Category Archives: Homily

Homily for Christmas

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In our celebration of Christmas, we’re presented with a great irony. We’ve gathered this morning to celebrate the birth of Jesus in the humble surroundings of Bethlehem over 2000 years ago, but the irony of this celebration is that this innocent, sinless infant, this helpless child, came to Earth and was born to redeem guilty, sinful humanity from its sins.

Some of the most beautiful artwork in the history of Christianity was created in reflection on the birth of Christ. Icons, statues, paintings, music, and volumes upon volumes of writings have been dedicated to drawing us closer into the mystery that surrounds Christmas, that the second person of the Trinity would humble himself to take on human flesh and human nature. The amount of material that has been written on the Incarnation of the Lord would probably fill this church and there is still more to be written. Some of the greatest thinkers and artists of all time have pondered on Our Lord’s birth, and we are all the richer for the results of their labors.

Even with the beautiful imagery that surrounds Christmas, we would miss the whole point of His life if we were stop our reflection with just His birth. He came to Earth for a reason, and we miss that reason if we focus solely on His Nativity. As the readings today show, we cannot look at the cradle of Our Lord without seeing His Cross. It’s not by mistake that the second reading brings up the salvation that Our Lord gained for us through His death on the Cross. From before even the first moment of His existence on Earth, Our Lord’s life was dedicated to becoming the Sacrifice that atoned for the sins of humanity. Even with the light from the star which guided the three magi, the shadow of the Cross fell on the manger and followed him throughout his entire life.

Everything Our Lord did and said, especially during his three years of Earthly ministry, was oriented towards our salvation. Even when he was just a infant, having to be smuggled out of Judah for Egypt due to the death sentence placed upon all the infants by King Herod, his life was to be lived in atonement for our sins. The Holy Family’s escape to Egypt and later return to Galilee is often seen as Our Lord taking the salvation history of the people of Israel into his own life. Instead of merely participating in the important festivals and rites that commemorated events within Jewish history, Our Lord lived them symbolically through the events of his life.

This provides for us the example of how we need to live our lives as Christians. We need to take on our own salvation, make it an important part of our lives. We need to live every moment as Christians, not just the hour a week or less that we dedicate to Mass attendance. If we truly believed what we profess in the Nicene Creed, we would make our lives conform to our Christian belief, and not the other way around. As the Cross overshadowed Jesus’ whole life, it should also overshadow ours as well.

If more Christians were willing to live this way, our world would be dramatically transformed. Through the examples of our lives, people would be flocking to become Christian. Unfortunately, right now much of what non-Christians see of Christianity is the sins of those who profess to believe in Christ. It’s not uncommon to turn on a TV show and see the Christian as a hypocrite who publicly professes to follow Christ, but is hiding something contrary to his preaching. While this happens all too often in the real world, the fact that the media has picked up on it should be a warning for us that this is a problem we need to face.

As Christians, we need to recommit ourselves to following Christ, and not worrying about what the world believes. Before we can work on the culture, however, we need to get our own house in order. We need to refocus ourselves on the teachings of Jesus, and make regular reception of the Sacraments a priority in our lives. When we are willing to humble ourselves and commit our lives to the Cross, only then will the world be transformed.

Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

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In our Gospel today, we see the fulfillment of a hope. For nearly a thousand years, almost from the time of King David, the Jewish people were hoping for a new king, a Messiah, who would conquer the Gentile occupiers. This Messiah would rule over the people of Israel, and they would live in great prosperity and peace. Although he was not what they expected, Jesus’ first coming fulfilled the hope of Israel for a new king to rule over them. His second coming will be the fulfillment of our hope for salvation.

I think most of us know the story presented in the first reading. King David had all but subdued the enemies of the Israelite nation, and now the kingdom of Israel was in peace. The Ark of the Covenant was still in a tent, as it was during the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, while David resided in a palace made of stone and cedar wood. King David wanted to build a home for God among the people of Israel, as they were no longer nomadic and had no need to wander the countryside looking for places to set up camp. If the people of Israel were to live in Holy Land, the temple of God should also be a stable place within the city of Jerusalem.

It was not in God’s plan, however, that David be the one to build the temple, but David received the promise from God that his kingdom would last forever. He was promised a descendant who would call God his father, and God would call Him son. The coming of Our Lord not only fulfilled this promise to Israel, but created a new hope for all the nations.

King David wished to build a house for God in Jerusalem so that He would live among his people on Earth. It wasn’t until David’s son, Solomon, was ruling the kingdom of Israel that David’s wish for a house of God came to fruition. The Israelites viewed the Temple as more than just a mere symbol, but as truly where God resided here on earth. The Israelites were the chosen people of God, and He lived among them in the Temple.

When Our Lord came to Earth as a fulfillment of the promise to David, he didn’t descend to Earth on a fiery chariot, but chose to live among us silently. For the first nine months of his existence on Earth, Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was truly the House of God, the first dwelling place of Jesus. Just as the Temple was the dwelling place of God among the Israelite people, Our Lady became the dwelling place of God among all the nations. The hope of the people of Israel is now the hope of all peoples.

We often don’t understand what it means to have hope. Sometimes we use the word ‘hope’ as a synonym to ‘wish’ or ‘desire’. We might say something like, “I hope it’s not cold tomorrow,” or a child might say, “I hope I get a video game for Christmas.” In contrast to this common view, Mary shows us what it truly means to have hope in God through her openness to His will. Her hope was not a vague wish or desire, but was a complete and total trust in God’s promise to His people.

Because of Mary’s hope in God, the hope of all of Israel rests in her womb, silently waiting for the day in which He is to be revealed to the whole world. Patience is a virtue that many of us lack, myself included, but this season is one of patience. We’re patiently waiting for the celebration of Our Lord’s birth, but we’re also patiently waiting for His return. Just as Our Lord was born at the proper time, He will return at the proper time.

This patience should flow from our hope in His promised return, as hope is essential to being a Christian. We must hope that Our Lord will be with us during times of difficulty or times of joy. We hope that those we love will be with Him in Heaven after their deaths, and we hope that those newly born and baptized members of our families will grow up knowing and loving Him. Most importantly, we hope for that day when he will return again, and lead us all to the Promised Land, nomads no longer. Now, however, we wait with anticipation and hope for the celebration of His birth on Christmas. Come, Emmanuel!

Homily for the Third Sunday in Advent

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We’ve hit the midpoint in Advent. Only two more weeks until Christmas, and it seems like the whole country is focused solely on preparing for Christmas parties, gift-giving, and merriment. Every other show on TV seems to be a Christmas special, and all the old favorite Christmas songs are being played on the radio over and over again. It’s almost enough to make us look forward to Christmas Day so that it’ll be over.

While it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the constant barrage of Christmas cheer in the media and around town, we should be having a different reaction, one of rejoicing and anticipation. During this season of Advent, we’ve been preparing for the celebration of Our Lord’s birth, but we’re also preparing ourselves to welcome Jesus when he returns again. God wants us to approach this season with great rejoicing, as we are encouraged in today’s Entrance Antiphon, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near.” Now, we don’t frequently hear the Entrance Antiphon, since we often choose to use a hymn instead for the opening procession, but it is a part of the prayers of the Mass, often chanted with a Psalm or other Scripture verses.

Today’s Entrance Antiphon brings us the popular title for this Sunday in Advent, Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for rejoice, the first word in the antiphon, and is an encouragement for all of us to rejoice in the Lord, because He is coming. We usually wear bright colors when celebrating special events, thus the rose colored vestments in exchange for the ordinary purple of Advent, as today is a day of rejoicing along with our preparation for Christmas.

The reading this morning from the prophet Isaiah shows us why we should approach this season with rejoicing. He says that he “rejoice[s] heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice.” Isaiah was proclaiming the return of the people of Israel to the Promised Land after being removed by conquering armies, and like Isaiah, we have been wrapped in a robe of salvation. At our baptism, we were wrapped with that robe, symbolized by with white clothes of purity, and we entered into the Body of Christ and were given the promise that if we remain faithful to God, we would receive the gift of salvation.

Much as the people of Israel may have succumbed to despair during their long period of captivity, it’s easy for us to despair when wrapped in the anguish, sorrow, and struggles that frequently come with life on Earth. To us, Isaiah says that God will “make justice and peace spring up before the nations.” Ironically, as we’re experiencing bitter cold weather with lots of wind and blowing snow, Isaiah presents to us the image of the new Spring growth. Just as it seems impossible to imagine the first warm days of Spring during these cold days, it also seems impossible to imagine what life will be like when God reigns over the whole world as king. We know, however, just as the warm Spring will come and melt away the cold and snow, God’s reign will come, enveloping us with his love and mercy.

Today, let us join the Blessed Mother Mary in her song of praise which we sung in the Responsorial Psalm. Let us “proclaim the greatness of the Lord” and “[rejoice] in God [our] savior.”

Homily for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

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In 1792, the first bishop of the United States, John Carroll, dedicated the newly formed nation to the patronage of the Virgin Mary under the title of the Immaculate Conception, a patronage which continues until this day. It’s fitting, therefore, that our nation’s capital contains the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a large and very beautifully decorated church dedicated to Our Lady. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Washington DC, I highly recommend taking several hours and visiting this beautiful shrine. Along the sides of both the main upper church and the basement are over 70 chapels dedicated to honoring Our Lady in her various titles.

With all the images of Our Lady that are present in this shrine, it’s striking that the most noticeable image which a visitor sees upon entering the upper church is a large mosaic of Our Lord in the dome over the main altar. While it may seem out of place in this shrine dedicated to Our Lady, it is the exact point of both the shrine and the feast we celebrate today: through the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we see the saving grace of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.

When the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary, then a young woman living in Nazareth, he had been sent to present to her the news that she was to become the mother of the savior of the world. While God the Father had chosen Mary to be the mother of His Son, He respected her free will enough to give her the opportunity to accept or reject His divine will. Her acceptance of God’s will meant that His plan of salvation could go forward. To prepare Mary for her role as mother of the second person of the Trinity, God was able to apply the effects of Jesus’ death on the Cross to her from the first moment of her existence. Before she could bear the fully-divine, fully-human Son of God, she had to be made pure with no stain of sin.

Those of us who have been baptized have received this same gift of Christ’s salvation, but we are still affected by the stain of sin on our souls. We are still tempted by sin, and we still fall into sinful behaviors. The Blessed Virgin Mary is held up as the example of what we hope to be one day. As St. Paul tells us in the second reading, we have been chosen in Christ “to be holy and without blemish before Him.” All of us who remain in unity with Our Lord will one day have the stain of sin washed away for good, and will be as pure and spotless as Our Lady. We look forward to that day when we will be able to stand before Our Lord and His mother washed clean from sin. Until then, we ask Mary to intercede on our behalf to her son in order to prepare us for that day when we will see him face to face.

Mary, the Immaculate Conception, pray for us!

Homily for the Second Sunday in Advent

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There always seem to be some groups who attempt to predict the date the end of the world will come. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are up to about their fourteenth or fifteenth try. Some thought that it was going to be New Year’s Day, 2001, at the start of the new Millennium. Others looked at the Y2K bug as a portent of the end of civilization as we know it. Now, groups are saying that an ancient Aztec calendar ends in the year 2012, a prediction of the world ending during that year.

As Christians, we would be well advised to not listen to these “prophetic” groups. St. Peter in our second reading tells us that we don’t know when Our Lord will return. Instead, he compares the Second Coming of Jesus to a “thief in the night.” As anyone who has had their house or car broken into knows, it’s impossible to predict when a thief will decide that your property needs to become his. If we knew, we would take steps to stop him before he could even make the attempt. Because we don’t know, we make preparations to prevent anyone from even thinking about trying. We make sure that our doors are locked and windows are secured. We make sure that our house and cars have alarms which will scare the thief away if he does attempt to break in. In short, we do everything we can to secure our possessions and prepare for the thief’s arrival. As Christians, we must likewise prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ, even if we don’t know when he’ll return.

To help us understand the necessity of preparing for the coming of the Lord, we are given the example of John the Baptist. John knew that Our Lord was coming, even before his birth, as we see when Our Lady went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. He also knew that he was called by God to be the precursor to Jesus’ ministry. Much as an introductory speaker gets the audience ready for a major speaker, John was sent to prepare those who were under the Old Covenant for the coming of the Messiah and the New Covenant. St. Mark tells us in his Gospel that John fulfills the promise of the prophet Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading, that one will be sent to “prepare the way of the Lord”. John realized that this was his role, and he fulfilled it, even pointing his disciples to the Lord. We still use his words today in the Mass: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

Like John the Baptist, we are also called to be precursors to Christ. Instead of proclaiming his imminent arrival, as John the Baptist did, we are called to proclaim to the world the Second Coming of Our Lord, in which he will “judge the living and the dead”, as we say in the Creed. Our role is different than John the Baptist’s, as we can also proclaim what Jesus has done, both 2,000 years ago when he lived on Earth, and in our lives today. Not only can we testify on what He has done for us as individuals, we can also share the Gospel which he proclaimed, the Good News of salvation, freely offered to all.

As John the Baptist was sent to prepare the Jewish people under the Old Covenant for the coming of Jesus and the New Covenant, our proclamation of Jesus’ Gospel must prepare the whole world for Our Lord’s return. We are called to convert the whole world to Christ, but we must do it with true love and respect of all humanity. Force and intimidation is out, we can’t bribe people to become Christian, but must evangelize by our way of life. We must strive to live as Christ lived. We have to be willing to give totally of ourselves, our time, our skills, our possessions, even our very lives, for others. Instead of merely giving lip service to our faith, we must live what we believe. We must allow our actions to speak louder than words.

As we continue in this time of Advent preparations, getting ready for the celebration of Our Lord’s birth on Christmas Day, may we prepare not only for the earthly celebrations that surround Christmas, but also for the Heavenly celebrations in the world to come.

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King

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Today we’re celebrating the solemnity of Christ the King, which marks the last Sunday in the liturgical year. As Americans, many of us don’t have a clear idea of what it means for Jesus to be our king. When we think of kings, we might imagine King Arthur, a valiant, albeit flawed, warrior-king. We might think of the portrayal of King George III during the Revolutionary War as an insane and tyrannical ruler. But this is not how Jesus is presented to us. Our readings today show Jesus as a different sort of king: that of a shepherd-king.

Viewing Our Lord as both shepherd and king seem to be almost irreconcilable images. Shepherds were the poorest of the poor and the lowest class of people in Jesus’ time, as they are in many parts of the world today. In contrast, kings have always been viewed as rich and powerful, higher than any other person in their kingdom. Yet, the Gospel reading today shows Our Lord reigning as king. He is not, however, reigning as some petty tyrant, lording his power and prestige over his people. He has not come to his power through brute strength, conquering those who stand against him. Instead, the imagery in the Gospel uses language of shepherding, separating the sheep and the goats.

This imagery comes to us from the book of the Prophet Ezekiel, which we heard in the first reading. Ezekiel shows us that Our Lord cares for us as a loving shepherd cares for his flock. For those who are in any need, Our Lord will reach out and nurture them, filling their needs. He will go after those who are lost, gently leading them back into the flock. He cares for all of us, and wants us to follow Him into the Heavenly Kingdom.

For those who are proud, however, Our Lord promises that He will humble them. Frequently, shepherds would allow sheep and goats to graze together during the day, but when the time came to round up the flocks for the evening, the two animals would be put into separate pens. Thus, the sheep and the goats would be separated, the sheep to one pen, the goats to another.

Our Lord uses this image to show us the final judgment that will occur when Our Lord returns. We will be lined up before Him to judge how well we followed His example by the actions of our lives. Those who dedicated their lives to following Our Lord will be lined up on his right, and given their promised inheritance of the Kingdom of God. Those who did not follow His example will be lined up on His left, and will not receive the promised inheritance.

How do we follow Our Lord’s example? Is it merely enough to attend Mass once a week? Even as it’s important to maintain regular Mass attendance, Our Lord tells us we have to do more. We have to reach out to those around us who are in need of our support, our prayers, our generosity. When we reach out to those in need, Our Lord tells us that we reach out to Christ himself. We need to be open to those in need, give food to the hungry, clothe those who have insufficient clothing, especially in this time of year in which protective clothing is so vital.

We need to be careful not to view this Gospel as a checklist of things to accomplish. Feed the hungry, check. Clothe the naked, check. Visit the sick, check. We have to be open to our family, our friends, our coworkers, even those we dislike, and help them meet their needs. If someone needs a sympathetic ear, we need to be willing to provide it. If someone who is unable to drive needs a ride to the store or to an appointment, we should joyfully offer to take them. We have to be willing to do more than give our faith lip service. Instead of merely saying that we’re Christians, we need to live as Christ wants us to live, allowing our actions to speak for us.

Our Lord reigns in Heaven as our king. Let us honor and praise him by living as He commands, so that we may stand on his right side at the Final Judgment and receive the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Homily for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

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It’s hard to believe that we’re almost to the end of another liturgical year. In two weeks, we’ll begin the season of Advent. Four weeks later, we’ll celebrate with joy the birth of our Lord and Savior. Shortly after that, we’ll have the start of a new calendar year. This time of year is almost overwhelming.

As we reach the end of the liturgical year, we’re asked to focus not on the here-and-now, not on next month, or even next year. Instead, we are called to look at the end of time, at that point in our future when Our Lord returns from Heaven for the final judgment. In our readings, we are challenged to consider how we approach our time here on earth, and how we are looking forward to Jesus’ Second Coming. We need to be careful not to fall into several traps which are quite common in today’s world.

The first trap which people commonly fall into is one that Jesus saw back 2000 years ago, so it’s unfortunately not anything new. We hear it on the radio, televangelists promote it day in and day out: all you have to do to be saved is “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.” This trap, which the Gospel passage illustrates through a parable, states that salvation is a one-time good deal. Say a quick prayer, sincerely believe that Jesus has entered into our hearts, and we’re saved, right?

Not exactly. In the parable, Jesus shows us that our lives must bear fruit in this world into order to enter into the next life. Look at which of the servants were given the responsibilities in the kingdom and which were thrown into the darkness. Those servants who bore fruit from the master’s investment were given great responsibility within the kingdom, while that servant who merely buried the money, bearing no fruit, was cast out of the king’s presence. To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, we must be concerned about more than ourselves and our salvation, but must also have a deep concern for our neighbors’ needs and salvation. We must work in this life to bear fruit in the next. We can’t just sit back, assume that we’re saved, and not worry about those around us.

Along the same lines, there is a presumption that all we need to be saved is to be a “good person”. You frequently hear this at funerals. As long as we’re not hurting anyone, not talking against anyone too often, and generally being a decent person, we’ve got a one way ticket to Heaven. Once again, this isn’t the case. Merely being a good person is not enough to enter into Heaven. The only thing that will keep us out of Heaven is the refusal to ask God’s forgiveness for our sins. One can be a good person and still commit sins, as all of us are sinful people who need to have our sins forgiven. God, our Heavenly Father, wants us to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but respects our free will to choose for or against Him. We need to make sure that we’re in proper relationship to God, unmarred by sin, in order to enter into our heavenly reward when the time comes. Unfortunately, even good people can refuse to ask for God’s forgiveness.

The final trap that we can fall into is an excessive planning regarding our relationship to God. Throughout Christianity, many people have put off their reconciliation with God until they’re on their deathbeds. Even in the four and a half months since my ordination, I’ve had several people refuse the Sacraments of Anointing and Reconciliation until literally their last moments on Earth. This is spiritually a very dangerous practice that needs to be eliminated. We have no promises regarding the end of our lives. We could be in perfect health one minute and facing Our Lord at the Judgment the next. Modern medical technology can do a pretty good job of estimating life spans, but it’s nowhere near perfect. Even routine tasks, like driving down the highway, could become fatal quickly and unexpectedly. As St. Paul tells us in the second reading, we do not know when Our Lord will come for us, but that he will come “like a thief at night”, completely unexpected. We need to make sure that we’re always prepared for the return of Our Lord, as well as for our own death, by maintaining a right relationship with God, approaching Him for forgiveness when we cut ourselves off from Him through our sins.

As we approach the end of this liturgical year, may we keep the return of Our Lord in our sights, and may we prepare ourselves by working to develop good fruit and maintaining our relationship with Him.

Homily for the Feast of All Souls

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Throughout the Gospels, Our Lord continually promises us the great reward of joy and peace in Heaven for all those who follow him. All the pain and sorrow of our lives on Earth will be over. We also know that we have to undergo a period of cleansing before we can enter into that Heavenly reward, as Jesus also tells us that nothing unclean will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Before we can enter into Heaven, we have to die to our sins.

In our Gospel today, Jesus tells us that all who see Him and believe in Him will be raised on the last day. This raising is more than merely being resuscitated, as Lazarus was, but is a complete renewal and cleaning, being made ready to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As the prophet Isaiah tells us, we will no longer need to worry about death, pain, or any other effect of sin. Instead, we will be so filled with joy that we will praise our God with great excitement and energy. The joy in Heaven will be so great that humanity has never experienced a joy like it on Earth.

Before we can enter into this Heavenly reward, we need to be cleansed from all attachment to sin. As part of our sinful nature, we not only suffer the effects of Original Sin, which we all have to deal with, but we have also developed attachments to various sins. We all have what I call our “favorite” sins; those sins which we commit over and over again. Every time we commit a sin, the sin binds us more tightly, making it easier for us to commit that sin again.

While on Earth, we can ease the effects of our sinful nature by frequent reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but we must die to all attachment to sin before we can enter into Heaven. We have died to Original Sin and rose again through our baptism, but we still must physically die to escape the clutches of the sins we commit in our lives. It is only through this physical death can the snares of sin be broken.

After our death, our souls are still impure from the attachment to sin. It’s much like spilling red wine on a white shirt. You might be able to clean up all the wine, but the stain remains behind. To remove the stain of sin from our souls, we must undertake a period of cleansing in Purgatory. We don’t know exactly what form this cleansing will take, but we do know that those souls who enter into Purgatory will emerge at the end of their period of cleansing into Heaven purified and spotless. It’s important to point out that only those souls who have died in a state of grace, that is in proper relationship with God, will enter into Purgatory and later Heaven. Those souls who refused to ask God’s forgiveness for their Mortal Sins will not enter into Purgatory or Heaven.

When someone close to us dies, we might be quick to say something like, “They’re in Heaven now,” or “they’re in a better place.” The fact is we don’t know for sure whether they’re in Heaven or Purgatory, so we offer prayers on their behalf, especially the Mass. It’s traditional to have a funeral Mass following a death, as it gives the family and the community the opportunity to gather in prayer for the loved one who has died, as well as offer the greatest prayer we have, the Sacrifice of the Mass, for the repose of their soul. Another popular tradition is to have Masses offered on behalf of someone who has died, especially on the anniversary of their death. Through both these practices, we ask God to give the graces from the Mass to benefit the soul of those we pray for. In fact, the intention for the Mass of All Souls is for all the faithful departed, that they may all receive the graces from this Mass.

While those who have died are separated from us by the veil of death, they are also separated from the effects of sin on their lives. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Homily for the Feast of All Saints

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Through out the liturgical year, we celebrate the feasts of many saints by name. Some of the feasts are major celebrations, such as the feasts of Our Lord. Others are not as important, but are greatly celebrated in various regions of the world, like Our Lady of Guadalupe. Still others aren’t very important from a liturgical standpoint, but have been taken over by the secular culture, such as St. Patrick or St. Valentine.

Even with all the saints that we celebrate throughout the year, there are still many saints who don’t have their own feast days, most of whom are unknown by the Church. We’re told in the first reading, which shows us a vision of Heaven, that there is a great multitude of people standing before the Heavenly throne of God praising and worshiping him. All these saints, whether known or unknown, are able to intercede on our behalf.

While the saints are able to intercede for us, they also provide us the example we need to accomplish our goal of eternal life in Heaven. An important aspect of accomplishing any major goal is to find someone who has achieved that goal and emulate him or her. A kid who wants to play professional sports might look at how a professional player worked towards the pros. Likewise, our goal as Christians is to achieve eternal life in Heaven, so we look to the saints for the encouragement to follow them into Heaven. Through their examples of life and their love of God, the saints show us the path to eternal life.

Today, as we celebrate this feast of All Saints, may the great multitude of saints intercede for us so that we may join them in front of the Heavenly throne worshiping God our Father and Jesus Christ, his son. All holy men and women, pray for us!

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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In our Gospel today, Jesus is once again being tested by the Pharisees. They’re looking for something that they can use against Him to condemn Him, so they ask Him to state the greatest commandment. They want him to say something that is blasphemous and against the Jewish beliefs. Instead of falling into their trap, Jesus uses the opportunity to teach the Pharisees, and us as well, about how we should relate with others and how our relationship with God should be structured.

He tells us that the first commandment is that we must “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and that this is the greatest commandment. What does that look like to say we love God? We show our love of God by first of all making sure that our faith is not a one-hour-a-week thing. It’s all too easy as Christians in the world today to fall into the trap of not letting our belief in God influence most of our lives. We will spend one hour a week at Mass, possibly some time driving to and from the church, but as soon as Mass is over, Christianity has no influence on our behavior. We act no different than anyone else in the world. We don’t allow our faith to influence our daily lives. We’ve done our hour a week with God, so we’re good, right? Not quite.

We must take time throughout our days for regular periods of prayer. Prayer should be a priority within our days. Now, this doesn’t mean entering into a monastery or becoming a priest, but it does mean spending some time throughout each day in prayer. If we truly love God, we’ll want to spend some time with Him.

A popular way of doing this is to say the Angelus Prayer three times throughout the day. At 7:00 AM, 12:00 Noon, and 6:00 PM, the bells here at the church ring for a minute or so to remind those in town to spend a little time in prayer. Another common way is to spend time driving, say between here and Miles City, praying a Rosary instead of listening to the radio. However we do it, we truly show our love of God by spending time with Him in prayer on a daily basis.

After talking about loving God, Jesus then brings up love of neighbor. He didn’t need to talk about the second commandment, as the Pharisee only asked about the first commandment. By mentioning the love of neighbor, Jesus shows that the two commandments are closely linked. Our love of neighbor comes out of our love of God. If we don’t have our relationship with God in right order, we won’t be able to truly have a relationship with those around us.

Christianity is not a “me and Jesus” thing, an idea that is very common in our culture today. We hear televangelists talking about a “personal relationship” with Jesus, promoting an individualistic faith where it’s between me and God, and other people don’t matter. In contrast, Jesus tells us that our love of God leads us to love our neighbor. Our relationship with God is not individualistic, but should lead us to be open to the larger community around us. If we truly want to follow Our Lord, we’re going to reach out to our neighbor.

How do we show this love of neighbor? Jesus tells us to “love your neighbor as yourself,” so we must be willing to reach out to those around us who are in need. I’ve personally experienced this following the death of my grandfather, where friends and neighbors prepared meals for us while we were making preparations for the funeral. We also can show our love of neighbor by listening to someone who is going through a difficult time. Love of neighbor is also shown through providing some necessity of life when someone is lacking these necessities, such as food or shelter.

We also show our love of neighbor by not talking negatively about them. Gossip is all too prevalent, and is very easy to fall into. It’s also very destructive of our relationships with those around us, as it frequently paints others in an overly negative light. All of us are influenced, in one way or another, by what we hear about others, and this affects how we interact with them. We all have our failings, and we must be willing to overlook the failings of those around us, just as we would want them to overlook ours.

As Christians, we are called to love God completely. May our love of God lead us to love our neighbor as ourselves.