holy Spirit who is still to come and they still don't get it.  They hear what Jesus is saying in their minds, but they do not believe in their hearts and with their souls.  Pentecost is when it finally clicks and they believe in their hearts and souls with conviction and courage.  And how everything changes from that point forward.  That is what God wants to do for us now as well, take away our doubt and fear so that we can live with conviction and courage.  God wants to change our lives forever just like how He did for apostles.  However, we have to be open to having that encounter, heart to heart, soul to soul with God in order for it to happen.  And so the Ascension is a great lesson on being open to God, allowing the Holy Spirit to move in our hearts, and being open to what God is calling us to do just like the apostles.  Happy Ascension Sunday everyone!

The Ascension: Proof That God Wants To Change Your Life Forever Too

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for Holy Trinity Sunday 2024...
       Today we as a church celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity.  Let’s be honest, it can be hard feast to get excited about.  It’s easy to get excited about Christmas.  It’s easy to get excited about Easter.  Somehow, we feel that we can relate to those wonderful mysteries of our faith.  But the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not so easy to relate to and a mystery that we as human beings will never fully comprehend either on earth.  With this doctrine, God has revealed to us that He is not infinite loneliness, but infinite love, infinite relationship of self-giving.  The one divine nature exists fully and simultaneously in three divine Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes we catch a glimpse of how wonderful this doctrine really is, but even so, it still seems kind of abstract, something for theologians to ponder, something impractical for everyday Christians.  But that is a false impression and one we need to overcome today.
	The Holy Trinity is actually the most practical of all Christian doctrines, because it reveals the meaning of our life, we just often tend to misunderstand it.  We are created in God’s image and likeness.  And God, in the very essence of His being, is self-forgetful love, a harmonious relationship in which the three divine Persons are knowing each other and giving to each other.  God’s eternal, dynamic happiness flows from that communion of love.  And so, our happiness, since we are created in His image, will flow from the same thing, from our freely choosing to use our God-given gifts - life, talents, resources - to build up those around us.
This is what we are created to be and to do, and only in this will we find the happiness we long for.  The meaning of life is for us to choose every day, in the little things and the big things, to be better and better mirrors of the Holy Trinity.
	Saint Paul expresses this beautifully in today’s Second Reading, when he said that the Spirit of God actually dwells within us and teaches us to see ourselves as God’s children.  And that is why the Catholic faith has had such an impact on the world - it is a new standard of living, not economic, but spiritual: mirroring  
 God’s eternal love in the Holy Trinity.  Happy Holy Trinity Sunday everyone!

The Holy Trinity:The Perfect Community of Love

This is a link to the audio recording of my homily for Corpus Christi 2024...
     In John 6 Jesus explicitly tells the crowd following Him, "Unless if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you do not have life within you."  Upon His discourse being completed the crowd abandoned Jesus and only the 12 apostles are left to follow Him.  And so why did the crowd not believe Jesus, when in time Jesus Himself helps humanity's unbelief with the many different Eucharistic miracles to truly believe without doubt.  In the homily today I talk about the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano and how Jesus preformed the miracle help the priest and the people with their unbelief, I also talk about how Eucharistic Processions, Eucharistic Adoration, and brave Eucharistic centered saints who are witnesses to inspire here and now with our unbelief.  Make no mistake about it, Jesus is truly and always present in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar...Happy Corpus Christi Sunday everyone!   (Pictured here is the host turned flesh in Lanciano)

The Eucharist: Jesus Take Away My Unbelief

This is a link to the audio recording for my homily for the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time...
      If we look carefully at the Gospel, it is clear that Jesus was very focused on His mission at all times.  He worked hard to communicate His message of salvation, to train His apostles, to heal the sick and comfort the troubled.  In fact, He worked so hard to fulfill His mission that it was “impossible for [Him and His disciples] even to eat.”  The Gospel tells us.  But not everyone appreciated Jesus and His dedication to His mission.  Even members of His own extended family, Saint Mark’s Gospel tells us, thought He was crazy.  And the more popular and respected religious and cultural leaders of the time rejected Him as well.  They actually accused Him, as today’s Gospel passage makes clear, of being an instrument of the devil.  It must have been hard for Our Lord, to stay focused on His mission, to be faithful to what His Father had sent Him to do, when He ran into so much opposition, mockery, and misunderstanding.  And yet, He persevered, did not give up, and stay focused on the task at hand.
	Jesus did not let criticism, rejection, jealously, mockery, or persecution of any kind interfere with His loving fulfillment of God’s will.  Where did He get the courage to be true to His identity and mission even when those closest to Him were rejecting Him?  In His relationship with the Father, His heart was anchored not in the shifting sands of this fallen world, but in the everlasting love of the Lord, in doing God’s will.  As today’s Psalm puts it: “My soul looks for the Lord more than sentinels for daybreak.”  We too find it difficult to be faithful to our mission in life, to God’s will for us, to His commandments and to the circumstances that He permits to trouble us.  We too run into opposition, mockery, misunderstanding.  We too need courage.  And so, we too need to anchor our hearts in the Lord, so that we can persevere, be strong, and endure all that the world throws at us in attempt to take us away from God.  And so today we are warned that if we want to do the will of God we will be persecuted, tempted to be discouraged, and oppressed, but if we are truly anchored in God then we have nothing to be afraid of and when those moments come, we will not give up or surrender.  Stay strong and know that God is with us!  Have a great day!

Expect Persecution and Discouragement; But Do Not Be Afraid Of It

There is one thing that every human heart is absolutely starving for: someone to trust.  Someone who not only will promise to never let you down, never judge you, never abandon you, but someone with enough goodness and enough power to keep that promise.  Every one of us needs someone we can lean on no matter what, someone we can go to no matter what, someone who will be glad to see us no matter what - someone who is utterly, totally, unhesitatingly, faithful.  That someone is God.  If you were with me for Mass on Christmas and then again last Sunday for the feast of the Holy Family I explained how Jesus’ personal mission was to regain humanity’s trust in God, which was lost by Adam and Eve in the fall in Genesis and how still to this day humanity is struggling to trust God.  We looking at today’s feast of the Epiphany we still have further proof that we can and need to trust God now more than ever before and that God is worthy of our trust.  I also share in this homily today the story of man named Jack who struggled to trust God and of a tragedy in Chile in which kept his promises.  Enjoy!    

The Three Wise Men: A Story of Total Trust In God

On Friday May 13, 2016 on the 99th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima, we held a special event entitled, "A Night In the Spirit of Fatima and Medjugorje."  As part of the evening, international speaker and author, Wayne Weible gave a talk on Fatima and Medjugorje, and shared his own personal testimony of how Our Lady forever changed his life!  This talk was recorded with the explicit permission of Wayne Weible.  

Wayne Weible Talk on Fatima and Medjugorje

Earlier today I was asked to give a talk another local parish in our area as part of their 40 Hours Devotion, the topic I spoke on was: Why Divine Mercy?  Why did Jesus reveal Divine Mercy to us?  Why we should live out Divine Mercy?  And why we should share Divine Mercy with others?  I began with a bit of a history lesson going back to Adam and Eve and worked through the bible to see some of the biblical roots of Divine Mercy and then into more recent events just before Saint Faustina saw Jesus to explain why this devotion and private revelation are key to the Church today and going forward.  Enjoy everyone!  

40 Hours Talk: Why Divine Mercy?

Today as we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, we are reminded that Jesus came once before and He will come again.  And that as we are preparing for Christmas, a remembrance of His first coming, why we should on a daily basis prepare for His second coming.  Today we are also reminded that God made a promise to His people Israel in today's first reading from Isaiah and that Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise.  So today as we begin Advent I focus on God keeping His promises and in the homily I also include a true story from Matthew Kelly's book, "Rediscovering Catholicism" about the underground Catholic Church.  Happy Advent everyone!

A God Who Keeps His Promises

Today’s first reading, in my humble opinion, presents one of the most gripping and gut wrenching stories in the entire Bible.  The pagan rulers of ancient Israel attempted to force the Jewish people to violate their dietary laws, which were very strict and meant to give glory to God.  This was really an effort, on the part of the pagans, to persuade them to abandon their relationship with God, who had commanded them not to eat certain foods.  Why did God do that?  Because many of the foods that He prohibited were sacred food in Egypt therefore pagan.  God was reminding the people of Israel not to return to the pagan practices they learned in Egypt.  And the young men in today’s story, together with their mother, all affirmed that they were prepared to die rather than offend God by eating pagan food.  Their relationship with God was so real that it brought them to die for the Lord, with the hope of eternal life with Him in heaven.  There are moments when our relationship with God will cost us and today it cost the Macabees.  The story ultimately asks us the question: Are you prepared to be a martyr?  I also spend some time pondering the holy example of martyrdom through the example of Saint Maximillian Kolbe.

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