Our Bishop Joe Vasquez has declared this coming year as the “Year of the Domestic Church”.  It couldn’t come at a better time.  On top of all of the other moral assaults upon the family, the Coronavirus Pandemic has wreaked havoc.  Churches have been closed or severely restricted.  Work has been changed or even disappeared in too many cases.  Public schools have seen drastic reductions in academic achievement, and parents are struggling to educate their children.  The family has borne the burden of these crises.

The “Domestic Church” is the answer to these challenges.  Even the Universal Church is under assault.  Rome and the Vatican have been closed down much of the past year.  Church attendance is down worldwide.  Secular forces have attempted to blame the churches for spreading Covid-19.  That is a lie, of course, but then secular forces have never been friendly to the Church.

[Read more…]

700 years before the first Christmas, the prophet Isaiah already saw it: A great light that was going to shine on the whole world.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
a light has shone.

When we celebrate Christmas and the Birth of Jesus, we are celebrating the Humanity of God! God became man. When you are adoring the Child Jesus in the Manger, you are contemplating God.

When God became man, the history of the world changed forever.

[Read more…]

How many times have you heard people say things like, “All faiths are the same.  You just have to be a good person?”

That’s not true!

Christian faith is that our God comes to us.  He is always coming to us.  We don’t go to Him, but we do prepare ourselves to receive Him because He is coming to us.  He wants to live with us, so we can live with Him.  That is our faith.

If we compare our religion to other religions, it becomes very clear that God’s coming to us makes everything different.  God will come to us.  God has come to us over and over.  God in His only Son, Jesus lives with us in the Sacraments and in His Word.  Jesus will return again at the end of time.

[Read more…]

No nation has outlived the death of their God.  Go back and look at world history.  No nation has outlived the death of their God.

On Tuesday our nation will vote for the next President and Congress.  This season has been a difficult test for many of our citizens.  The pandemic, the quarantines, public chaos and mayhem, etc.  Many things that are important to Catholics, and to many Christians are about to be decided for some time to come.  We pray to our God that He will preserve our nation and our values.  We pray that we will emerge still “One Nation Under God” as our national motto says, because … no nation has outlived the death of their God.

[Read more…]

On October 11^th, last Sunday, Pope Francis beatified a new saint, an Italian teenager, Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15.  Blessed Carlo was just a normal teen who loved soccer, but really loved computers.  He loved his PlayStation, making videos, had a cellphone and an e-mail address and embraced the web and the internet.  Just a modern, ordinary kid.

Carlo attended Mass daily, they say, from the time of his First Holy Communion, at age 7.  He fell in love with the Eucharist.  He fell in love with computers and began studying computers, graphic design and programming around the age of 9. He created a website to catalog Eucharistic miracles.  Carlo learned self control, and would self-limit his time on the computer and other activities to keep them from taking control of his life.  He is called the patron saint of the Internet, for the good use he found in it.

He performed many good works for the less fortunate, and brought many to the Catholic faith, including his own mother.  Carlo said of the Eucharist, “the more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven”.

[Read more…]

Perhaps we are challenged from time to time to explain the Holy Bible, or our own faith.  Perhaps few things in Sacred Scripture explain God’s Word better than the story of God’s vineyard, as sung by Isaiah and repeated by Jesus as a parable.

Every Israelite and Jew knew Isaiah’s song of his friend’s vineyard, written perhaps 700 years before Jesus’ birth, prior to the Babylonian Exile.  Everyone knew the vineyard referred to Israel and Judea and Jerusalem.  The vineyard and the garden were God’s blessings to his people, prepared especially for the people He loved.  Adam and Eve defiled the Garden with their disobedience and had to leave the Garden.  They lost their eternal life by their Original Sin.

[Read more…]

Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and Eve.

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out in the field.” When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the LORD asked Cain, Where is your brother Abel? He answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

From the beginning of the revelation of God’s Word to man, this question has been central to our Faith, and to our identity as children of God, “Am I my brother’s keeper.

[Read more…]

No faithful Israelite would ever go to Caesarea Philippi.  If a faithful Jew or Israelite went to Caesarea Philippi, they would have to undergo a period of purification or cleansing before they could rejoin their community.

At the time of Jesus’ ministry, Caesarea Philippi would have been equivalent to our Las Vegas today.  It is located on Mount Hermon about 20 miles north of the Sea of Galilee.  It is known for the headwaters of the river Jordan, and for being one of the most pagan, most demonic places in Palestine.  There was a deep, vertical cave there called the “Gate of Hell”.  The cave is still there in the side of a massive cliff.  A temple to the pagan god Pan covered the cave entrance.  Today the spot is known as “Banias”, for Pan.  Human sacrifices were often practiced there, including the killing of children and adults, by tossing them down into the deep cave.  Caesarea Philippi was a dark, evil place.

[Read more…]

 

“Give me that old-time religion,
Give me that old-time religion
Give me that old-time religion
It’s good enough for me ….”

That is a familiar song in America, particularly among Protestants.  The problem is that there never was an “old time religion”.  It never existed.  This is a false narrative.

The song expresses a longing for a comfortable religion from the past, free of conflict, a stable religion.  There never was such a Christian religion.  True Christian faith is full of conflict in every generation.  It was always that way.

[Read more…]

 

Deacon Willie Cortez: A Reflection

Once in a while, each of us has to eat “humble pie”.  I am now eating “humble pie” before our God, who gives us everything that is good.  Once in a while God reminds us to wait on him and learn patience. We follow Him, – – not the other way around. This causes some humbling moments for me, and I’ve had a few lately.

I’ve been directing a lot of my energy in recent months and years on a few projects to benefit our community.  I just tend to forget who is driving the boat.

[Read more…]

As the Pandemic and quarantine closed things down around the world, we closed our churches worldwide.  We learned to live-stream Masses all over the world.  Church attendance and revenues plummeted.  Many of our institutions may be closed permanently as we emerge from the crisis.  Things will be different.  We are hearing wails of woe: “This is the end of the Church!” Or, “This pandemic is God’s punishment of the world!” 

However, this is not the end of the Church.  The pandemic is a huge, worldwide, world-changing event, but it is not the first pandemic the Church has experienced.  The Church will survive and be even stronger.  God is doing something.  God is doing something with BIG blessings!  We just can’t see them yet.  Watch carefully.  God’s Grace is at work.  Pray to remain part of God’s plan.  Do not be afraid.  Do not lose Hope.

[Read more…]

None of us will ever forget the year 2020.  Presidential impeachment.  Coronavirus and quarantine.  Economic shutdown.  Churches closed.  Widespread fear.  And, we are not even halfway through the year.  I cannot remember another year so full of frightful narratives.  Fear is widespread.  An unarmed black man named George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.  A video of the killing went viral, leading to nationwide riots.  The narrative spread that police target blacks and kill them.  Now there are growing reports of insurrectionists manipulating the crowds in the riots and pre-staging bricks and bombs for destruction.

[Read more…]

“Lord, you will show us the path of life.”

God has a way of changing our plans.  Something profound happens in our lives, expected or unexpected, and our lives can never be as before.  Think about your wedding day, or the birth of a child.  At that point our lives are changed forever, and we have new destinies.

We could be speaking of the Coronavirus pandemic.  We will not be returning to “normal”.  We may still have some familiar parts of our former lives, but we will not ever live the life we knew in 2019.  The events of Winter and Spring, in the year of our Lord 2020, have changed our destinies.  We do not know where this will lead us.  We must learn to trust the Lord.

[Read more…]

I doubt any of you will forget Palm Sunday and Holy Week the Year of Our Lord 2020.

These are tough times.  Some are suffering.  Some are dying.  Some have great fear and anxiety.  All of us have lost our freedoms due to the pandemic and the fear.  No one knows what the next week will bring, much less the time between now and Mother’s Day, May 17.  That is the date I have chosen for my horizon.  What happens between now and Mother’s Day will shape our earthly lives forever.  Most of the damage will have peaked by then.  We will be different.  We don’t know how.  But we will never be the same.  The unique solution for Christians is to trust in Jesus, and unite our sufferings to his Passion and Death.  Pay close attention to the scriptures this week.  Know your own sufferings.  Unite yourself to Jesus this week.

[Read more…]

These times we live in are remarkable.  None of us have ever experienced anything like it in our lifetimes.  There is a lot of fear in the world right now.  Most countries of the world are experiencing this tragedy of pandemic, sickness and death.  And isolation and fear.  We are all being tested.

I hope you saw Pope Francis’ Holy Hour and the Blessing “Urbi et Orbi” yesterday.  It was a remarkable message of Hope, Faith and Unity, watched by millions around the world.

Are you afraid?  Today, in the Gospel we are all challenged. Jesus told Martha,

“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

And he said to her,

Do you believe this?”

This is the question we should be asking ourselves.  [Read more…]

We hear in Psalm 33,

Our soul waits for the LORD, …
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things for American Christians and Catholics is to put our hope and trust in the Lord.  Really, really trust in Him.  Not just to believe, but to put our lives in his hands.

The readings today give us three figures who truly live the words of the “Our Father”, … “… thy will be done.”

[Read more…]

God calls his people to do His Will.  There is no one here who is not being called by God.  We are a people called by God.  You can’t sit this one out.  There are no sidelines or observers if you are of this people.  We were included and called by our Baptism.

The Israelites were a people formed by God from ancient times, a people of shepherds and wanderers called together and formed to be one people; God’s people.  Jews and Israelites are our older brothers and sisters in Salvation History.  Their story is our story.  Their call is our call.

Isaiah was God’s servant, saying,

“Now the LORD has spoken
who formed me as his servant from the womb,
that Jacob may be brought back to him
and Israel gathered to him ….”

Jeremiah said he was called by God from his mother’s womb.

St. Paul says he was called by God.

John the Baptist was called, saying,

 “… the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel.”

But there is much more here.  Isaiah heard from God,

“It is too little, the LORD says, for you to be my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel;
I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Around the year 931 BC the single kingdom of Israel which David and Solomon had ruled, split.  The northern tribes were called “Jacob” or “Israel”.  We later hear the southern tribes referred to as Judah, with their capital in Jerusalem.  Later, the Assyrians captured the northern tribes, and they disappeared, leaving a great sorrow in all Jews and Israelites.  God sent prophets and promises that he would,

“ … raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the survivors of Israel”

By the time of Jesus, all that was left of God’s people were the Jews in the southern kingdom of Judah, the “Jews”.

Finally, we hear that Jesus’ first mission was to restore the tribes of Israel.  Because, Israel was originally formed so that all nations could be saved by the nation of Israel, Israel was always destined by God to bring salvation to the world.  God told them through Isaiah,

“I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The Psalm provides us the proper response as God’s people,

“ Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will”

St. Paul calls to gentiles (We are gentiles called to God by our Baptism), saying,

“to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy,
with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.”

We are “called to be Holy”; that means to be with God.

John the Baptist said, when he saw Jesus approaching him,

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

And, John explained,

“… the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel.”

And after John baptized Jesus, he said to his followers,

“Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

So, John the Baptist was called to make known to Israel that Jesus was the Son of God.  Isaiah was called to prophesy about Israel and Jesus as the light to the world.  Paul was called to evangelize the world outside of Israel, the gentile world.  We are called to be the light to all nations.

How should we respond?

“ Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will”

The Gospel today waits for our response.

“Here I am, Lord.  You can count on me.  You can count on me.”