Homily: August 16 2016 - St. Stephen of Hungary, first of his name

There are a number of saints who were kings: St. Edward, Good King St. Wenceslas, St. Hedwig, and a number of saintly queens: St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Clotilde, St. Margaret of Scotland. Even some saintly royal couples like St. Henry and St. Cunigunde.

Though Americans today still take some fascination in the weddings of the royals of England, for many, the idea of royalty and monarchy is somewhat suspicious. Though there are many many problems with our government, such corruption and godlessness, it’s hard for us to imagine anything else. Benevolent and wise monarchs seem like something more out of a fairy tale than a reasonable form of government, though Thomas Aquinas did believe it to be the highest form of government possible on earth, modeled after heaven which is ruled by a king, the King of Kings.

Around the year 1000, the disparate and often warring tribes of Celts, Romans, Huns, and Slavs were formed united into a Christian Kingdom under St. Stephen, the first of his name, and first King of Hungary. Most of his people were still pagan, as was his own father, the family only having converted to Catholicism when Stephen was 10 years old.

As his people were given to violence and revolt, Stephen guided his people toward peace and order by admitting Christian missionaries from Bavaria into his country.  The attempt to convert his people was met with hostility. His people wanted to hang on to their old religion and old pagan ways.  But Stephen fasted and prayed, he established monasteries and built churches.  He also made blasphemy and adultery crimes. 

Through his strict, yet benevolent rule, King Stephen brought about order and peace. He was a true evangelizer of his country.  He consecrated the nation to Mary, whom he called “the Great Lady”. He, himself gave religious instruction to the poor, and in view of his many good works and spread of the faith, the pope bestowed on him the title “Apostolic King.” 

A Hungarian parish here in the diocese of Cleveland, is named after St. Stephen’s son, St. Emeric.  Cleveland, in fact, is a hub in the united states for immigration from Hungary.  Cleveland was known as “Little Budapest” for many years, having the second largest Hungarian community outside of Budapest itself.

Listen to these powerful words, St. Stephen wrote to his son, St. Emeric: “I urge you above all things to maintain the catholic and apostolic faith with such diligence and care that you may be an example for all those placed under you by God.”

St. Stephen built his house on the solid rock of the Gospel.  He was not spared hardship or suffering, his evangelical efforts were met with resistance, but he entrusted his work to Our Lady, sought to conform himself with Christ, and fasted and prayed for the spread of God’s kingdom. 

By St. Stephen’s example and prayers, may all we all we can today, using whatever influence, gifts and talents God has granted us, for the spread of His Kingdom, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 15 2016 - Assumption of Mary - "Concerning Mary, never enough!"

Looking around my office this morning, I saw a painting of the immaculate heart, a small statue of the Blessed Virgin I found in Madagascar, a cross stitch of the Blessed Mother holding the Christ child my mother gave me on the occasion of my ordination, an icon of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, I had commissioned, a stained glass window of the crucifixion with Mary standing at the foot of Jesus, and an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa I rescued from a garage sale. Some might think this excessive.

St. Bernard, the eloquent doctor of the Church, who is remembered for his great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary once wrote: “De Maria,  numquam satis”, “Concerning Mary, never enough.”

When we love Mary, it helps us to love God. So we can never love Mary enough. When we seek Mary’s intercession, we are seeking help from the woman God chose to bear his only Son. So we can never seek her intercession enough. When we honor her, we show honor to her Creator, who made her Immaculate. So we can never honor her enough. Mary reflects the light of God like a perfect Mirror, she is called Mirror of Justice. Peering into her face, we see God’s love for us reflected, and magnified. So, we can never say enough about her, because we can never say enough about God.

St. Louie Marie de Montfort wrote, “We have not yet praised, exalted, honored, loved and served Mary as we ought. She deserves still more praise, still more respect, still more love, and still more service.”

On this Solemnity of Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, what can we say about Mary? Well, our Scripture readings seem to have something to say.

Our first reading, from Revelation, speaks of struggle, a struggle that goes back to the beginning of human history. The struggle between the woman and the dragon, the enmity between the powers of good and evil. All of the disciples of Jesus Christ are engaged in this struggle. We face temptation and attack from the perennial enemy of God. But in this struggle, scripture shows us, we are not alone. The Mother of Christ is always with us. Assumed into heaven, she is able to be with all of us always; accompanying us, sustaining us in our fight against the forces of evil. And we do well to turn to her constantly, in our devotional prayers, for help; she is the auxilium christianorum, the help of all Christians.

Our second reading spoke of victory. Mary’s assumption, and the defeat of God’s enemy, was only possible through the victory of Christ. We are able to experience the fruits of that victory in our life, the life of grace. The powers of death, sin, temptation, though they bombard us in this life, do not get the final say. Assumed into heaven, Mary shows us the power of Christ’s victory at work. Body and soul, we too, will experience this victory ultimately in the resurrection.

Finally, our Gospel speaks of our vocation. Mary magnified the Lord in a life of faith, hope, and love. Pope Benedict wrote in his first encyclical, “Mary’s greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself. She is lowly: Her only desire is to be the handmaid of the Lord (Lk 1:38, 48). She knows that she will only contribute to the salvation of the world if, rather than carrying out her own projects, she places herself completely at the disposal of God’s initiatives.” Assumed into heaven, Mary reminds us of the life each one of us are called to live, by following her Son in all things, we are to magnify the Lord in in all of our activities, choices, attitudes, pursuits. By following her humility, her faith, her trust in God, we can come to love God and neighbor as we should.

May we know her help in our struggles, may she teach us to love more deeply, and may she increase our hope for a future with God in eternity, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 20th Sunday in OT 2016 - "great cloud of witnesses"

I remember exactly where I was the first time today’s Gospel reading really hit me in the gut. I was attending the Saturday evening vigil mass at St. Noel’s, after which I would meet with Father Tom Dragga for an interview before entering college seminary.

“I have not come to establish peace on the earth…but rather division”, in other words, following Jesus may not always be the popular thing, his truth might contradict popular opinion, you might lose friends because him, your family might not understand you, they might even come to hate you because of him.  Hopefully not! But to me, this Gospel always speaks of how counter-cultural being a disciple of Jesus Christ really is.

This past week was packed full of amazing, holy, courageous counter-cultural saints, a “great cloud of witnesses”-- who followed Jesus Christ even when it was the hard thing to do.

We began the week, on Monday, with the feast of Saint Dominic. Dominic became aware of two very serious problems in Europe. One, northern Europe had not been evangelized, it was largely Pagan. And two, a terribly heresy called Albigensianism had divided the Church in France. The activity of the heretical Albigensians was distancing people from the truth of the faith.

When Dominic brought these challenges to the pope’s attention, the pope personally asked Dominic to devote himself to preaching to the Albigensians.  He countered the error of heresy, by spreading devotion of the rosary and the truth of the Gospel. And judging by the lack of Albigensians running around these days, Dominic must have been successful…have you met any Albigensians lately?

There is a story that while his mother was pregnant with Dominic, she dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb and began to set the world on fire.  Jesus himself said in the Gospel today, “I have come to set the world on fire, how I wish it were already blazing.” The saints are the instruments God uses to set the world on fire.

Tuesday, we celebrated Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. Young Edith was born into a Jewish family, where the faith was not practiced. As an adolescent she became a devout atheist, but as a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, she studied philosophy under the renowned philosopher Edmund Husserl. Her search for the truth led her to the Catholic faith and she converted to Catholicism.

10 years after he conversion, Edith entered the Carmelite convent and took the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross in honor of Theresa of Avila, the great Carmelite mystic.  It was 1933, Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany. Persecution of Jews and Catholics had already begun, Sister Theresa was both, a Catholic of Jewish blood. In 1942, Teresa was arrested by the Nazi’s.  She and her sister Rosa were transported to Auschwitz in Poland by boxcar.  One week later, Sister Teresa died in a gas chamber.

As a teenage atheist, she never would have imagined dying for Jesus Christ as a contemplative nun. But the Lord set her heart on fire, and being faithful to him despite the worldly pressures became her greatest joy. Her goodness stood contrary to the culture of death spread by the Nazis.

On Thursday we celebrated the patron saint of our parish, Saint Clare of Assisi. Talk about a woman who was counter-cultural. Clare was born into an aristocratic family. She lived in a castle, she had every luxury. She was destined to marry a prince and live happily ever after.

But, at the age of 15, she refused to give in to her parent’s wishes for her to get married. She had been attracted to Gospel poverty through the preaching of a homeless man named Francesco, who dressed in tattered brown robes. Her heart was set on fire with love for the Lord Jesus, and when her parents locked her in their castle, she escaped to the dilapidated chapel of San Damiano. At the altar of Our Lady, she traded her rich clothing for the rough brown woolen habit of the Franciscans, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with three knots to symbolize her poverty, chastity, and obedience, and caught off her long golden hair to take the veil.  Thus she became espoused to Christ, she did marry a prince, the Prince of Peace!  Her sister Agnes, 14 years old, soon joined her, as did several other women, in the following weeks.

They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity, and seclusion from the world.  Clare and her sisters went barefoot, slept on the ground, fasted from meat, and observed almost complete silence. Yet their lives were full of burning joy.

Talk about counter-cultural. Our modern culture tells our young girls that they cannot be happy unless they, like a Disney princess, marry prince charming and lives in a castle filled with all the luxuries money can buy, or acquire the sort of job where she can buy her own castle and live life according to her own whims and fancies. Clare’s poverty and virginity is the antithesis and antidote to our culture’s promiscuity and materialism.

St. Clare, shows us, like Dominic and Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, that our greatest joy, our greatest fulfillment, our hearts deepest longing is for Jesus Christ. He wants to set our hearts on fire, he does not want mediocre lukewarm followers, but followers who are willing to stand against the tide, stand for truth even when the culture says there is no truth, stand for purity, when the culture grows perverse, stand for prayer, when the culture shoves iphones in front of our faces, stand for self-discipline, when the culture tells us just to give in to every impulse we have.

Many people become afraid of really surrendering to Christ because of fear—they fear his fire. Pope Benedict said “The fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is that of the bush that burned but was not consumed (from the exodus story). It is a flame that blazes but does not destroy, on the contrary, that, in burning, brings out the better and truer part of man.”

We see in the saints, men and women who have allowed the fire of God to bring out the best of them. As gold is refined from its impurities in the furnace, so too, the saints. And, they encourage us, in our simple lives, to draw near to that the fire of God through prayer and acts of charity. Every day should be filled with those two things, prayer and acts of charity. Without them, how can we be surprised when our faith grows lukewarm or mediocre.

Last night at the 4:30 Mass, we honored a young woman whose own heart no doubt has been set on fire with love of Christ and the desire to serve the Church. We gather in great thanksgiving today, to celebrate St. Bridget Heisler’s profession of her final vows as a Sister for Life.

Like St. Clare, Sr. Bridget’s religious community take the counter-cultural vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, with an additional fourth vow to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.

In a culture where life is cheapened, commodified, objectified, what a beautiful witness to all of us, to remind us always to value the life which Christ gives us, both natural and supernatural.

This parish family of St. Clare was a place where Sr. Bridget’s vocation was able to flourish. To all who served as Catechists, liturgical ministers, sang with her in the choir, or simply walked with her as a friend on her journey, you should have a very healthy and holy pride, that the Lord used you to inspire her vocation.

I have known many young people who were too afraid to embrace the vocation to which God had called them. I have known many families who have pressured their children not to follow God’s call. But the Holy Spirit was at work here at St. Clare, and we celebrate, Sr. Bridget saying, “yes”, and hopefully she will not be alone in doing so.

Our Lord comes to us today in word and sacrament, in the Holy Eucharist, to kindle fire in our hearts, may we respond generously, wholeheartedly, to him, that he may give us the courage and strength to be his faithful followers as witness to his truth and instruments of his grace for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Friday - 19th Week in OT 2016 - Love and Marriage

Back in April, Pope Francis issued a document on the topic of “Love in the Family” called Amoris Laetitia, latin for “The Joy of Love”. Love, authentic love, brings authentic joy.

There are many counterfeits for love in our modern culture, just as there are a lot of counterfeits for joy.

All throughout the Gospel of Matthew, which we’ve been reading through extensively for several months, Jesus gives many instructions and parables teaching us to build our lives on what is true, what is holy, to strive to walk in the truth made known to us by God. He teaches us to practice authentic love, that we may be filled with authentic joy. 

We are seeing in our own day how faithless, disordered relationships, rampant promiscuity and unrestricted sexual license bring so much brokenness, so much sadness. When men and women seek marriage for selfish reasons, disaster ensues, particularly in bringing such hurt to each other and their children.

Our own Father Wendelken who worked in our marriage tribunal for several decades could attest to how marriage fails where there is selfishness, stunted maturity, attachment to worldliness, unforgiveness, poor communication, secular notions of happiness.

Pope Francis offered this document on the issues of marriage and family because marriage and family matter.  Marriage matters. Being faithful to the demands of marriage, doing what it takes for a healthy marriage, raising children in according to the law of Christ, these things matter for the future of civilization and the salvation of souls. The Pope said, “The welfare of the family is decisive for the future of the world and that of the Church.”

This is why the Catholic Church takes what the Lord teaches in the Gospel this morning very seriously. Where many of the Christian denominations water down, change, or simply ignore this teaching, the Catholic Church sees this morning’s Gospel as pivotal for civilizations survival and our faithfulness to the Gospel.

For those who are living the Christian life in an “imperfect manner”: those living together outside of marriage, those only civilly married, those divorced and remarried, Pope Francis explains that “following the divine pedagogy”, that is the teaching of Christ, “the Church seeks the grace of conversion for them”, the Church seeks to help people remedy their lives. We need to help people seek to remedy their lives according to the Lord’s teaching while being very careful to take into account the complexity of each situation. To be patient, to receive people joyfully, to invite them gently, to speak the truth clearly.

Pope Francis ends Amoris Laetitia with a prayer to the Holy Family:

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in you we contemplate the splendor of true love; to you we turn with trust. Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that our families too may be places of communion and prayer, authentic schools of the Gospel and small domestic churches. Holy Family of Nazareth, may families never again experience violence, rejection and division; may all who have been hurt or scandalized find ready comfort and healing. Holy Family of Nazareth, make us once more mindful of the sacredness and inviolability of the family, and its beauty in God’s plan. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Graciously hear our prayer…

…for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 11 2016 - St. Clare - Antithesis and Antidote to the modern ethos

The idea of entering a monastery in order to pursue a life of prayer and joyful communion with the Lord, like St. Clare, is quite foreign to many today.  Our modern culture tells our young girls that they cannot be happy unless they, like a Disney princess, marry prince charming and live in a castle filled with all the luxuries money can buy, or acquire the sort of job where she can buy her own castle and live life according to her own whims and fancies.

St. Clare is often in my thoughts, and over the past year, I have reflected often on her great courage. The courage of leaving her family, leaving a life of luxury which many would kill for, in order to become a poor nun.

Clare was of an aristocratic family.  At 15 she refused to marry.  Instead, she was drawn to the dynamic preaching of St. Francis of Assisi.  He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.  Determined to dedicate her life to God, on Palm Sunday in the year 1212, Clare escaped one night from her Father’s home.  Several miles away, she met St. Francis and his brethren at the poor little chapel of the Portiuncula.  At the altar of Our Lady, she traded her rich clothing for the rough brown woolen habit of the Franciscans, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with three knots to symbolize her poverty, chastity, and obedience, and caught off her long golden tresses.  Thus she became espoused to Christ.  Her sister Agnes, 14 years old, soon joined her, as did several other women, in the following weeks.

They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity, and seclusion from the world.  Clare and her sisters went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat, and observed almost complete silence.  This was the beginning of the cloistered order of Franciscan nuns known as the Poor Clares, thus the Virgin Clare was made the mother of countless virgins consecrated to Christ.

Many young women claim they are not called to the consecrated life because they feel the call to bring children into the world.  A biological urge to have children is not proof that one is not called to religious life. It is a sign of health, a healthy body and a healthy mind and a generous soul. 

Celibacy as a religious sister, brother, or priest is still fertile, because it is aimed and raising children for God. Pope Francis spoke recently of a “fertile chastity which generates spiritual children in the Church” as the true aim of religious consecration, to be Virgin Mothers, like Mary. Just as biological children bring joy to mothers, bearing spiritual children can bring great joy, real fulfillment. The joy of spiritual fruitfulness” is to animate our existence, the Pope said.

St. Clare, in her dedication to God, she was a virgin who fought to be poor: she is the antithesis and antidote to the modern ethos. May we, like Clare, trust God enough, love God enough, that we may have the courage enough to follow him out of the luxury of the world, away from the empty promises of our culture, to pursue the promises of Christ for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 9 2016 - St. Edith Stein - Finding Christ by Seeking for Truth

On August 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942.

Edith's father died when she was just two years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent. As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.

In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922.

10 years later she imitated Theresa of Avila by entering the Carmelite convent and took the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  It was 1933, Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.
Though the Jews were the principle victims of the Nazi’s in World War II, millions of Catholics, including bishops, priests, and nuns were murdered in the concentration camps.  In 1942, the Nazi’s arrested Sister Teresa.  She and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, were transported to Auschwitz in Poland by boxcar.  One week later, Sister Teresa died in a gas chamber.

She was canonized in 1998 by Pope Saint John Paul II, who also proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the following year.

At her canonization, Saint John Paul said, “For a long time Edith Stein was a seeker. Her mind never tired of searching and her heart always yearned for hope. She traveled the arduous path of philosophy with passionate enthusiasm. Eventually she was rewarded: she seized the truth. Or better: she was seized by it. Then she discovered that truth had a name: Jesus Christ. From that moment on, the incarnate Word was her One and All. Looking back as a Carmelite on this period of her life, she wrote to a Benedictine nun: “Whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether consciously or unconsciously”.

I think these words give us great hope for the future of the Church in America. So many young people are searching for the truth. They want lives full of meaning—more than their parents in some respects. They are rejecting the rampant materialism and perversion and promiscuity of the sexual revolution. Our Cleveland seminary is fuller than it has been in 30 years. Young women are forming new religious orders and returning to tried and true traditional modes of religious life, seeking the truth and the face of Christ.

St. Edith Stein reminds us that only those who commit themselves to the love of Christ become truly free. Through her intercession, may we seek the peace and freedom which comes from Christ, and may the whole human race turn to Christ for freedom and salvation, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 8 2016 - St. Dominic - Setting the world on fire

St. Dominic is the Founder of the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominican Friars, and lived around the same time period as Francis and Clare. Dominic was born in Spain around 1170 old noble Castillian family. Supported by a priest uncle, he was well educated, and distinguished himself for his interest in the study of Sacred Scripture and for his love of the poor.

After being ordained a priest, Dominic joined his bishop on a diplomatic mission to Northern Europe. In his travels, Dominic became aware of two enormous challenges for the Church of his time: the existence of people who were unevangelized in Northern Europe, and a terrible schism which undermined Christian life in the south of France, where the activity of the heretical Albigensians was distancing people from the truth of the faith.

The Albigensians believed the created material world was evil. They refused marriage and denied that God truly became man in Christ, they denied the sacraments because they refused to believe that the divine would come so close to us. They denied, too, the resurrection, believing material bodies to be evil.

When Dominic brought these challenges to the pope’s attention, the pope personally asked Dominic to devote himself to preaching to the Albigensians.  By spreading the devotion of the rosary and the truth of the Gospel, Dominic must have been successful…have you met any Albigensians lately?
In college seminary, I studied one semester in Rome, at the Dominican run Angelicum University.  There you will find many paintings of Dominic. And in many of them, Dominic is often garbed in his white Dominican habit, with a black cape and walking stick, and next to him is often a little dog carrying a torch.

If you take the latin word ‘Dominicane’ you get the word – Domine, which means Lord, and Cane, which means Dog, as in the world ‘canine’. So the Dominicans are the ‘Hounds of the Lord’.

There is a story that while his mother was pregnant with Dominic, she dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb and began to set the world on fire.

This great saint reminds us that in the heart of the Church, in the heart of every Christian, a missionary fire must always burn. Jesus himself said, “I have come to set the world on fire, how I wish it were already blazing.” Jesus gave this mission to the Church: to set hearts on fire with love of God.  We are not to be mediocre or lukewarm in our faith. The faith is to impel us out of our homes, to bring the light and fire of the truth of the Gospel to others. To bring light to those who are confused, to bring warmth to those who are lonely, to bring the spark of life to those who are dead in sin.

Dominic gathered around himself well educated, zealous preachers who would travel on foot preaching God’s mercy, God’s love for man, beauty, truth. 800 years later they continue to attract many vocations and remind us all of our need to draw close to the flame of truth and to spread that same fire for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 19th Sunday in OT 2016 - Man's search for meaning

Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human being in space. Orbiting Earth in his spaceship, he said he looked down and saw how beautiful the planet is. And he urged his fellow man to preserve the beauty of the earth and to increase it. A beautiful sentiment which complements our faith nicely.  The earth is beautiful, creation is beautiful because God the Creator, the source of beauty, beauty itself, has left his fingerprints on creation.

For many years it was thought that the Soviet cosmonaut also uttered something quite incongruent with our faith. The Soviet government claimed that while Gagarin orbited the earth in outer space, Gagarin said, “I looked all around and I didn’t see God.”

Come to find out it was the Atheist First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, who mocked the idea of God, ascribing these words to Gagarin to further the party line: you can’t see God in outer space, therefore God doesn’t exist.

Gagarin, in fact, was a devout Christian, a baptized member of the Russian Orthodox Church, who said, “An astronaut cannot be suspended in space and not have God in his mind and his heart.”

But, there are many, these days, who would agree with Krushchev, “I look around and I don’t see God.” So much evil and violence in the world, the Christian is sometimes tempted to wonder if God is really there at all. Depression, despair, divorce, betrayals, loneliness, emptiness, these things cause us to doubt, they challenge our faith. God cannot be reduced to something that can be seen by the naked eye, even when all the evil in the world causes us to doubt.

You may have heard of the Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who was also a Jewish Holocaust and concentration camp survivor. Frankl wrote a book called, “Man’s Search for Meaning” in which he talks about the great suffering and evil he experienced at the concentration camp at Auschwitz. As a great thinker, even while being tortured in Aushwitz, he continued to ask questions. He was intrigued how some of the prisoners there seemed to have had this amazing drive they kept them alive, an inner strength, while some people, died very quickly of a broken spirit. What made the survivors survive, he asked?

 What gave them strength, what gave them life, he concluded was “meaning”. Those who found “meaning” in their suffering survived. Those who believed that their suffering meant something, that God was at work even in the midst of their suffering, bringing something good out of the suffering. Perhaps God was only strengthening their own trust in Him, but that’s something! Faith that God used their suffering to bring about a greater good, literally saved their lives. Faith saved their lives. Faith become the conduit for life.

St. Paul, in our second reading, described faith as “evidence of things not seen.” Though Yuri Gagarin looked all around and didn’t see God, he still had faith. Though so many in the concentration camps saw humanity at its most cruel, many still kept faith.

Faith is the bedrock of our Christian life. No one here in this church saw with their physical eyes Jesus rise from the dead, but we know that he is risen. Faith allows us to see under appearances. The Eucharist looks like bread and wine, faith tells us, it is much more. We KNOW the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Why do we believe this? We accept the tenets of our faith NOT because our own senses assure us of it, but because the person who tells it to us is trustworthy. In this case, in matters of faith, the Church is trustworthy. She has weathered the storms of two thousand years, she has taught the same doctrine since her beginning, and she continues to make saints.

I think that’s always one of the most compelling reasons to become and remain Catholic. The Church makes saints! It works. Catholicism brings out the best of us. It makes us the best versions of ourselves. It makes us patient as we know we should be, it makes us forgiving, and generous, and selfless, and devoted, as we know deep down each one is supposed to be.

When you work the program, so to speak, you can become a mother Theresa, a Maximillian Kolbe, a john paul ii, a Therese of Liseaux. And our failure to become as holy as we should, we know, it’s not the Church’s fault, it’s not God’s fault, it’s our failure to work the program, our failure to trust and obey.

How can we learn to grow in faith? How can we learn to see beyond all the evil in the world to a God who works mysteriously, often behind the scenes?  By practicing the faith. Each day, when good things happen or when bad things happen, God is always providing us with opportunities to say in our hearts, "Lord, I believe in you; teach me to follow you."

St. Margaret Mary said, “May faith be the torch which illuminates, animates and sustains you, so that all your actions and sufferings may be for God alone Who should be served in privation as well as in consolation.”

When your children misbehave or you have an argument with a spouse: “Lord, I believe in you; teach me to follow you.” When you get a promotion or demotion, when you are praised for your hard work or ignored by those who should know better. When you are stuck in traffic or all the lights seem to be turning green just for you. When you are at the top of your game or at rock bottom. Make everything an occasion of faith. Don’t claim the glory for yourself, don’t act like you are alone in your suffering.

By practicing the faith, fervently, it will be there when we most need it. But to neglect it, to fail to pray, to fail to worship, to fail to serve, how can we be surprised when the storms of life come and overwhelm us.

The evils of the world are not proof that God doesn’t exist, our personal sufferings aren’t proof that God doesn’t love us. They are opportunities to grow in faith, to allow God to bring the best out of us, by trusting and surrendering all to Him.

May we trust in God in our joys and sorrows, trials and temptations, seeking above His Holy Will for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 5 2016 - Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major - Mother of Mercy

Typically the Church’s Liturgical Calendar calls for the celebration of a holy person, but today we celebrate the dedication of a holy place, St. Mary Major, one of Rome’s four principle basilicas.  The others are St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, and St. Paul outside the Walls.  The present church of St. Mary Major was built in the fifth century, not long after the Council of Ephesus affirmed Mary’s title as “Mother of God.”  The basilica is the largest and oldest church in the world honoring God through Mary.  It stands atop one of Rome’s seven hills, and despite many restorations, still has the character of an early Roman basilica. 

For four hundred years today’s feast was called “Our Lady of the Snows”.  According to legend, the basilica was constructed on the site where the Mother of God produced a miraculous mid-summer snow fall and left her footprints as a sign.  The legend was long celebrated by releasing a shower of white rose petals from the dome of the basilica every August 5. 

Below the Basilica’s main altar are relics from the manger of Bethlehem, in which Mary laid the newborn Savior of the World. 

The morning after his Papal election, Pope Francis went to pray at Saint Mary Major, and after returning safely from World Youth Day, he went again to Mary Major, to offer thanksgiving to Mary for that her protection and care for all of those pilgrims.  Before making his pontifical visit to Latin America and the United States last year, you guessed it, he went to pray for the success of his mission at Mary Major.

At the beginning of this Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis opened the Holy Doors at St. Mary Major.

“It is most fitting that on this day we invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary above all as ‘mother of mercy.’…She is the Mother of mercy, because she bore in her womb the very Face of divine mercy, Jesus, …The Son of God, made incarnate for our salvation, has given us his Mother, who joins us on our pilgrimage through this life, so that we may never be left alone, especially at times of trouble and uncertainty.”

“For us, Mary is an icon of how the Church must offer forgiveness to those who seek it,” Pope Francis continued.

“The Mother of forgiveness teaches the Church that the forgiveness… must be every bit as broad as that offered by Jesus on the Cross and by Mary at his feet. There is no other way.”

We may not be able to make a physical pilgrimage to the Marian Basilica of Rome today, but we look to her today, to ask her to teach us to forgive as we out, to be instruments of mercy as we ought. In the words of Pope Francis “Let us allow Mary to lead us to the rediscovery of the beauty of an encounter with her Son Jesus. Let us open wide the doors of our heart to the joy of forgiveness, conscious that we have been given new confidence and hope, and thus make our daily lives a humble instrument of God’s love”…for the glory of God and salvation of souls

Homily: August 4 2016 - St. John Vianney - Patron of Parish Priests

John Marie Baptiste Vianney, the humble nineteenth-century priest, began life in 1786 as the son of a poor farmer in a small French village. Obliged to assist his father in the fields, he was unable to commence his formal education until he was twenty years of age. Knowing nothing of philosophy and finding it quite difficult to learn Latin, he twice failed the examinations required before ordination.

He was eventually ordained a priest at the age of thirty, but was thought to be so incompetent that he was placed for further training in the care of a priest named Father Bailey.

It was during his first assignment that Father Vianney started his lifelong practice of praying to Our Lady to free him from his sensual temptations.  He made a vow to God to pray daily to Our Lady the Regina Coeli.

As a priest, I hear a lot about sensual temptations in the confessional, as I’m sure did John Vianney who often spent over 12 hours a day in the confessional, sometimes 16 to 18 hours. By the time of his death, a special railway was established for the number of pilgrims coming to Ars, up to 120,000 people per year.   John Vianney, himself, believed in the importance to our lady in overcoming the sensual temptations. For those who struggle with the sins of the flesh, intense devotion to our Lady is needed: the daily rosary for purity is recommended.

As a seminary student, John Vianney dedicated himself to Our Lady according to the total consecration of St. Louis Marie De Montfort. From St. Louie Marie de Montfort, we receive that wonderful prayer: “Totus tuus ego sum, et Omnia mea tua sunt” which became the pontifical motto of Saint John Paul II. “I Am all yours, (Blessed Virgin) and all that I have belongs to you.”

So, even the saints experience great frustrations, difficulties in preparing for, living out their vocation, and even the saints struggle with sin. And they teach us to intensify our prayer, our fasting, our works of charity to seek that perfection for which God made us.

St. John Vianney, who as a student had such difficulty being accepted for the priesthood, who exercised his vocation in such an edifying manner, was canonized in 1925 and was named the patron saint of parish priests through the world.

Our priests need prayer more than ever, as we enter into a very dark time in human history. For we need priests, don’t we, to be generous and pure and courageous and full of mercy. Think of how many converts John Vianney won for Christ because of his personal holiness, his outpouring of pastoral charity. Please continue to pray for your priests, that we may look to and follow the humble and holy example of St. John Vianney. And that all of us may continue to be lavish in our service for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 2 2016 - St. Peter Julian Eymard - Love of the Eucharist

We are blessed in the diocese by the presence of several religious orders: the Benedictines, the notre dame sisters, the cloistered poor clares, the fathers of saint joseph, the Mercedarians, the Ursuline sisters of course, who taught in the school here at St. Clare. A mile and a half away, at St. Pascals, live members of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation; several of our parishioners are lay associates of the congregation. The Blessed Sacrament community was founded by St. Peter Julian Eymard, 160 years ago.

St. Peter Julian Eymard was originally a diocesan priest. He was ordained for the same diocese and was a close friend of St. John Vianney. A few years after his ordination, Eymard joined the Marist order. As a Marist he traveled throughout France promoting devotion to Mary and to the Eucharist, particularly the Forty Hours Devotion, which many of our parishes in Cleveland still maintain. 

As he preached the Forty Hours Devotion, he felt his love of the Eucharist grow. An extraordinary passion for the Blessed Sacrament took root in his heart. After about 16 years with the Marists, Eymard founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament for men and a few years later co-founded the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, a contemplative congregation for women.

All of the saints love Christ in the Eucharist.  Though, many of the saints have been particularly devoted. St. Clare, our own patron, is depicted holding the monstrance, as she spent her life in quiet adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. "The Eucharist”, he said, “is the supreme proof of the love of Jesus. After this, there is nothing more but Heaven itself."

Many Christians, including many Catholics, are indifferent to the Eucharist, to the great gift the Lord made of himself for the Church of every age. We of course make reparation for their indifference, hoping that the Lord will draw them to a great love of Jesus in the Eucharist. We should never be afraid of sharing our love for the Eucharist, telling people about why the Eucharist is important, who the Eucharist is.

“The Eucharist is the life” of the Church. It is the center of our spiritual and liturgical life. People from every race or language can be gathered here. It bonds the Christian family together. Here, where we all become a guest of Jesus Christ.

Even we, who receive the Eucharist often, some of us daily, can always grow in our openness to find our strength in the Eucharist, to be nourished by the truth and wisdom of God in the Eucharist. For the Eucharist not only strengthens for all of the trials and difficulties of the Christian life, but inflames the fire of love we are to have for God and our neighbor.

We receive the Eucharist, St. Peter Julian said, in order “to strengthen our trust in God, feed upon his truth, dedicate ourselves to his glory as our sovereign love, love him in everything, everywhere, and above everything.”

May our love and gratitude for the Eucharist grow in accord with St. Peter Julian and all the Saints, may this divine banquet we celebrate today prepare us for the eternal banquet of heaven for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: August 1 2016 - St. Alphonsus Liguori - Praying together

St. Alphonsus was born in Naples, Italy in 1696 into a wealthy family. He finished his studies in canon and civil law at 16 years old and undertook a brilliant career as a lawyer. Over the next eight years he never lost a case.

However, in his soul he felt a deep thirst for God, for perfection, and so the Lord guided him to leave behind riches and his successful career as a lawyer to become a priest and missionary to the poor.

Fr. Alphonsus focused on evangelizing and preaching to the poorest of the city. He started prayer meetings with those living in the greatest poverty. With patience, he taught the poor to pray. The prayer groups grew to include other catechists and priests and began to change neighborhoods. They were a true and real source of moral education, social development. No government program can do what prayer and spread of the Gospel can do. No welfare state can do the work Christians are called to do. Theft, violence and prostitution nearly disappeared in these places where this holy priest taught the people how to pray.

Alphonsus' spirituality was eminently Christological, centered upon Christ and His Gospel. Meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation and of the Passion of the Lord were frequently subjects of his teachings. ... His piety was also markedly Marian. Personally devoted to Mary, he emphasized her role in the history of salvation.

The work of spreading the Gospel to which we are all called must always be rooted in prayer. If we wish the Gospel to truly take root in our neighborhoods and families, we should not only engage in personal prayer, but gather with others for prayer. Families do well to come together frequently for prayer, and to invite others into their gatherings.

Pope Benedict XVI said of him, “St. Alphonsus Liguori was an example of a zealous priest who won souls by teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments, and by his own gentle and mild manner which originated from his intense rapport with God's infinite goodness. He had a realistically optimistic view of the resources the Lord grants to every man, and gave importance to affections and sentiments of the heart, as well as to the mind, in loving God and others.”

What will I do today for the spread of the Gospel? Who will I pray for? Who will I teach to pray? St. Alphonsus said, “The Saints try to be Saints, and not merely to appear to be Saints.” What is the Holy Spirit urging us to try today, in order to gain sanctity for our own soul and to lead others to the fountain of Christ’s mercy?

May the intercession and example of St Alphonsus urge us on to work always and everywhere for the glory of God and salvation of souls.