The Church today celebrates “Gaudete Sunday”, the third Sunday of Advent. “Gaudete” in Latin means joy. St. Paul tells the Thessalonians,
“Rejoice Always!”
With all that is happening in the world, with all the sadness and poverty around us, how can we rejoice? [Read more…]
One of the greatest myths proclaimed by Protestants deals with reconciliation and forgiveness of sin. You have all heard it. Many Catholics even believe it. It goes something like this: “Why confess your sins to a man?”, or “I don’t have to go through a man to confess my sins. I go directly to God.”
This is myth! This is hogwash! It is false. But even worse, this myth does so much damage because it prevents people from confessing and reconciling with God. This myth is evil.
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A most unusual thing happened in human history. Almighty God, the God of all creation, creator of heaven and earth, creator of mankind, became man. The God of Gods became a small baby, born of the Virgin Mary. This only happened once in all of history. We are preparing to celebrate that fact again with the season of Advent.
The word “Advent” comes from the Latin, “advinio”, for “the coming”, or “He comes”. [Read more…]
Do you believe in Hell? Do you believe in it enough? Does the existence of Hell guide and instruct your life and your moral decisions? There is an old American expression for living as if there were no consequences to our immoral actions. We say it is like “whistling past the graveyard”.
We don’t speak about Hell very often. Many prefer to think and act as if Hell does not exist. However, Jesus has spoken about it frequently. At least five times in the Gospels, Jesus is quoted as saying that a person will be judged and thrown outside the gates of the Kingdom of God where there will be darkness and “wailing and gnashing of teeth”. [Read more…]
Today’s feast of All Souls, and yesterday’s feast of all Saints, could not be more different. Yesterday, we acknowledged how happy we are that some of our race have made it to heaven and received the Promises God promised to the Just, the “poor in Spirit”. Today, we acknowledge that it is not that easy to get in, given our attachments to property, money and habits and lifestyles.
If there were no Purgatory, we would have to invent one. We can’t walk into our Grandparent’s living room, onto their clean, white carpets, with muddy feet. And, let there be no mistake, we all have muddy feet.
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A deacon friend of mine, Deacon Willie Cortez had a ministry in East Austin, working among the poorest of the poor. At Our Lady’s Family Center, he created several youth programs for different ages of children and youth, including help with schoolwork. Deacon Willie wanted to get the kids off the streets and out of gangs. At every meeting they always learned something about Jesus and the Gospel.
One of his primary tools was a bowl of hard candies. At the opening of every meeting the bowl of hard candies, which was always full, would be passed around. [Read more…]
Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this feast day mean anything to the saints? What do they care about earthly honors when their heavenly Father honors them by fulfilling the faithful promise of the Son? What does our commendation mean to them? The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning. [Read more…]
Although we believe we are Christian, sometimes we discover some really deep-seated pagan beliefs among us. Pagan beliefs die hard. For example the popular belief that heaven begins after death, after the cemetery. That is wrong, and very pagan. For Christians, heaven begins with our baptism. That is our Christian faith. Listen carefully with me to the words of the prayer Jesus taught us, “The Our Father”.
“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
And, Jesus said frequently, [Read more…]
In the Gospel Jesus is showing us that love is a commandment, when he says, “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” If we learn about love from our culture we may think love is something we feel, or something we deserve to receive. If we learn from Jesus, we learn that love is something we choose, no matter how we feel. It is not something you receive, but it is something you give. In the wedding ceremony you will promise to one another: “I will love you and honor you all the days of my life”, in good times and in bad.
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Can you believe it has been a year since Fr. Victor and I were first assigned to our parish? In my first homily to you last July, I told you that I was a widower, and that I knew what it feels like to “fall in love.” I am in love and growing more in love with you, this parish.
In that first sermon, I told you, that as we are learning to fall in love with one another, we would gradually lose our fear and hesitancy to have those conversations which lovers must have as we grow in intimacy and common purpose. I promised to speak earnestly with you about how to inherit eternal life. And that we would speak about fidelity and obedience to Holy Mother Church and to one another, chastity and the way we will respect life and one another, and about the simplicity of life with which we will live our lives together, sharing our gifts for the common good. [Read more…]
Have you ever watched people enter the Church and cross themselves? One of my favorite images involves a father with his arms full of children, while the mother puts her hand into the Holy Water and blesses him and then the children. The lesson is that because of our baptism we can bless each other.
The image of blessing ourselves is very Catholic. Some people are very careful to touch their foreheads, their chest and then their shoulders, making the sign of the Cross. Why do we do it? [Read more…]
“When they had gathered together they asked him,
‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’”
The apostles still did not get it. They were still seeking a political solution for Israel. Think about how many people today might say something similar about the USA: “Lord are you going to continue to bless the USA? And protect us from our international enemies?”
In a theatrical play or a movie or a TV program there are actors. The actors in the play represent people, or the characters in the play. The play tells the stories of the characters. Sometimes the characters are not people, but may be things. Nevertheless these things still represent characters in the play. Often in some movies, like Walt Disney movies, a clock or a teapot may be characters. In the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey, it was a computer, named “Hal”.
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Earlier this year I gave a series of Sunday homilies regarding the moral life, spiritual maturity and the Ten Commandments. I said the following in that homily here in this Church.
“Recently I had the experience of looking into the eyes of a person who was well formed and mature in her faith. She was dying of cancer and she told me there were no more treatments available. The end of her life was coming soon. I anointed her with Holy Oil of the Sick. After the anointing I asked her, “How do you feel? What do you think about your death?” [Read more…]
How do you know you are Catholic? How do you know someone else is Catholic? Or, if a particular teaching is Catholic?
Here is a pretty good guide: Catholics remember with really long memories and we don’t change much in our Tradition. If we learn that we have strayed from our Apostolic Tradition, we struggle to get back to our source.
This coming fall will be a good example when we make a few changes to the Liturgy in English. We will not be doing something new. The Liturgy of the Mass in English is only about forty years old. [Read more…]
I’ve read somewhere that “Easter is Christmas, grown up!” Tonight we enter into the Triduum, our most holy three day Easter celebration that includes Holy Thursday and the Mass of the Last Supper, Good Friday, when we enter reverently into Jesus’ Passion and Death, and Easter Vigil, the Beginning of the Celebration of Jesus’ conquest of Death by his Resurrection from the dead.
There are some important features of the Triduum. In the early Church, in Jerusalem, Easter was one long, three day service beginning on Holy Thursday evening and ending at dawn on Easter Sunday. We still observe that form in our Triduum liturgies today. At the end of our Mass tonight, there will be no concluding prayers or dismissal. There is no formal end to this Mass. [Read more…]
Today is May Day. The International Day of Labor, but it is also the first day of the month of Mary.
For us in Texas, it may seem like the first day of Summer. But for Catholics whose lives may have been affected by Pope John Paul II, his spirituality, his faith, his love of the Church, we will remember this day as the day of the beatification of Pope John Paul, Karol Wojtyla. Few were as dedicated to the Blessed Mother as Pope John Paul, who made his motto in honor of her, “Totus Tuus”, or “Everything for you”.
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Today Fr. Victor and I concelebrated Mass with our Bishop and most of the other priests of our Diocese in the Chrism Mass, which is held every year during Holy Week.
The Chrism Mass is the primary celebration for the local Church when the Bishop gathers around the altar with his priests to share in holiness our commitment to serving the Lord, Jesus Christ. Fr. Victor and I don’t have our own priesthood. We only participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, in unity with our bishop and our brother priests.
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We are beginning the third week of Lent. Lent is a spiritually rich time if we choose to participate. Through the discipline of Lent we are to renew our efforts to grow spiritually and increase our control over temptation. Fasting, prayer, alms and other penance help us to increase our self-control over the desires of the flesh. I had a priest spiritual director in the seminary who gave the community instruction on Lenten penance and our dietary restrictions. His lesson was “Do penance. It’s spiritually healthy.” But he said, “You watch your plate. I’ll watch mine.”
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Over the past few weeks we have been speaking about The Ten Commandments. We spoke about the Commandment to Keep Holy the Seventh Day, and the Commandments not to steal or cheat or commit adultery or kill.
We spoke about the importance of God’s law being written on our hearts, and today we hear this again from Moses in the Old Testament:
“Moses told the people,
‘Take these words of mine into your heart and soul.’”
And God told Moses,
“I set before you here, this day, a blessing and a curse:
a blessing for obeying the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today;
a curse if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, but turn aside from the way I ordain for you today,