Most of you know that I was married and a permanent deacon before going to the seminary and becoming a priest. When my wife, Cynthia, was a patient at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital a few years ago, the nun who founded the chaplain program there, Sister Alice Potts, came daily to minister to her. Over the years Sr. Alice developed the practice of giving away small angels to her patients. In return her patients would give Sr. Alice more angels as gifts, which Sister would later hand out to even more patients. Her office was full of these angel gifts. One day Sr. Alice brought to Cynthia’s room a television crew that was doing a story on Sr. Alice. They were filming Sr. Alice’s visit to one of her patients. From her hospital bed Cynthia was recorded telling her, “Sister, this is a beautiful thing you are doing. Angels are very important to God and people. Nobody is afraid of angels. God sends angels to people who need God, but are afraid of God, because angels are much less intimidating to those whose faith is weak.”
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In the Confessional I have encountered the most awesome experiences of God. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation there is conversion happening some people’s lives, sometimes more than others. Once in a while someone comes to Confession who has not been to Church or Confession in years. That doesn’t happen without God being very active in their hearts. Something powerful is happening in them. That is when I know I am in the presence of God, when God is very present to them at those moments of their conversion from sin, returning to God. We are on holy ground when a person shares that moment. It is then that I understand Jesus’ teaching that there is great rejoicing in heaven when a sinner repents, like the women who finds her last coin, or the shepherd who found the lost sheep, or the joy of the father upon the return of the lost son.
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From the earliest centuries of the Church, the Assumption into Heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, has been a subject of veneration and Christian doctrine.

However, there is no direct biblical source for this belief.  There is no historical record.  We don’t know the time or the place of the end of Mary’s life on earth.  Our most faithful source is Apostolic Tradition.  There are references to the Apostles’ belief in the Assumption in the writings of the early Fathers of the Church.  Finally, after centuries of belief and veneration, just sixty years ago, in 1950, Pope Pius XII stated that Mary’s Assumption is Church dogma.  Pope Pius XII wrote that Mary, “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”  He merely stated as dogmatic truth what the Church has believed and taught from the beginning.
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When I was a permanent deacon men would ask me a certain question with some frequency. When I was working with men’s groups in my parish they would ask me this question. They knew that I was still working in my business career, like most of them. Men with whom I worked in business would also ask this question.

This question is an important one: How do you combine your faith with your work in the world?
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According to the story told about Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Calcutta, she was in a meeting with her order, the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta, India. One of the sisters asked her, “Mother, I have a request for you to consider. There are so many sick and dying people coming to our hospital and we barely have time to take care of them. Our Rule of Life requires that we spend one hour a day in prayer and meditation in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament in a Holy Hour. Would you please consider making that requirement optional, so we can decide when we can do it? There are so many people sometimes that we simply do not have the time every day to make our Holy Hour.” (In a Holy Hour, the Blessed Sacrament is placed in a monstrance on the Altar so people can pray in silence before the Lord.) As the story goes, Mother Teresa responded something like this, “Sister, allow me to think about your request.”
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I am in love. Deeply, madly, shamelessly in love.

I recognize the symptoms because I have fallen in love before. I have loved a woman. I was married for 37 years to Cynthia and we have six children. This past weekend I could not be with you because I traveled to baptize our twelfth grandchild. I lost Cynthia a few years ago due to Cancer.

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My grandson Gabriel made his First Communion a few weeks ago, just prior to my ordination. Gabriel was going to Confession before his First Communion when he said, “Granddad, just think, if you were already a priest you could hear my Confession.” That caught me off guard, but I told him, “Gabe, I want to be your Granddad. It’s better for you to go to another priest.”
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