5th Week of Easter 2021 - Friday - "All you need is love"

 When I am preparing couples for marriage, I ask them a series of questions about themselves and their relationship.  ‘Where are you from?’ ‘How did you meet?’ ‘When long have you dated?’ ‘What kind of activities do you share?’ ‘Do you think your parents set a good example of how to have a happy marriage?’ ‘What will you do differently?

The toughest question perhaps is a true or false question.  ‘True or false,’ I ask. ‘Love is all you need for a happy marriage.’  Is love all you need for a happy marriage?  Some of them think it is a trick question, and they try looking at my face to see what answer I want.  In a sense, it is a trick wuestion because it depends on the definition of the word “love”

What is love.  Sometimes we use the word love to mean a lot of things.  We say, I love ice cream, I love classical music, I love summer, I love bacon, I love the Cleveland browns.  

But when Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor, he spoke of love in the truest sense.  True love is not just a feeling or emotion that changes.  For my love for ice cream can change if I eat an entire gallon of it.  In fact, Love of money, love of pleasure, love of fame, love of power, can become something very dangerous even deadly to the human soul.  

When Jesus tells us today, ‘love one another’.  He explains what love means: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Love isn’t a feeling, or a craving, it’s an action, it requires effort. Love requires being patient when we want to be impatient, being kind when we want to be selfish, enduring and persevering when we want to give up, being humble when we want to be pompous, forgiving when we want to brood over injury.  

St. Paul goes so far to say that if you go throughout life without this type of Christ-like love, then you are like a clashing cymbal, in other words, you are just going through life making a bunch of noise.  I hope that none of you here are just going through life making a bunch of noise. 

We will grow in holiness and joy and find authentic fulfillment to the extent that we practice true Christ-like love.  And the rest is just a bunch of noise.  

When it is the love of Christ—love IS all you need for a happy marriage, for a happy and holy life, for it is the way that leads to eternal life. Imitating the master, may we practice true love toward all today in patience, gentleness, forbearance, and generous self-giving for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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Filled with Paschal joy, let us turn earnestly to God, to graciously hear our prayers and supplications.

For lasting peace throughout the world: Christ, the Prince of Peace will put an end to all enmity and division, and unify the peoples of the world.

For Pope Francis and Bishop Malesic, that they may have the strength to govern wisely the flock entrusted to them by the Good Shepherd and for an increase in vocations to the ordained priesthood, and that our priests may serve the Church with the love and devotion of the Good Shepherd.

That during this month of May, Christians may turn to Mary, Mother of the Church, seeking her aid and imploring her intercession with increased and fervent devotion, especially by praying the Holy Rosary. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness, and that the Lord may grant his gift of peace to those most in need of it.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

30th Week in OT 2018 - Tuesday - Wives be subordinate to your husbands

The passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians on wives and husbands is one of the options for the nuptial mass. Most priests preparing young couples for marriage ask their input on what readings they’d prefer at their wedding, and this reading is chosen…probably less than any of the others. That word “subordinate”---that wives are to be subordinate to their husbands—is tough to hear these days, for a lot of people, let alone young brides and their grooms.

And yet, we should be very careful before dismissing any passage of scripture as simply being a product of its time, for I assure you, that this passage contains timeless truth.

Paul says “wives be subordinate your husbands” and in the very next breath he emphasizes the converse “husbands love your wives”, in fact, he repeats this injunction several times, just to drive the point home, “husbands love your wives”.  This really sets the tone for marriage, as husbands sometimes need to be told simple truths multiple times…

When we think about the truly loving relationships in our lives, what characterizes them, is that they focus on putting the needs of others before ones own. Mothers and fathers make great sacrifices for their children; they so often put the needs of their children before their own. And the same principle is going to be important for a happy healthy marriage: put the needs of your spouse before your own. There is no place in marriage for selfishness.

That St. Paul says that husbands need to be the head of their families, is certainly true as well. Families need strong Christian men and fathers who are leaders of faith in their families. This doesn’t mean that their families exist to carry out their selfish whims. In the Church, all spiritual leadership is servant leadership. The Christian husband and father serves his family by being a strong leader in prayer and charity and teaching and blessing and protecting his family from sin and error and evil.

In fact, the attitude of servitude that is necessary for Christian husbands and fathers, St. paul says must that of Christ for the Church. Husbands, love your wives EVEN as Christ loved the Church, willing to die for her.

Strong Christian households with both husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, both strong in the faith, are needed now more than ever if the Church is going to be that mustard seed that grows to encompass all the birds of the sky, if it will be that batch of leavened dough that will spiritually feed the whole world, to borrow a few metaphors from our Gospel.

May our families be strong in the faith, rightly subordinate to the Word of God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For newlyweds beginning married life together, that they may always have a true and generous love for each other; may they receive the rich blessing of children, and know the constant support of family and friends.

For all married couples, that they may be faithful to the Gospel in every dimension of their married life and give all an example of God’s ever-faithful love.

For all trouble marriages, that they may know the constant support of the Church, that they may be protected from discouragement and practice patience, mildness, reconciliation toward each other, and know the healing power of the love of Christ.

For all children who are impacted by the sad reality of divorce, that they may know the constant ever-faithful love of God.

That the sick, lonely, elderly, homeless, and all those experiencing trials or suffering of any kind may be strengthened by God’s love and know His comfort and peace.  We pray to the Lord.

For all those who grieve the death of a spouse, and for all the dead, for all of the souls in purgatory, the deceased members of our families and friends, for all those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

6th Sunday of Easter 2017 - The Spirit of Unity and Truth

The readings of the Easter season have begun to shift. We’ve gone from scriptures detailing the accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to his disciples to Jesus speaking about what comes next. Last week, he spoke of how even though he prepares to go to the Father, we must not be afraid. And this week, he continues his teaching to speak of the coming of the Holy Spirit. And so the readings have begun to focus on the two glorious events of Jesus’ Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

For many centuries, Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday was a holy day of obligation. So, we would have been meeting again this Thursday, had the bishops not commuted the celebration of the Ascension to the following Sunday, which will be next Sunday.

Right before Jesus ascended to the Father, he commanded his disciples to gather together and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. And we know they were faithful to that command: they gathered together in the upper room, and devoted themselves to constant prayer, with the Blessed Mother.
They prayed for nine days before receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. These is the origin of the practice of novena prayers. Novena coming from the word, novem, which means nine. So, Friday of this week begins the Pentecost Novena. By praying the Pentecost novena we follow the Lord’s command to prepare for Pentecost.

I encourage everyone here to pray this Novena. I’ll put a link to the Novena on the parish website and twitter account, and you can even sign up to have the daily prayers emailed to you by visiting the website “Praymorenovenas dot com” The Pentecost Novena is a powerful plea for the light and strength and love so sorely needed by every Christian. You would do well to pray it together as a family, with your spouse and children, or with your fiancé or significant other.

I remember, it was my second year of seminary, and I was walking past one of the priest’s offices, and he was meeting with a young couple preparing for marriage.  He stopped me, and asked if I had any advice for this young couple. Now, I was a celibate college kid, what did I know about marriage? But I heard myself blurting out the words, “the couple that prays together stays together”. I’ve shared that advice with the couples I’ve prepared for the Sacrament of marriage.

Statistics show just how important it is for families to gather together for weekly Mass. The less husbands and wives attend mass together the greater the chances of the hardening of hearts and division. Prayer, worship, and faith are to unite us.

I had an engaged couple who had a long-distance relationship; the groom, I believe, lived in Chicago leading up to the wedding. But every night, they would pray the Church’s official Night Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours over the phone together. And they are a very strong and faith-filled married couple now. Free nights and weekends, there’s no excuse not to pray with your spouse if you are ever traveling on business!

Doing marriage preparation, I also meet a lot of young couples who are not practicing the faith. Some of them really haven’t been to church since their confirmation a decade before. With many of them, faith was not a priority for their families growing up and it still isn’t as they prepare for marriage. Thankfully, sometimes during the course of their marriage preparation they do rediscover the faith, or discover its power for the first time. But, sometimes they grow resistant, they make no effort to go to mass, they laugh off my insistence that they go to confession, they do not practice chastity. They put their future at risk, their marriage and their souls.

If we are to stay together, we must pray together. This is why weekly mass is so important. For Christianity is not simply a “me and Jesus” faith. The Body of Christ is to gather every week to remain united in common worship and the Spirit of Truth.

The Holy Spirit was sent upon the Church that we may be unified “in Spirit and Truth”. Think of the many ways the Holy Spirit brings unity. Through the Holy Spirit, the sinful soul is reunited with God. The Holy Spirit enables baptism to be powerful and effective. The Holy Spirit enables the Sacrament of Confession to reconcile souls separated from God through sin.

The Holy Spirit unites Christians in the bond of faith. For, it is through the Holy Spirit that apostolic succession through the sacrament of Holy Orders continues, so we can be united under the shepherding of Bishops who trace their lineage all the way back to the apostles. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are able to profess the one Faith received from the Apostles, free from error.
The Holy Spirit strengthens our faith and deepens our love and bestows countless gifts so that we continue to build up the church and have the courage to spread the faith.

The Holy Spirit unites families; a family that prays together opens itself to the strengthening of the Holy Spirit. When a family prays together the Holy Spirit heals wounds of division in a family, and gives family members patience to love each other as they should. Having a lot of arguments with the family? Consider coming to Sacramental Confession together on a Saturday afternoon. How powerful would that be!

The Holy Spirit works to unite the divided members of the human race by softening hardened hearts to the truth of Christ.

And the Holy Spirit works to bring unity within our own divided selves, our wounded fragmented selves. Often we continue to fall into sins because our egotistical, selfish, impatient, lustful selves still have healing to do.

Healing for a soul, a family, a parish, a nation occurs when we dispose our souls to the unifying power of the Holy Spirit: through prayer, the rosary, the divine mercy chaplet, the liturgy of the hours, lectio divina with scripture, novenas, through the humble confession of sins in the sacrament of confession, and through acts of charity.

St. Paul says, “The Holy Spirit brings life”…life which Jesus died to obtain for us, the life of grace, the life of holiness and wholeness, life for the spread of the gospel, the glory of God and salvation of souls.