December 15, 2024: Third Sunday of Advent/Gaudete Sunday

Even as we wait for Christmas Day to celebrate the Nativity of Christ, we are jumping for joy.

We recognize that God is among us, and He gives us reason to rejoice no matter our external circumstances.  Like the reading from the prophet Zephaniah, God delights in us.  He has made possible a way for us to be free from sin.

We are no longer afraid of His presence, like when the Hebrews were frightened to see God descend on Mount Sinai.  He comes to us with the desire to transform us so that we live in devotion to Him, making space for Him in us.

Furthermore, we can take a cue from St. Paul, who wrote the words in today's 2nd reading while in prison:  No matter our circumstances, we rejoice always because God is close to us, and that grounds us with a great assurance of peace that surpasses what we can understand.  I think back to Gaudete Sunday many years ago in college when St. Teresa's put on a huge celebration for us right before we entered our week of testing at the semester's end. Even with all we had going on, we could rejoice that God is among us, because we recognized it in the community we had at St. Teresa's that made Him real.

I'm glad that I've become more aware of God's Presence by writing these short reflections on the Scriptures of Sunday and Holy Day Masses, which started exactly 11 years ago on Gaudete Sunday, December 15, 2013, as I rode a wave of a newfound appreciation of faith in those initial months after college.

We rejoice that God comes to us, which is giving us a joyful new purpose in life.

December 12, 2024: Feast of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

We rejoice because God delights to dwell among us.

He revealed His presence in our world powerfully anew to San Juan Diego along with miraculous roses and La Virgen's image.

We leap with joy like St. John the Baptist because God dwells among us, delights in us, and works marvelously in us.

December 9, 2024: Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

God filled Mary with graces from her conception so that she could be a pure vessel, a tabernacle for the Son of God.

Similiarly, God has chosen us to be part of His plan of salvation.  He fills us with His grace from baptism so we can be tabernacles and bear the Son of God into the world.

May Our Lady, most pure, intercede for us, and, as the Patroness of the USA, for our land.

December 8, 2024: Second Sunday of Advent

In a world marked by gloom, God has brought us reason from great joy.

He has done great things, especially in leading us out of the doom and gloom into joy.  Indeed, He leads us from a life marked by sin to a life marked by His presence active in us.

He has spoken His Word, manifested fully in Jesus Christ.  He was heralded by the prophets, culminating in St. John the Baptist.  John called people to repent so they would be ready to receive so wonderful a gift as the coming of Christ into the world, living in His way of love.

It's just like the Blessed Mother Mary did, whose Feast of Immaculate Conception we would typically celebrate on December 8.  She provides a great model of how to receive Christ with joy for the joy He is, and live devoted to Him.

May she, the Patronness Saint of the USA, continue to intercede for God's blessings in our land, that Christ's presence may truly bring us alive.

And may this Advent continue offer us reason to rejoice as we make a place for God to enter our lives as we follow the highway He lays out before us to encounter His presence and abide with Him.

Bishop Barron's homily this week offers great insights into the idea of a highway leading us from sin to a new way of life in God.  For we don't have to be stuck in sin anymore because God, through the redemptive power of Christ, has made a way for us to leave it behind and embrace His presence fully.

December 1, 2024: First Sunday of Advent

Coming straight off one liturgical year, we enter a new year with continued emphasis on the End of Time and the coming again of our Savior Jesus Christ as promised by God.

He will set everything right with our world.

As we prepare for the coming of the fullness of God's Kingdom, we hear the call to prepare our hearts.

Indeed, we lift up our souls to God Who is faithful and has promised to bring salvation.  He is truly our hope.

We seek to live in conduct that is pleasing to God so that we may be ready for His coming again at the end of time, and also to welcome Him into our hearts now, the kind of conduct by which we bless others.

November 24, 2024: Solemnity Sunday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

We acclaim Christ as a great King on this last Sunday of the liturgical year.

As the readings make clear, especially the Gospel, He is a different kind of King.

He doesn't follow the typical ideas of an earthly King, like what Pontius Pilate has in mind when he questions Jesus.

Furthermore, Christ transcends the idea of an earthly King.

He entered into our humanity to show us the reign of God's love by dying for us on the Cross.

Now He lives and reigns on High as the Mighty One, the Alpha and the Omega, holding all time in His hands.  He spreads that love to all the world, because through the Cross, Love has triumphed, as His Kingdom shows.  The reading from Daniel describes how the Son of Man comes on the clouds, imagery of God's revelation.

We have the opportunity to advance the Kingdom of God by opening our hearts so God may reign in us, and cooperate with His grace as we live to honor Him Who shed His blood for us so we could enter that Kingdom and be priests to serve our God. This Kingdom will not end, in the spirit of the words from the first reading in Daniel, because it stands for Who God is, characteristics that are timeless.

One notable person who did so much to advance the Kingdom of God in the Western Hemisphere was San Padre Junipero Serra, who founded several missions up and down the California coast.

Cardinal Cupich has done much to serve the Kingdom of God in the course of 10 years since his installation as Archbishop of Chicago on November 18, 2014.

Holy Name Cathedral celebrated its 175th anniversary on November 18, 2024, and the occasion is a great opportunity to reflect on how this cathedral parish community has advanced the Kingdom of God through worship and service.  It was splendid to attend a special Mass celebrated by Caridnal Cupich at the Cathedral today to celebrate this milestone.

20 years ago, on the eve of Christ the King Sunday, I attended my Confirmation Enrollment Mass.  The liturgy gave me the opportunity to be aware of how by my Confirmation, I would live more fully in the Kingdom of God, to show God's timeless characteristics, especially His Love, to the world.

Indeed, as I reclaimed the 2nd reading today, from the ambo, I gazed upon Christ the King in the rose window at the other end of Church, flanked by Alpha and Omega.  He Who was once dead, now is alive and rightly rules.

November 17, 2024: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has promised He is coming again.  Christ will come to set everything right, and establish a new order for everything.  He has already revealed this new order in the Paschal Mystery of His Death and Resurrection.

Those of us who were faithfully in relationship with God in this life and lived that relationship in righteousness will shine.

We can count on God to fulfill His promises because Christ came to offer the one perfect sacrifice that makes us, His Chosen, righteous before Him.

Now, we live in a state of readiness, living out the righteousness God imparts to us as we await His coming again, making ready by helping to bring forth the Kingdom on Earth now.

It is a Kingdom that will one day come in its fullness and last forever. For even though Heaven and Earth shall pass away, as Jesus said, His Word shall not, and that will be at the foundation of the Kingdom where we will be with Him forever, even as He is with us now.  We will live in the fullness of His Love that, as Bishop Barron said in his homily for this Sunday, He has revealed already in the Paschal Mystery, and the revelation to come will manifest His Lordship.

It was a special evening in Oak Park at the Sunday evening Mass with the Confirmation enrollment when the young people preparing for this sacrament expressed their commitment to the process.  It was a time to recognize how they are chosen to be part of advancing the Kingdom of God that is coming, even as we recognize how God has chosen us to be part of His Kingdom.  This week, I will reflect on my own Confirmation enrollment Mass 20 years ago.  And this week marks 10 years since Blase Cupich was installed as Archbishop of Chicago, and his role in shepherding the church in the Archdiocese of Chicago to Eternal Life.

November 10, 2024: 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

On yet another Little Easter, we behold the Mystery of how God gave of Himself totally for us.

We see an illustration of it in the widow who gave of all she had to serve Elijah, in the midst of the desperation of a drought, trusting in God's Word through Elijah that she would have enough.  Then, God provided abundantly.

Jesus acclaimed a widow who put two small coins in the Temple treasury, demonstrating how she was giving out of her livelihood, all she had, as a sacrificial offering.

These stories remind us that we can trust God because He sent His Son Jesus Christ, Who, just days after this encounter with the widow in the Temple, would give totally of Himself on the Cross as the all-sufficient sacrifice that would bring us salvation.

As people saved and chosen by God, we are called to follow in the way of our Savior to live, giving of ourselves sacrificially to honor God while serving others.

November 9, 2024: Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica

We are a Church because we are a body brought together in Christ, Who offered His Body to save us.

We build upon that foundation, and by Christ's power, we reach to Heaven.

November 3, 2024: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

God is God and He is the source of everything.  He declared Himself to be God alone to the people of Israel when He delivered them from Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land.  To be in a relationship with Him, God commanded them to love Him with all their heart, mind, and strength, as He reveals Himself in love.

Jesus Christ came to show us the full extent of God's love by offering Himself for us so we could be restored to a right relationship with God.

Now, we love to acknowledge the reality of God's existence and presence in our lives, and to reflect what God has done for us.  We love the unseen God by loving our neighbors.

Since God is the source of everything, all we do is a means to more fully realize God's presence in our lives and in our world.

One great example of someone who lived the love of God was St. Martin de Porres, whose feast day is today.  Because he was a mixed-race person, he faced much discrimination.  Yet he sought to grow in divine character and faced discrimination with character revealing God's presence.  Indeed, he made God more real in the world by facing hatred with divine love.

November 2, 2024: All Souls Day

By the power of Christ's redemption, God makes death a gateway to new life.

In His mercy, He makes possible a path for the souls of the faithful departed.

Christ has promised Eternal Life for those who live professing faith in Him and the power of His Resurrection.

So we confidently acknowledge that nothing, not even death, can separate us from experiencing God's love.

November 1, 2024: Solemnity of All Saints

God desires holiness for us, a way of life that leads straight to the fulfillment of the Beatific Vision in which we constantly and ceaselessly gaze upon God.

Ultimately, all our desires are fulfilled in the Beatific Vision.

And He is already revealing this reality to us in foretastes of Heaven.

By the Paschal Mystery of Christ, God has made it possible for us to grow in holiness, exhibiting the character that reveals God to the world, laid out in the Beatitudes.  The saints who have achieved Heaven are rooting for us to experience this Glory in its fullness.

So as we live God's way, we are making the reality of Heaven known as we journey there.

October 27, 2024: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

We rejoice in our God because He brings healing and restoration to our world.

He brought it to His people after they went into exile as punishment for straying from God.

In Jesus, He brought it to a blind man, whom some considered had a disability as punishment for sin. Yet this man sees with faith, and calls out to Jesus as the One Who can save Him, not ceasing when people try to silence Him..

Jesus called Him, and rightly declared that Bartimaeus's faith has saved him, and sends him on his way with sight restored.

Jesus's healing demonstrates how He is a great high priest Who was called by God for the purpose of coming to restore our world. We can join with the people in the Psalm who rejoice in the great things God has done for us, and then follow after Christ in that mission.

October 20, 2024: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When Christ entered the world, He offered many countercultural ideas, including how to be great.

He came to offer Himself and experienced great suffering, which had great power because His sufferings justified us His people and brought us back to God.

We can truly count on Him for our salvation, because He joined us in our sufferings, made redeemed them so they would have a purpose.

The apostles didn't really latch on to this idea right away, given how Sts. James and John requested important positions of with Christ in His glory, and then the others feuded with them about who was the greatest.

Jesus offers us a model.  Contrary to the world's ideas about gaining power and lording it over others, Jesus says the measure of our greatness is how we serve others.

By serving, rather than being served, we make God's presence known in the world.

Thinking back to my Confirmation 19 years ago this past week, I set myself on a path to being great by being equipped to make Christ known in loving and serving others.  Surely that's why teaching Religious Education has been such an extraordinary experience, because I've discovered who God has made me to be by giving of myself.

October 18, 2024: Feast of St. Luke

When we commit ourselves to Christ, we follow in a way that calls us to uphold the Gospel message and live out the Good News.  This Good News was proclaimed by angels at the start of the Gospel according to St. Luke.  It led to magnificent praises of God that are part of the Church's Liturgy of the Hours.

It travels far and wide as Jesus sends His disciples out to proclaim the news that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

It is such Good News that God brings healing to all people through the power of His mercy.  He raises them to a new sense of life, like the two disciples who were despondent as they journeyed to Emmaus, and then were in awe when they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

The Holy Spirit empowered the Church to proclaim what God has given us, as we see in Acts.

We continue this message today as we hear the Good News proclaimed and go forth in the Holy Spirit for our mission to announce the Good News.

October 13, 2024: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A rich young man approached Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit Eternal Life.

Jesus responded by uttering the commands, and the man affirmed that he had been keeping them.

Then Jesus took it to the next step and told him to build up treasure in Heaven.

Ultimately, following the way of Jesus is about more than just obeying rules.

It is about inner transformation that leads us to grow in relationship with God in response to the gifts of salvation, faith, and grace that He freely gives us.

Part of this inner transformation is when we encounter God in His Word, for that Word penetrates our hearts to discern what is within us.

Knowing that faith is a gift freely given by God, let us respond by opening ourselves to transformation.  Through the gift of Wisdom, we gain everything that is valuable because we understand what has the greatest value, and we are transformed to seek after it above all.

So yes, we might gain something in this life from following Jesus, but ultimately, we gain the greatest gift of Eternal Life, while God is present with us all along the way.

October 6, 2024: 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God established a beautiful order for our world, when from the beginning, He created male and female, equal in dignity and bearing His image.

Yet when the world fell into sin, the harmony that brought men and women into marriage was disrupted, and the Law of Moses addressed it through divorce proceedings.

When Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, came, He reminded us of the order that God set from the beginning, that men and women would come together as One Flesh to reflect God's image in our world.  From the marital union comes children, who also reflect God.

Jesus did not simply command us to avoid divorce, but came to identity Himself with our sufferings and redeem them so we could be restored back to right relationship with God and one another.

So we come humbly to God in our neediness and brokenness with faith that He has the power to bring us alive in Him, that the world may know our God.

October 2, 2024: Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels

God has been specially looking out for His people, guiding them in the way of salvation through angels, ministering spirits.

Angels guided the Hebrews on their journey to the Promised Land.

They continue aiding us today.

By childlike faith in our God, we come to Him, trusting that He is leading us in the way of salvation, with the angels supporting us through the troubles of this work to encounter God's presence.

September 29, 2024: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God's Spirit is powerful, manifesting Himself even in places where we wouldn't expect it.

This power can't be contained according to our ideas.

It is at work summoning us to a new understanding of how God is active in our lives.

Joshua and John were off in their thinking when they see others acting in God's power.  Moses and Jesus respectively counter them and indicate that these "outsiders" should be encouraged to do this work in the Name of God.

Indeed, God desires for all people to be prophets through whom He speaks His word.

It happens even through the little gestures, like offering a cup of cold water, to offer refreshment in a world marred by those seeking only selfish gain.

These passages were proclaimed 9 years ago at the Concluding Mass for the World Meeting of Families along Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

In the midst of that gathering, Pope Francis talked about how little gestures are glorious ways God manifests Himself.

Through the Spirit, we can understand new ways that God presents Himself to us through others.

September 29 is normally the Feast of the Archangels, and we see how God works through them to aid us toward salvation, just as He works to advance His Kingdom in those who act by faith in His Name.

September 22, 2024: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Gospel reading is another important example of how Jesus Christ offers a countercultural idea to help us understand the way of faith in Him.

Children had no social status in His time on Earth. So while the disciples argue over who is the greatest, after Jesus predicts His Passion again, Jesus brings a child center stage to describe how we, as His disciples, are called to live our lives.  We are to embrace a sense of humility by which we focus less on enhancing ourselves and our egos, and instead focus on who God has meant us to be, in the model Christ offers us.  We recognize that living out who God has created us to be can lead us to face significant hardship, as Jesus did in His Passion.

Yet in following this humble way, we turn away from petty arguments about what will enhance ourselves, and focus on bearing fruits that will reveal God to the world.  This fruit can even appear in our sufferings as God works His power of redemption.  Indeed, in teh spirit of the Psalm, the sacrifice we offer to our God Who sustains is a life lived in a way that honors Him.

This morning at Mass, I went up to the altar with others serving in catechetical roles in the Religious Education program this year for a blessing.  I think back on my 11 years of teaching middle school RE. In doing so, I have drawn from so much faith formation I experienced growing up and all the way into college, and it has been a blessing to encounter God by giving of myself in accompanying my students to encounters with God.

September 21, 2024: Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

God has called each of us to His mission, and we fulfill it in different ways.

Indeed, God calls people from all walks of life.  He saw St. Matthew at the tax booth, not as someone working against the Jewish people, but as someone with the potential to be transformed by God's power, so Jesus called Him. Matthew recognized that power, so he left his tax collector work and followed Jesus. 

Matthew entered a new way of life by which he would be transformed to proclaim the reality of God present among us in the Flesh, as heralded by the prophets, and working in us through the power of death and resurrection to be more like God.

September 15, 2024: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

As a fitting follow-up to yesterday's Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we consider what the Cross means for us.

Jesus Christ is God's divinely Anointed One.  To fulfill God's purposes, He must suffer, which is something that doesn't make sense to the disciples, including St. Peter, who, after declaring Him Christ, rebukes Him for such an idea, maybe even recoiling at the idea that he would have to suffer with Christ.  Yet St. Peter is focused on human ways, rather than God's ways.

Following the Cross involves suffering for bearing the name of Christ.  Yet in losing ourselves, we gain the promises of God that are fulfilled in Eternity.

That reality gives us purpose now.  Indeed, we don't just claim faith, but we open ourselves to transformation by faith so that we demonstrate it with our works that make God real in the world.  Bishop Barron said it well in his homily that God doesn't want to just heal us by the Cross and Resurrection, but deify us, make us reflect God's character.

Today is Catechetical Sunday, and I have much to reflect on as I begin my 12th year of teaching Religious Education.  As I seek to hand on the faith to my students, I realize how important it is that I model what I'm imparting to them.

So we follow Christ's way to Life.  On our journey, we are transformed to show that we are bound for Eternal Life as we share, through our actions, our hope with others.

September 14, 2024: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Once a symbol of evil, God has redeemed the Holy Cross as an instrument for salvation, and the pathway to glory.

On this day 210 years ago, the US flag flew in triumph over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, and inspired the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner".  Even more so is the Cross as a triumph.

Like Jesus said, Moses lifted up a bronze serpent in the desert, which brought healing when God's people went astray.  Even more so, when Jesus was lifted up, He reversed the curse of sin and brought Eternal Life to all people.

We now join with all in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth confessing Jesus as Lord, the One Who, by the Cross, is exalted.  Furthermore, we share in His victory because we have a new way of life now in the Cross.

We share in this triumph with all the saints, like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was canonized this day as the first saint born in the USA.  Indeed, the Cross gives us great hope, because through it, God conquered evil in the world and brought us the triumphant victory.

September 8, 2024: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has promised to unleash His mighty healing power in our world.  We are no longer afraid as God, once dead Who now truly lives, brings forth new life in our world.

Yet the physical healings are a sign of His healing might:  He removes the blindness from our eyes that prevents us from encountering Him.  He opens our eyes so that we can truly see with faith how He is at work in our world.  He furthermore helps us see the needs of the world, and urges us to act and respond to them.

Truly, the words are true of the people who see Jesus's miracles and acclaim Him for doing "all things well".  He continues to do all things well as He removes obstacles from us so that we can follow His way of identifying with the poor and lowly, acting to meet their needs, by which we recognize God present in them.

We are called to open ourselves to the voice of God and then act when He speaks as He makes HImself present in our world.

He made Himself fully present through the Blessed Mother, whose Nativity we celebrate today, when said consented to God's plan for her to bear the Son into the world.

God continues to make Himself marvelously present at each Mass, like happened in a special way on September 8, 1565, when a group of Spanish settlers participated in the first Mass celebrated in what is now the USA.

Indeed, God offers us His abundant Life so that, free from blindness and other impediments, we can actively respond to His Word taking shape in our world and our lives.

September 1, 2024: 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

God builds upon the commands of the Old Testament in Jesus Christ:  He now calls us to live with a right heart that honors God.

Jesus called out the Pharisees for being so concerned about external matters, rather than the interior disposition of their hearts.

Ultimately, St. James writes is well when He says that true religion is to care for others in need and be undefiled by the world.

Conducting ourselves in this way reveals that God is present in our hearts, and reveals we are His specially chosen people.

August 25, 2024: 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

On the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 23, 2009, I attended Mass at St. Teresa's Catholic Student Center for the first time, a day after coming to Valparaiso University to start my college education.

I heard the same readings at Mass today, once again in Valparaiso.

Jesus has presented a profound message about His Body and Blood throughout the course of John 6, and it compels a response from those who hear Him.  Some, unable to comprehend what He said, discontinue as disciples and return to their former way of life.

Then Jesus turns to the Twelve and asks them if they want to leave.

St. Peter responds with a firm statement of commitment, acknowledging that Jesus is the Holy One of God, speaking the words leading to Eternal Life, as the Word.

In the first reading, Joshua also compels the people to make a choice, and states that he and his household will serve the Lord.  The people, aware of all that God has done to bring His people to the Promised Land, state their commitment to serve the Lord.

When I heard these words 15 years ago, God was presenting me a choice to commit to my part as a member of the Church community.  Fully aware of how God was making Himself present to me through the community of St. Teresa's, I responded by getting involved.

Today, Bishop McCLory celebrated a special Mass for the 50th Anniversary of St. Teresa's.  He said that making a commitment is not a one time matter, but something God calls us to do continuously.

And so when we come before the altar to receive His Body and Blood, we answer the call again to be part of His church community, responding in love to the One Who has loved us and given of Himself for us, an image reflected in the martial union of husband and wife.

Keeping constantly aware of how God makes His sacrificial love present to us, we always have reason to respond and remain committed to our relationship with Him, and then go forth in our mission to share that love with all the world.

I know that I am blessed to have had a part in the 50 years of ministry that St. Teresa's has offered, because it truly has impacted my life and sent me forth to live out the encounters I had with God during my years at St. Teresa's.

August 18, 2024: 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Paul exhorts the faithful to live in the spirit of thanksgiving.

God has given us so many abundant riches, as described in the first reading from Proverbs.  This banquet points toward the greatest of these riches God has gifted us in the Very Life of His Son Christ, Who is the Bread of Life.

Like Bishop Barron states in his homily for this Sunday, it was quite a paradigm shift for Jesus's audience.  They adhered to rules that forbade eating any animal with its blood, which was its life, still in it.  Now Jesus, the Word of God Made Flesh, creates a new way of life.

More than just a gift, the Eucharist is God Himself, as God transforms food and drink to be His presence.  When we eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, He truly lives in us, and we have Eternal Life.  As we strive toward the fullness of Eternal Life in Heaven, we experience it now as we live, reflecting God's character.

August 15, 2024: Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary

For centuries, the Church has held to the doctrine defined in 1950, that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.

As the first disciple, she experienced what we hope to experience, that we will be in the fullness of life with God, both body and soul.

We follow the way to Eternity through the Church, which Christ, born of Mary, established.

On our way to Heaven, we rejoice with Mary in the mighty works God has done for us, manifesting salvation before us through the Son Who is present with us, the reason for our hope.

August 11, 2024: 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God is always seeking to sustain His people in their great need.

He did so for the Hebrews journeying through the desert.  He did it again for Elijah the prophet as he fled Jezebel.  An angel twice insisted He get up and eat.

Ultimately, God provides for us in the fullest way in Jesus Christ, Who declared Himself the Bread of Life.  Yet like the Hebrews murmured in the desert, grumbling against God, some gathered before Jesus are hardened against His declarations.

Truly, God is the One Who draws people to Himself.  He provides the way to Eternal Life by offering Himself as the Bread of Life that brings us into Eternal Life now.

It is a way that calls us to love God and show that love to others, leaving aside behaviors that cause hurt and fostering Christ-like behavior of goodness.

Christ is truly a fragrant offering pleasing to the Father which has become a blessing to us, Who partake of His offering.

August 6, 2024: Feast of the Transfiguration

Throughout history, God unveiled great revelations to His people, including through the prophets.

He reveals the fullness of His glory in Jesus Christ, and the Transfiguration gives a pre-Paschal Mystery glimpse of it.

This wondrous event truly speaks to the reality behind the reality, as Father Bobby said at Mass today at St. Leonard.

While we continue through the ordinary circumstances of life, we're driven by a reality that we know is true because of the glimpses God has given us.

We continue on our way to Heaven, to live as truly alive because we're bound for glory, and we've experienced it now.

August 4, 2024: 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When God's people, the Hebrews, journeyed in the wilderness to the Promised Land, they despaired because they lacked sufficient food.  God, in His grace and mercy, provided them quail and manna. It was a sign of how they had to depend on God to sustain them.

Now, God has come to us in His fullness in Christ.  When talking with the people in Capernaum in the Gospel reading from John 6, they referred to the bread from heaven that Moses gave them.  Christ then indicated He is the true bread from heaven, the Bread of Life Who came down to bring life to the world.

Truly, we depend on Jesus to satisfy us in the fullest way, so that we will never hunger or thirst.

Furthermore, as St. Paul writes, we are transformed to leave behind our former way of life, living as renewed people, exhibiting God's righteousness.  He imparts it through Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life.  He gives us His Life and then we are called to share it with the world.

July 28, 2024: 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Throughout history, God has shown His ability to provide for His people abundantly.

The 1st reading shows how Elisha, as the man of God, fully aware of what God can do, insists that twenty barley loaves are enough for a large group of 100.

This reading points toward the Gospel reading, when Jesus fed 5000 men, and others, with 5 loaves of bread.  It is one of several signs in teh Gospel according to St. John, and points to how God provides life-giving gifts for His people, which Jesus will explain in detail in the coming weeks in the rest of chapter 6.

Yet the people see Jesus's extraordinary ability and think He should be a king.

Instead, they, and we, are called to see in these signs that God provides for our greatest need, that of salvation, in Christ.  We turn to Him.  He binds us together in one faith in our God Who saves us fully, and sustains us with His life through the sacraments, as part of one church that is sent to serve the world.  As one major take-away from the National Eucharistic Congress, God gives us His life so that we can bring life to the world, that all may see this God at work to fill us abundantly.

On this day when we celebrate our Grandparents and our Elders, we give thanks for how faith is handed on from one generation to the next, and we can draw upon those ageless and timeless principles to sustain us in the life that God has given to the world through His Son Who continues to offer Himself to us in the Eucharist.

July 25, 2024: Feast of St. James

God calls us to follow the way of Christ, which means we suffer and then rise to glory, as Jesus made clear to the disciples when the mother of James and John asked for privileged places for them.

Furthermore, He calls us to live in this spirit of Christ throughout our lives as we seek not to be served, but to serve.

We thus reveal the presence of Christ at work in our world, as God works in us, putting treasures as in jars of clay, common containers.  Even in our sufferings, we persevere because the path leads to the fulfillment of God's purposes.

July 22, 2024: Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

St. Mary Magdalene was truly transformed by Christ's healing power.

She was filled with a passionate love for Him, and she was the first witness of the Resurrection.

Once she encountered the Risen Lord, she proclaimed the Good News.

So our faith calls us:  Once we have been healed and brought to New Life in the Risen Christ, we are sent forth to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ, Who was once dead, is now alive, bringing life to the world, even through us.

In the wake of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress, she provides a great example for us as we go forth.

July 21, 2024: 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God has sent us a Good Shepherd in Jesus Christ, to undo the harm of shepherds who didn't have a heart for their people.

Christ reestablished justice and righteousness.  By the offering of Himself, He brought God and His people back together again.

He did so with a compassionate heart.  Even though He and the apostles needed a rest, Christ saw the crowd and was moved to meet their needs, teaching them that which would lead them to Eternal Life.

Truly, He offered His Presence as a gift.  And in light of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress that concluded with Mass today in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, He continues to offer the gift of Himself for the Life of the World.

When we enter into this life, we share in the mission to bring that Life to others by offering ourselves as God's presence to others.

July 14, 2024: 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

From ancient times, God has called His people in the midst of their life's circumstances to a new mission, to proclaim the message He gives.

Amos was one of the country folk and was called to speak God's Truth to power.

When Jesus came, even while He was in His ministry, He sent His disciples to do the works that would proclaim God's presence and kingdom in the world.

God chose us, as St. Paul writes in the 2nd reading, before the foundation of the world to be holy and participate in God's work in the world by revealing Him to the world.

One great example relevant to today is St. Kateri Tekakwitha.  She was born among the indigenous people of the Iroquois area and later in life, embraced the Christian faith even at the risk of being scorned by her family and her people.  Yet she was devoted to God and living a life of holiness, showing Him to the world.

We now answer this call by embracing the graces God pours into us so that we can be set apart and live for Him.

July 7, 2024: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Just as I visited my grandfather's hometown of Ottumwa, IA this weekend, Jesus returned to His hometown in the Gospel reading.  His own people were so stuck in their ideas of Who He was that they couldn't appreciate the way He spoke and made God present to them.

After many prophets spoke to God's people, He now speaks to us in His fullness in Jesus Christ.  In hardness of heart, we can close ourselves to what God says to us, even that we're not good enough for God to be present with us.

It is by the power of faith that we see how God is truly present to us.  We have an opportunity, because Christ is here, to open ourselves to God. Even in our weaknesses, God is at work, bringing us alive, as He speaks the Word that transforms us.

June 30, 2024: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

As the reading from Wisdom indicates, God didn't create us so that we would experience death.  But then Satan wrecked the world.

So Christ came and made possible the way out of death's grip.

In the Gospel reading, He demonstrated His power over death and the ailments that lead to death.  Under the Jewish ritual laws, Jesus would have become impure when the woman affected by constant bleeding touched Him.  Yet she reached out in faith and courage because she knew that He had the power to help her.  He took upon her uncleanness and made her whole, and He acknowledged her faith that saved her.

Then, Jesus entered the room where Jairus's daughter lay deceased.  Without fear, He touched her body and brought her back to life.

Ultimately, Jesus has brought us wholeness by pouring Himself out upon the Cross and taking on our infirmities.  Then He resurrected to new Life so we could experience the fullness of our healing.

We live as people filled with His graces and are called to the mission of sharing them abundantly with others in our lives.

Today was a special day at Holy Name Cathedral when the Marian Route of the Eucharistic pilgrimage was present in the Archdiocese of Chicago.  It was an opportunity for us to experience the powerful, overflowing graces that Jesus Christ continues to offer us in the Eucharist, and then to embrace the mission to go out and share our encoutner with others, as we did when we processed around the Cathedral following the Blessed Sacrament.

Indeed, we have received a great gift in Christ's Presence, and we are called to share it generously and abundantly.

June 29, 2024: Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

Saints Peter and Paul are two foundational figures in the Church because of the testimony they offered by dying for Christ and by how they lived.

They overcame their flaws that kept them from God so they could boldy proclaim the Gospel.

It happened because God chose them and worked in them, just as He does in us who continue to live by faith that is stewarded by the Church founded upon the testimony of these Apostles.

June 24, 2024: Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

A great Light entered the world when Jesus Christ was born.

God specially chose St. John the Baptist for the role of heralding the arrival of the Messiah, starting from the moment he leaped in the womb of his mother when Mary arrived carrying Jesus in her womb.

Because of the coming of Jesus into our world, we all have a special role to play in announcing the Good News of salvation, and John is our example because his life was devoted to pointing toward the Messiah.

Jesus Christ has bestowed His grace and has transformed us.  Now, by faith, we can live abundantly, with purpose, and participate in the mission to build the Kingdom of God on Earth showing how God is making the earth anew.

June 23, 2024: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When the storms of life arise, in our frail human nature, it's easy for us to be afraid and think that God is absent, just as the apostles became afraid when the storm on the lake arose as they were traveling in their boat.

By faith, we are called to recognize how present God is even in the midst of storms.  He will come to our aid, and we must have faith and trust in His power.

He demonstrated this power in the death and Resurrection of Christ, bringing us salvation, and meeting our greatest need. Through this Paschal Mystery, God has now recreated us into a new creation, as St. Paul so masterfully writes.  We are driven by the Love God has shown us through Jesus on the Cross.  He Who created the Heavens and the Earth has demonstrated mastery over Creation by stilling the waves and wind by His word, and then rising from death to new life.

So we are made anew, and by this power of faith, we trust in God at a whole new level, because we are alive in faith in the Risen, Living Christ by which we see the new things that have come.  We don't necessarily ask for immense displays of His power from Him, but by faith, recognize how He has already displayed Who He is.

June 16, 2024: 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

God is at work in mysterious ways to grow the Kingdom.

In a parable, Jesus describes the planting of seeds, and while science explains the process by which they grow, there's still an element of mystery as to how they emerge, perhaps because it generally happens underground.

Even more wondrous is how a tiny mustard seed can become a large plant.

God invites us to participate in the work of the Kingdom, to open ourselves to His power at work in us, to walk by faith, and not by sight.

We strive to do good deeds in cooperation with His grace so that His Kingdom flourishes in us.  We do our part, and then behold the element of mystery by which the Kingdom blooms.  Indeed, we may not fully understand it, but seeing through the eyes of faith, we recognize the awesome nature of God's power to spread His reign.

It is marvelous to think of how our fathers sow many seeds in their children that something wonderful emerges. Or in this season of ordinations, we think of how our priests strive so much to advance the Kingdom by leading us to encounters with God. I even think about my work as a catechist, pondering the potential of my students and what wonders of faith will emerge from the encounters with God they have in class.

Indeed, we have the ability to experience greatness as align ourselves to God's divine power, for His glory.

June 9, 2024: 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, broke our relationship with God, and its effects devastated our world.

Yet He provides a way back for us to Him, because He is merciful, and redeems us in Christ.  That was puzzling to people, as the Gospel reading indicates, because people thought that Christ was out of His mind for what He was doing in His work of ministry, even casting out demons.  However, He came from outside our world to uproot Satan's reign and establish the Kingdom of God, which provides a new way for those of us who profess faith in Him.

So we turn away from sins and focus our lives on doing His will through the power that flows to us in the Holy Spirit.  We can truly be part of His family as we follow His way.  Our focus turns from the things of this world, which are fleeting, to the unseen world, which is about that which is everlasting.

June 8, 2024: Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

On the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we celebrated how immense God's love is for us, ultimately shown in the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

We follow that celebration focusing on Mary, who shows us an example of how to respond to God's love for us.  She opened herself to God's presence and pondered it in such a way to more faithfully follow Christ.

So may we follow Christ, growing in love for Him, and living that love as a blessing to others.

June 7, 2024: Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

God's love for us is so abundant.

Even when we turned from Him, He sought after us, and ultimately sent His Son to us as a sacrifice to reconcile us to God.

St. Paul's words provide a fitting response, as we seek to enter more deeply into this love in its height, depth, length, and breath, so that we may be filled with the fullness of God.

Even though this Love is so mysterious, we can experience it as reality and respond by sharing it with others, making known the True Presence of God among us.

It's a fitting feast as I think about the anniversary of my cousins Melissa and Greg.  In joining together on their wedding day, as they continue to do this day 16 years later, the love they share is a blessing and reveals God's heart.  And we all do so when we open ourselves to being filled with God's love for us.

June 2, 2024: Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Through blood, God has established covenantal relationships with His people.

The first reading recounts the encounter of the Hebrews with God at Mount Sinai.

Christ then fulfilled that covenant by offering His very Body and Blood for the salvation of His people.  As the Epistle of Hebrews indicates, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant that cleanses His people thoroughly.  We spent several weeks in Lent and Easter Seasons focusing on the meaning of that covenant.

We know that our God continues to be present with us, through the Holy Spirit as we celebrated on Pentecost, through the effects of the Trinity as we celebrated on Trinity Sunday, and today as we rejoice in how Christ continues to be present to us in the offering of Himself in the Eucharist.

We are now called to live our lives in thanksgiving for the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ as we open ourselves to transformation to be His Body in the world.

The Church teaches that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.  We are drawn to encounter the living presence of Christ, and in the Eucharist, He comes to dwell in us so we can live out His command to love as we go forth from Mass.

May 31, 2024: Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

May started in the midst of the Easter Season, marked by great joy.  We end May with another Feast steeped in joy.

It's quite a scene when the Blessed Virgin Mary arrives at the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah.  The presence of Christ within her is the cause of great joy for St. John the Baptist and Elizabeth.

The words in Isaiah 12 are fitting, that we should rejoice because the presence of the Holy One is in our midst.

May we have the power of faith to help us recognize He is present to us, Whose Risen Presence continues to abide with us in the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Eucharist, and even in our gathering together as Church community.  And then following the example of the Virgin Mary, let us bear Christ's presence to others, to give them cause for joy, too.

May 26, 2024: Most Holy Trinity Sunday

God has been revealing HImself throughout history in so many marvelous ways, and in these revelations, we see the work of three unique Persons Who are all in harmony as God.

Indeed, God chose a people specially for Himself.  In the fullness of time, He sent a Savior to bring us back into right relationship with God so that we could truly be His children.

And He calls us to go forth in mission to live out our relationship with Him, sharing it with all the world.  Last week's celebration of Pentecost Sunday was a nexus point as we concluded celebrations of the Paschal Mystery over the past several weeks and how we are alive in a new reality in the Resurrection.

There's something profound in the Gospel reading when the Risen Jesus appears to the disciples on a mountain, a typical location for important encounters with God.  He said that He had all power in Heaven and on Earth, and was using His position to empower the disciples, who were in doubt, to go forth on mission.

So while the Trinity is a great mystery we won't fully understand in this life, we have enough of a sense of God's Presence, revealed to us in the distinct ways of each Person of the Trinity, to share this Mystery with the world, that our God is powerfully alive and at work in us.

We can certainly sense this reality in our relationships, especially in family, and I'm fully aware of that this day as I celebrate my Mom's birthday.

Ultimatetly, the Father and the Son share great love, and from it proceeds love, which is the Holy Spirit, flowing into us so we can show love as we give of ourselves to others, which is the wondrous revelation of God's character to the world.

May 20, 2024: Feast of Mary, Mother of the Church

God called Mary to play a special role in His plan of salvation.

She now offers a model to all of us who are part of the Church brought alive by the Holy Spirit.

We come before the Cross, the source of our salvation so we may know what we truly proclaim.  We spend time in prayer, awaiting how God will pour out the Holy Spirit in our day so that we can live out the mission God has given us as He brings salvation to all the world.

May 19, 2024: Pentecost Sunday

We cap off the Easter Season by celebrating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that birthed the Church.

Jesus has fulfilled His promise to send the Spirit, and everything He did and taught now became alive in the disciples, and becomes alive in us who live by faith.

Through the Holy Spirit, we crucify our old selves with its wrongful desires, like St. Paul describes in the passage from Galatians 5.  Then, made anew, we bear fruit of good characteristics, which are in the list of the fruits of the Spirit.

Truly Jesus breathes His life into us through the Holy Spirit, like He did to the apostles huddled in the locked room, and they overcome their fear and rejoice.

We celebrated the Resurrection with great joy and we can continue to joyfully proclaim by our lives that Jesus is alive because the Holy Spirit is His Risen Life living and working in us.

God created the world marvelously and has renewed it in a profound newness of Life through the Holy Spirit.

May 19 was Pentecost Sunday 11 years ago when I graduated from college.  I could look back upon my college experience and see how wondrously the Holy Spirit was at work as my academic life converged with my faith life to truly make me anew by giving me a strong new sense of purpose in life.  In that light, I continue to celebrate how God is working through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Truly we can go forth in great joy because of this great gift that is constantly keeping us alive.

May 12, 2024: Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

We marvel that the Risen Christ, after appearing to the disciples at various times in the 40-day period, now has returned to Heaven.  

He Who has accomplished the Paschal Mystery is glorified.

Christ is Our Exalted Head of His Body, the Church.  We have hope that we will rise to join Him.

Yet He continues to be present with us.  As St. Paul writes in Ephesians, He ascended and fills all things in every way.

Before departing, He told His disciples that they would receive power from the baptism of the Holy Spirit so that they could take up the mantle and continue His work that He started, making Him known throughout all the world.

We call upon the Holy Spirit, marveling that He Who ascended and reigns in Heaven is advancing His Kingdom on Earth, displaying His signs as He always accompanies us, a foretaste of Heaven here now on Earth.

May 5, 2024: 6th Sunday of Easter

God is love, and He has displayed His Love for us in sending His Son in the Incarnation, Who, through the Paschal Mystery, became expiation for our sins and brought us into Newness of Life.

We are now truly alive because Christ has Risen and Love lives.

We live in His love by following the commandment He has given us to demonstrate the example He has showed us in laying down His life for us, Who He calls friends, because we are now in such a close relationship with Him.

In this relationship, we are called to go forth and bear fruit as His disciples that shows to the world the reality of the Resurrection, that He is alive in us.

This gift is for all the world, as the first reading indicates in the astonishing scene when the Holy Spirit descends on Gentiles, so they can participate in bearing fruit as God works in them.

I knew my connection to Jesus in a powerful new way 25 years ago on the first Sunday of May when I had my First Holy Communion.  For 25 years, I have known the power of being part of God's people, in Whom He lives, and Who He calls to bear fruit as we stay connected to Him.

April 28, 2024: 5th Sunday of Easter

We celebrated the new Life of Christ on Resurrection Sunday 4 weeks ago, and we continue to celebrate it today as we ponder what that Life means for us.

Jesus calls Himself the True vine, and we are the branches.  Without Him, we cannot do anything.  By remaining in Him, He remains in us, an important theme in the readings.  We are filled with His life, so that we can obey His commandment, which is ultimately about bearing fruit as we love others.

Indeed, in the Resurrection Life of Jesus, we are transformed as God prunes us, to take away what leads us away from Him, so we can draw closer to Him, like Saul.  People were suspicious of him after his conversion, but Barnabas made it clear that God appeared to Saul.  And Saul boldly proclaimed the Word revealed to Him by the Risen Lord.

By remaining in Jesus, Who gives us His life, we live as His disciples.  As the second reading in 1 John elaborates, we are to believe in God and to act on that belief and love beyond words by showing it in tangible actions, which is pleasing to God because, simply put, is His command.  We don't do this on our own, but we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in following this command that is the heart of our faith.

This day is significant in my faith life as I celebrate joyfully the anniversary of my baptism, when I encountered Christ in the waters, and was joined to Him and His Paschal Mystery.  It was a great day for Father Pacocha to live out his priestly calling by baptizing me on his ordination anniversary.

I was indeed joined to the True Vine of Jesus so that I could be equipped to grow and bear fruit, in subsequent steps of my faith journey, like when I celebrated my First Holy Communion, which was 25 years ago this week.  Continuing on, I keep marveling at how God is at work as I take my part in His Church and He works in me for bearing fruit.

April 25, 2024: Feast of St. Mark, the Evangelist

God has offered us the great gift of salvation in Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again.

Now, God calls us to accept this gift and act on it by proclaiming the Gospel message to all the Earth.

As God worked through Jesus, especially in His ministry of teaching and healing, as we hear throughout this year in the Cycle B for the Gospel according to St. Mark, so God works through us through signs, including healings, to bring newness of Life to the earth.

As a lion roars mightily, so we are called to boldly proclaim this Good News.

April 21, 2024: Fourth Sunday of Easter/Good Shepherd Sunday

We have a Good Shepherd in Jesus Christ, Who, out of love for us, His flock, laid down His life and then, took it back up again, as we celebrate throughout this Easter Season.

And He did it not just for His own flock, but for other people in the world, to build up His Body.

That's why St. Peter declares before the authorities that the Name of Jesus is the only Name by which all in the world are to be saved, because He made possible the salvation of all.  He was disowned like the stone rejected, yet has become the cornerstone of our faith.

Jesus not only saved us, but is transforming us as God reveals Himself to us, and we become like Him as we follow our Good Shepherd into the way of Eternal Life.

It's a day that, in history, speaks to many important leaders, like the day John Adams became the first US Vice President, and Queen Elizabeth II's birthday.  Yesterday and last weekend Saturday, bishops visited the Oak Park parishes for Confirmation Masses, including Cardinal Cupich.  Let us give thanks to God for the many leaders He has chosen to serve us as priests and bishops, who live out their vocation by leading us into the ways of Eternal Life.  As we are transformed in this way, let us open ourselves to how we can lead others closer to God.

I furthermore offer thanks to God because this weekend marks 100 years since Resurrection Sunday, April 20, 1924, when the first Mass was celebrated in the partially completed National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  It is a marvelous space that draws those Who come deeper into the presence of God Who was born of Mary, the Patroness of the USA.

April 14, 2024: 3rd Sunday of Easter

As we continue celebrating the Easter/Paschal Season, we once again hear an account of the appearance of the Risen Christ in teh readings, as a way to reinforce this new reality that He is alive in a whole new way.  He came alive in a whole new way to His disciples and this reality persists for us now.

Now that He is alive, He offers us a way to enter more deeply into His presence as we repent, turning away from sin to live for Him.

He speaks to us in His word, just like He did for the disciples, and He offers us His Body and Blood.

By partaking of what He offers us, we live in His Truth and are transformed.

The greatest part is that He is so real to us, we can touch Him, and we can count on His Risen Presence to sustain us as we strive to live our our faith that springs from His New Life.

April 8, 2024: Solenity of the Annunication of the Lord

Having completed the observance of Holy Week and Easter Week, we continue the spirit of joy in celebrating the day when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Son of God into the world.

In the context of our recent Paschal Festival, on this Feast Day, we rejoice in how God brought the new life of a baby into the world Who offered Himself in obedience to the Father so that we could all experience newness of Life.

Mary was the first to experience this newness of Life.  By obediently submitting to the Word of God presented to her, she offers a model for how we can open ourselves to God's work in our lives, and as we keep following Him, He does great wonders in our world.  We, too, can bear New Life into the world.

It's telling that a total solar eclipse crossed over a huge swath of North America today.  May the Virgin of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, intercede for us, so that we can be open to God's plan and the wonders He unveils.

April 7, 2024: 2nd Sunday of Easter/Divine Mercy Sunday

By His Resurrection, Christ came to free us from the effects of sin and bring us into a glorious new Life.

That image is powerfully displayed when Christ passed through locked doors into the room where the disciples were gathered because they were afraid, perhaps thinking that the authorities who came after Jesus would be after them next.

He brings them peace, and shows that the evil of world that led to His death, signified by His still-present wounds, no longer has power over Him.

He offers them the Holy Spirit so that His Death and Resurrection can lead to forgiveness of sins.

Christ did it again a week later, and furthermore broke through the doubt Thomas and called him to a higher level of belief, to acknowledge the new reality of the Resurrection that He now offers all of us who express faith.

Even with all the troubles in the world, we can be, like the 2nd reading in 1 John states, victors because of Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again.  It is truly a great gift of mercy to us sinners that God would bring us alive so powerfully as only He can, washing us in blood and water that pour forth from His body.

We continue to live in this victory as we come together in Church community to make His Risen Presence known to each other.  As Bishop Barron said in his homily for this Sunday, it's telling that St. Thomas encountered the Risen Christ when he was together with the other apostles, and then expressed great faith.

May we open ourselves to the ways that God reveals Himself to us, and acclaim the same faith, "My Lord and my God!"

March 31, 2024: Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

The Resurrection is such Good News and we, God's people by faith, are called to proclaim it.

We are no longer under the power of sin, and the Resurrection cleanses us to be made anew, just as Christ was.

We accompany those early Apostles in seeing the Empty Tomb and recognizing a new reality, which causes us to believe that Christ is Alive, bringing healing, forgiveness, and new Life to all.

We go forth to proclaim it even as we live it.

March 30, 2024: Holy Saturday Easter Vigil

God did a marvelous work in creating the world.

The broken relationship between God and humanity gave Him the opportunity to unfold the marvelous work of redemption.

The Old Testament readings at this wondrous Mass point toward the culmination of God's plan in the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

As His people, we are joined to the Paschal Mystery so that we live in it.

March 29, 2024: Cross Friday of the Lord's Passion

Jesus suffered in accordance with the Father's purpose.

He humbly submitted to the immense pain of the way of the Cross and His crucifixion.

Yet the Cross didn't have the final word, because God redeemed it for His purposes.

Indeed, from the Cross, God granted us the great gift of salvation through the Son Who was obedient.

March 28, 2024: Maundy Thursday

On this most sacred evening, Jesus Christ gathered to celebrate the Passover meal with the apostles.  In it, He established a New and Everlasting Covenant in His Body and Blood.

We are called to continue remembering the sacrifice He offered us, and to live in it by following the new command of this covenant to love others in the way He shows us.

March 24, 2024: Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

The crowds shout as Jesus enters, acclaiming Him with "Hosanna", and calling Him "blessed" and "Son of David", all titles that would indicate He is the Savior.

Yet as the scene unfolds later that week, they don't fully grasp what it means for Him to be the Savior.

He doesn't come with violent force to conquer evil.  Rather, in obedience to the Father, He is an Almighty Servant Who submits Himself to evil, to be even conquered by evil through the excruciating death of the Cross.

Yet that is where God works by the power that He alone possesses.  He regards the sacrifice of Jesus as sufficient, and so Christ rises, exalted by God.  And now we come to the annual custom of Holy Week, hailing Him as Savior.  We are called to move beyond the mindset of the crowds and embrace deep within us what it means for Him to be our Savior as we enter into the Paschal Mystery.  He is the One Who frees us from sin so we can be who God created us to be, a reflection of His presence in our world.

March 19, 2024: Feast of St. Joseph

Even though God asked so much of St. Joseph by taking Mary into his home as his wife, under highly unusual circumstances, God granted St. Joseph a great role in salvation history.

He was part of the fulfillment of the promises of God to bring a Savior into the world.

And St. Joseph had a close relationship with the Savior Jesus, caring for Him and His mother.

St. Joseph has the title Guardian of the Church, interceding for us who call upon Jesus by faith so that we can continue to be faithful to upholding the Church to fulfill its mission in teh world, just as Joseph raised Jesus.

March 17, 2024: Fifth Sunday of Lent

As we get nearer to the Sacred Paschal Triduum, the Gospel reading sets the tone for the important events we will soon commemorate again.

Jesus used a rather simple request from some Greeks who want to see Him as an opportunity to declare His purpose: He is to glorify the Father by being lifted up on the Cross to be the means of salvation for all the world.

Christ submitted obediently to the Father, Hebrews indicates, so that He could become this source of our salvation.

As our Savior, He creates our hearts, making them clean and putting God's law in us so that will truly live His rightoueness in a way that was never fully accomplished in the Old Covenant.

It's a powerful scene when Christ asked God to glorify His Name and God spoke:  God truly revealed Himself in the fullest way in Christ's Paschal Mystery of Death and Resurrection, which now is at work in us who join Him in dying and rising to live by faith and God accomplishes His purpose in us.

March 10, 2024: Fourth Sunday of Lent/Laetare Sunday

At the midpoint of Lent, we rejoice in the gift God offers to us sinners.  Though sin has cut us off from our relationship with God, He has provided a way of salvation for us.  The first reading has a dark tone as it describes how God's people were unfaithful to God.

Then God sent them into exile for 70 years, to bring rest to the land that had missed its Sabbaths.  After that time, He restored His people.

The second reading praises God, Who is rich in mercy, and proclaims the important truth that we are saved by grace, and then we are empowered to do the good works God has in mind for us.

Ultimately, as Jesus told Nicodemus in the Gospel reading, God loved the world, and didn't want to condemn it:  So He sent His Son so that we could be saved.

That is such Good News, and we are called to proclaim it and live it.

March 3, 2024: Third Sunday of Lent

When God formed a special relationship with His Chosen People, He established the commandments that would allow them to experience the fullness of life.  It's fitting that the psalmist in Psalm 19 praises God's Law that created and sustains the world.

In Christ, a new Law emerges, one which fulfills the Old Testament Law, because the New Law commands us to focus on honoring God with our hearts.  Jesus drove home the point forcefully when He cleansed the Temple of commercial practices that weren't helping people encounter God.

This is the wisdom and power of God at work, which is so foreign to Greek wisdom or Jewish insistnece of signs which St. Paul mentions, because God commands us through Christ to honor Him and purifies through His Paschal Mystery so we can do it.

One great example of someone who lived out God's commandments was St. Mother Katharine Drexel, whose feast day is today.  She devoted her immense inheritance wealth and her life's work as part of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to found institutions to service Native Americans and African Americans, including St. Augustine Mission in Winnebago, NE.

I came with a group here during college, and it was an inspiring experience to walk in her footsteps of serving the people here. With great joy, I am back this weekend to celebrate her feast day and the impact this place had on me.

February 25, 2024: 2nd Sunday of Lent

As we continue our Lenten journey, we open ourselves to great visions that give us totally different perspectives on Who God is, and Who we are in relationship to Him.

Abraham showed His willingness to sacrifice His own son, and then God intervened at the last second, providing a ram.  Once Abraham sacrificed the ram, God declared that he would have numerous descendants who would be a blessing to the earth.

This story is an archetype of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us upon the Cross.  Lest His death be seen as a morbid dead-end, Christ gave three of the Apostles, and ultimately us, a glimpse of the fullness of His glory.  He connected it with the Law of Moses and the words of the prophets that point to Him as the fulfillment of God's plan, since Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus.  And lest we want to hold on to this vision and avoid the suffering of the Way of the Cross, after St. Peter spoke, God shined a bright light and commanded the apostles to listen to Jesus, the beloved Son.

And then they were commanded to wait before telling this vision, because God had more work to do in them to reveal the full understanding of His plan for salvation.

We are encouraged by these glorious visions because we know that God has done so much to save us, even offering His own Son, and demonstrates His power over death through the Resurrection, to which the Transfiguration points.

Truly we can count on God through these glimpses of the fullness of His presence.

As we seek to fully the Way of the Cross, we, too, can join the number of Abraham's descendants who are a blessing to the world, as God's glorious vision works in us.

February 22, 2024: Feast of the Chair of St. Peter

God has given His people a Church founded on the rock of St. Peter and the other apostles, who handed on the teachings of Christ, a succession that has continued through the ages.

We ground our faith on the teachings they've handed on, and we participate in the work to advance His Kingdom.  As we have acknowledged Christ, so we are called to make Him known to others.

February 18, 2024: 1st Sunday of Lent

In the stark environment of the desert, Jesus faced temptations, and He became more aware of His identity.

By obediently abiding in the Word of God, He experienced what it means to truly be the Son of God, ready to follow God's will.  And God was present to help Him, as the Gospel according to St. Mark, like the others, notes that angels ministered to Him.

In our journey through the desert of Lent, we come to a better understanding of who we are.

Indeed, we are people loved by God, Who sought us out when we went astray.  His saving action stretched back to Noah, when God made a way to save Noah for his righteousness and the animals. Now, in Christ, the waters of baptism are sanctified and cleanse us.

We can now set our sights on what is above, turning away from the sin that entangles us and enter more deeply into relationship with God, showing ourselves more and more to be His beloved daughters and sons, in the way that Christ showed us by His obedience in the desert, to overcome the disobedience shown by GOd's people when they journeyed from Egypt to the Promised Land.  Furthermore, God is ready to help us become Who He has created and called us to be.

February 14, 2024: Ash Wednesday

Once again, as we set ourselves toward the Sacred Paschal Triduum, we hear the call to repentance.

We are urged to act promptly, aware of our failings, and our need for God's grace.  Indeed, God loves us greatly, and provides an opportunity for us to repent and be renewed in His grace--now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation, as St. Paul proclaims.

We continue in the way of repentance by engaging in spiritual practices for the sake of growing closer in relationship with God.

We do so as a response to God's great love for us, inspired to share it with others by living in a way that is renewed in God's grace.

February 11, 2024: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In Old Testament times, the Law dictated that sick people had to remain distant from the rest of the community.  So physical illness was compounded by the social reality of isolation.

Then we see the great power of Christ on display in the Gospel reading in more ways than one.  The man with the disease surely had great faith to approach Jesus when he was supposed to be distant from others, yet recognized Jesus had the potential power to heal Him.  Jesus, with compassion, heals the man and he can rejoin the community.  He does so with a renewed purpose in life, telling the Good News about the One Who can heal and restore us fully like no one else.

St. Paul calls us to live our lives ultimately for the glory of God.  St. Paul offered himself as a humble example of someone seeking to live faithfully, and he could serve as an example for others to imitate.

Beyond physical ailments, Christ, through His Paschal Mystery, has fully healed us from the effects of sin that keep us from God and from being part of the community that worships Him.  When we are aware of how Christ has healed us, we surely are filled, by faith, with zeal to respond by living our lives devoted to God, doing so as part of One Body that makes Him known in the world.

So as we head into Lent, let us praise Christ for healing us, in the spirit of the man who was healed, and share the testimony of that healing by our lives.

February 4, 2024: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Because of the presence of sin in this fallen world, it appears like our lives have no purpose, which is the crux of Job's lament, as featured in the first reading.

Then Christ came to proclaim the Good News that we can be free from sin.  Furthermore, He gives us a great purpose for life:  He heals us so we can serve others in the spirit of love He has shown us, as shown in how Simon's mother-in-law responded to Christ's healing by serving others.

We go far and wide, aware of how our lives are so driven now by the power of the Gospel, as St. Paul was so aware.  As disciples today, in response to our encounters with God in prayer, we proclaim the Good News by our lives.

It's notable to recognize how Bishop Barron has so marvelously proclaimed the Gospel message through his Sunday sermons, which have now reached the 1000-mark with his latest homily.

February 2, 2024: Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Mary, Blessed Mother, and St. Joseph went to the Temple in Jerusalem to present Jesus to the Lord.  And it was the event when Jesus presented Himself as Lord to the world.

With deep faith keeping them in tune with God, Saints Simeon and Anne drew close to Jesus and praised God for revealing Himself in the Infant, and for the Light He brings.

Indeed, Jesus is the Light of the World, and purifies our hearts so that we may enter into God's presence.  Constantly keeping close to Him, we can continually draw from His Light and shine its brilliance into the world by our lives.

Merry Candlemas!

January 28, 2024: 4th Sunday in Post-Epiphany Ordinary Time

Through Kairos encounters, God has declared His Word to His people to bring them life.

In the time of the Old Covenant, God said He would raise up a prophet to bring this life-giving Word, since the people feared hearing from God directly.

Now, God's authority is fully on display in Jesus, the Word Made Flesh.  At His very presence, the unclean spirit in the man in the synagogue trembles, recognizing who He is, and at His word, the unclean spirit flees.

Not only does Jesus teach the Word of God to His people, but He speaks the Word in a way that powerfully transforms us. We are healed from that which holds us back from God, so we can abide with Him Who, through the Incarnation, abides with us always.

And so He continues to manifest Himself in our day to bring the Word alive.  5 years ago on the final Sunday of January, thousands of people gathered for the Concluding Mass of World Youth Day 2019, celebrated by Pope Francis.  We heard the Word, and then were sent forth to live our encounter with the Word in our massive assembly, and in living the Word, bring Life to the world.

January 25, 2024: Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

God came to Saul in a powerful way, radically changing him.

St. Paul truly encountered the reality of the Resurrection.

And he repented, devoting his life to proclaiming the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

In unique ways, God chooses each of us to live out that same mission.

January 21, 2024: 3rd Sunday in Post-Epiphany Ordinary Time

In the recent Christmas Season, we celebrated that God became present to us fully in Christ, the Word Made Flesh.

This Sunday, Word of God Sunday, we see how that Word affects the world.

Before Christ, Jonah was sent to proclaim a message of repentance to the Ninevites, and unlike most situations with prophets in Israel, the people of Nineveh readily responded, and God turned from the punishment He threatened.

Jesus came proclaiming the Gospel message, calling people to repent because the Kingdom of God is at hand, a message meant for all people.

Furthermore, He called fisherman, Sts. Peter, James, and John to follow Him and find a new way of life.

With the Kingdom of God at hand, we, too, have a new life now in the Word, which calls us to turn our focus toward building the Kingdom of God.

5 years ago, those of us gathered at World Youth Day had a profound encounter with the Word of God manifested among the thousands present, and we were sent forth from the Closing Mass to let the Holy Spirit send us forth to live out the Word.

On this Sanctity of Life Sunday, we're reminded of the great gift of life, and our call to build the Kingdom of God by fostering a culture of life, especially for the vulnerable unborn, so that God's image can fully be revealed in this world.

January 14, 2024: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Throuhgout the Christmas Season, we celebrated that God came to be among us in tangible ways.

Today's readings display how God is making Himself known to us.

At a time when revelations of God weren't common, He speaks to Samuel, who remained in the temple to serve before God, and upon hearing God's voice, he first thinks Eli the priest is calling.

Eventually, Eli directs Samuel to respond to God as a servant ready and willing to listen.

When John the Baptist acclaims Jesus as the Lamb of God, two of his disciples immediately follow Jesus.  They then bring others, including Simon.  Upon seeing him, Jesus grants Simon the new name Peter, a sign of his new purpose in life.

We, too, have been granted a new purpose because, as St. Paul notes in the 2nd reading, we are temples of the Holy Spirit, God's presence dwelling in us.  We now devote our lives to answering God's call and glorifying Him in our bodies.

January 8, 2024: Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

As the reading from Isaiah 55 states, like the rain, God sends His word from Heaven to accomplish His purpose on Earth.

Jesus was born as the Word Made Flesh, revealing God the Father to us.  And the fullness of the Triune God was revealed at His Baptism.

At His Baptism, as He rose from the waters of the Jordan River, Jesus was declared the beloved of God the Father and anointed by the Holy Spirit, so He could fulfill His purpose as our Savior, in His Passion and then Resurrection.

We, too, encounter God in baptism and find our identity, for we are named His beloved and anointed with the Holy Spirit to share in Christ's mission, showing that He continues to be manifest in the world.

January 7, 2024: Epiphany Sunday

Jesus Christ indeed was born as the Messiah of the people of Israel, bringing them light, which was meant as the Light from God the Father radiating out to all the nations of the world.

By faith, people outside of Israel recognized the sign of God's presence and came to worship Him.  The 1st reading from Isaiah describes people from all nations coming to Israel, where there is a great light, even kings bearing resplendent gifts. St. Paul illustrates the meaning of the Epiphany in the 2nd reading, that God revealed a great mystery in Christ, that the Gentiles would share with the Chosen People of Israel in the promises.

The Magi were attuned to the revelations of God in the signs He displayed, and they journeyed to the Christ Child--one of many journeys in the Nativity narrative.  The Gospel reading mentions that they went to worship and give homage to the Christ Child more than once.

On this Epiphany Sunday, we're called to join them in worshipping God, recognizing that God has revealed Himself in our world, and is present in all peoples.  Let us come to the Light, and then bear it to all the world, as it was meant to shine throughout the earth.

January 1, 2024: Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

We begin a new Gregorian calendar year pondering the one in whom God began His life as the Word Made Flesh, the Blessed Mother Mary.

Truly Christ's Birth is a wondrous event that compels us to reflect deep in our hearts on the God Who has come so close to us, abiding with us.  And it inspires us to go forth and share the Good News, that God has blessed us in the fullest way by freeing us from sin and making us children of God.