27th Week in Ordinary Time 2023 - Wednesday - Are you angry because God is merciful?

 Yesterday, we heard how Jonah was sent by God to announce the destruction of Nineveh—because of their sin and depravity, the city of Nineveh would be overthrown. But upon hearing this, the Ninevites repented en masse—120 thousand people from the peasantry to the nobility repented with fasting, sackcloths and ashes. And the last verse we heard yesterday, said that God, seeing the repentance of the Ninevites withdrew his threat of city-wide destruction.

And you’d think that Jonah would be pleased at the great loss of life that was averted because he faithfully carried God’s message. But today we heard how Jonah was displeased that God withdrew his threat. Remember, the Ninevites were sworn enemies of the Jews. He wanted to see these people wiped out, and so he enthusiastically carried the message of doom, and he became angry because of his narrow vindictiveness. Jonah did not wish the Lord to forgive the Ninevites, but to eradicate them.

In response to Jonah’s anger, God responds with a parable about the gourd plant: Then the LORD said, “You are concerned over the gourd plant which cost you no effort and which you did not grow; it came up in one night and in one night it perished.” 

God’s response to Jonah reminds me a lot of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. “Am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Whoever said that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are different Gods has never really read the Bible that closely. Jonah was faithful in this instance of carrying the message, but he did not understand the heart and mind of God.

To Ezekiel, God says, “Do I find pleasure in the death of the wicked? Do I not rejoice when they turn from their evil way and live?” God desires that the most wicked repent and experience the life of goodness and the life of grace—the life of belonging to the order of his kingdom.

In the Gospel, the Lord teaches his disciples to pray that God’s kingdom be made manifest. St. Paul says "The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." And so when we are praying the Lord’s prayer, we are praying for God’s righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of all people, of all places. 

For there can be no real lasting peace without repentance and faith in God. So, in praying for the kingdom, we are praying for repentance to fill the hearts of those who are not living according to the standards of God’s kingdom—the standard of Jesus Christ—whose very first words in the Gospel—are repent and believe, the kingdom of God is at hand.

Let us pray and fast and do penance for those whose hearts are hardened to the kingdom and labor for their repentance, and let us rejoice when hearts are converted, and faith is ignited for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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That hearing the call to repentance preached by the Church, all men may turn away from their sins to the mercy of Christ.

For peace in the Holy Land, an end to the violence and suffering, and healing for those whose lives have been tragically disrupted. May God’s peace the communities and families devastated by the horrors of terrorism and war.

That our young people may take seriously the missionary call of Christ, that they will turn away from the evils of our culture to spread the good news of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

For all whose lives are marked by suffering, may they come to know the healing and peace of Christ.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy and religious, and for 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.

1st Week of Lent 2023 - Tuesday - Prayer, Restoration, God's Primacy

 Last Friday I shared a line from Holy Father Pope Francis’ Ash Wednesday message that still continues to resonate with me, especially with today’s readings. He told us on Ash Wednesday to set out “on the path of prayer and use these forty days to restore God’s primacy in our lives.” 

Just in that one line, that one directive, the holy Father touches upon three important Lenten themes.

Prayer, Restoration, and God’s primacy. And those three themes are on grand display in our scripture readings today.

In the Gospel, the Lord speaks to us of the importance of prayer—and not just babbling like the pagans, offering up empty words in order to appear to others to be prayerful. Christian prayer seeks what is most needed from God in all seriousness and humility. Christian prayer acknowledges, I do not have what I need on my own. I need God’s help. Christian prayer asks God to give us what can only come from Him.

And what is that one thing we need so desperately from God? Restoration. The restoration of our fallen natures. The restoration of eternal life lost due to sin. We cannot obtain this for ourselves. Restoration requires God’s grace. It requires God’s initiative. And so we pray for restoration. God restore what I have lost due to sin. Restore those fallen parts of my mind, my will, and my heart that continue to turn away from you. Restore the primacy that you are to have in my life, in my family, in my nation.

To help ensure that his followers know how to pray and pray for the primacy of his Father’s will in their lives, the Lord taught his followers, as we heard in the Gospel today, the Our Father. St. Thomas Aquinas said that The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of prayers because in it we not only ask for the things that we need from God, but the order in which we should desire them.

God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s glory, God’s primacy come first. Seek first the kingdom of God, the Lord says. The desire to glorify his heavenly Father was primary in the Lord’s life. And so it makes sense that the prayer that he teaches us should place these petitions first and foremost. The Catechism says, Praying to our Father should develop in us the will to become like him and foster in us a humble and trusting heart.”

Through fervent Lenten prayer, may we sake a restoration of our waywardness and willfulness, that God’s will may take primacy in our lives and in our world for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

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That this season of Lent may be a time of profound renewal for our parish and the Church, that all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness, and that this Lent we will be faithful to fasting and to all the ways that the Lord sanctifies us.  

For those preparing to enter the Church at Easter: that they will be profoundly blessed in their preparation for full initiation into the Body of Christ. 

For all those impacted by the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, for the victims of earthquakes, floods, and inclement weather, for the defense of our nation from all threats foreign and domestic, for those who struggle because of addiction, mental illness, chronic sickness, unemployment, war and violence, or ongoing trials of any kind. 

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in the divine mystery may never be left without your assistance. Through Christ our Lord.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 - Lust and Pride in the Inferno and Purgatorio

 
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that for my spiritual reading this summer, I’m making my way through Dante Alighieri’s 800 year old epic poem, the Divine Comedy. In the three books of the Divine Comedy, Dante chronicles a pilgrimage he makes through hell, purgatory, and heaven.   He describes the horrific sights and sounds of the punishment of the damned in hell. He then makes his way up the mountain of purgatory, where he meets those who still need to be purified of the effects of their sins before entering heaven where amidst glorious celestial light he meets the blessed saints enjoying the beatific vision of the Holy Trinity.

And throughout his journey, Dante often stops to speak to the souls he meets in the afterlife. In hell, Dante meets Popes and political leaders who misused or neglected their responsibilities; heretics who spread their errors and led others away from the Gospel of Christ, he meets those who betrayed their nation and families; and in the very lowest and iciest depths of hell, there is Judas Iscariot who betrayed our Lord.

Well, near the entrance of the Inferno, Dante meets a pair of souls, Paolo and Francesca, a married woman and her brother-in-law who are in hell because of their joint sin of lust.

The conversation Dante has with this lustful pair is interesting because like most of the souls in hell Paolo and Francesca refuse to admit they did anything wrong. They explain how they were simply spending time in a room together, reading a rather lurid romance novel, when their own passions were kindled. 

For allowing themselves to be carried away by their passions, Dante describes Paolo and Francesca with all of the other lustful souls as being blown about hell in a sort of whirlwind for all eternity. Their sin was allowing their passions to lead them to sin. They failed to exercise their intellect—and refused to admit that an unmarried couple shouldn’t have been in room together, alone, reading erotic literature—failing to reasonably protect their chastity. We call that the near occasion of sin, don’t we, when we knowingly put ourselves in a situation where, given our fallen human nature, we are likely to fall into sin.

The Catechism explains that our passions—our powerful emotions are an essential part of our human nature—hunger, thirst, desire for physical intimacy—are part of human nature, but it is our responsibility as rational beings that these passions be put under the direction of right reason.

Our passions are like horses, and they need to be directed by the bridle and bit of truth and reason and self-control. And if our passions are allowed to run-away on their own without proper direction, we will not reach the destination God wants for us—and in a very real sense our actions become little different from the animals. To allow our passions to rule is to abdicate our responsibility as human beings.

In our first reading, we hear of the grave evils running rampant in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The book of Genesis describes God Himself taking note of the grave sins taking place in these cities. Like Paolo and Francesco in the inferno, the Sodomites and citizens of Gomorrah were engaging in sins of lust. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had become so corrupt, Abraham, as we heard in our first reading from Genesis chapter 18 is really struggling to find 50 or 40 or 30 or 20 or even 10 innocent people.

Sodom and Gomorrah are spared for a time, but In the following chapter of Genesis, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by God with fire and brimstone, which is certainly a foreshadowing of the eternal punishments of the cities inhabitants who allow their passions to become corrupted by sin and fail to repent.

After traversing through hell, Dante eventually makes his way to the mountain of purgatory. And on Mount Purgatory, Dante encounters the holy souls who, repentant of their sins, now undergo purification in order to prepare for heavenly glory.

In purgatory Dante meets souls guilty of the same sorts of sins as those he encountered in hell: sins of gluttony, and lust, and wrath, and avarice and theft. But the big difference between those in purgatory and those in hell, are that the souls in purgatory acknowledged in their earthly life that their sins were offensive to God. And so they repented and began to hand their lives over to God.

The first group of repentant sinners Dante meets in Purgatory are the souls being purified of the sin of Pride—and this is a big group—a very big group. For Dante, and St. Thomas Aquinas, every sin, really can be traced back to pride. For Pride is when we turn away from God, when we claim to know better than God, when we act as if we were the center of the universe.  Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their pride and traced their inability and unwillingness to recognize him as the Son of God back to sinful pride.  

As part of their Purgatorial purification from pride, Dante describes the souls pushing heavy stones up the inclined mountain, the heaviness of the stones proportional to the measure of their pride while on earth. Additionally, the souls being purified of pride are found praying; they are praying over and over and over again, the prayer we find in our Gospel today, the Lord’s prayer.

The Lord’s prayer is the antidote to pride. For in the Lord’s prayer, we humbly surrender to God’s will, over our own. The sin of Pride weighs us down from living in the freedom of the children of God, so Our Lord teaches us the Lord’s Prayer to combat our earthly pride—to be devoted to doing the will of the Father, and relying on the providence of the Father, as Our Lord himself. The Catechism states praying the our Father should develop in us the desire to become like Christ, to behave like Christ, to be holy like Christ—free from all selfishness like Christ.

A good priest once suggested to me that our holiness as a Christian can be measured by our ability to pray the Our Father from the heart.    In Dante’s purgatory, the Our Father is prayed over and over until they really learn to pray it from the heart. Do you pray the Our Father from your heart? Being one of the first prayers we learn, praying it daily, and every week at Mass, it becomes easy just to rattle off the Our Father without praying from our hearts.

The Catechism devotes its last 100 paragraphs explaining the words of the Lord’s Prayer. I recommend reading through those 100 paragraphs over the next week, you won’t regret it. But also, I invite you, each day this week, set aside some time to pray the Our Father from the heart. Pray it slowly, reflectively, pondering each word, each phrase, each petition. Allow the Lord’s Prayer to help you overcome the pride, the willfulness, the arrogance, the disordered passions that keep you from living in the freedom and peace God wants for you.

My God’s Will truly be done on earth as it is in heaven, in our lives, the lives of our families, and nation, and parish, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

1st Week of Lent 2022 - Tuesday - The Devil hates the Lord's Prayer

 Pope Benedict wrote, “In the trials of life and in every temptation, the secret of victory lies in listening to the word of truth and rejecting with determination falsehood and evil.”

When tempted by the Devil in the desert, as we heard this last Sunday, the Lord himself drew upon the scriptures to overcome the lies and falsehoods of evil. He even quotes God’s Word about the importance of God’s word: “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

In the Gospel today, from the mouth of God, Jesus gives his disciples a prayer, a very powerful prayer, the Lord’s own prayer—a prayer which encapsulates and is drawn from so many powerful, holy, and inspired sentiments throughout the Scriptures. It is a prayer that exposes and unravels so many of the devil’s falsehoods, making it a powerful remedy to our many temptations.

Let’s break it down. Calling upon “Our Father Who Art in Heaven” is hateful to the devil who is covetous of our worship and furious of being casting out of heaven. The humility of the words “Thy Will Be Done” is utterly insufferable to the enemy who refused to bend his will to God’s. 

“Give us this day our daily bread”, recognizes that we are not self-sufficient and independent of God as the enemy would like us to be, but trusts in God to provide for us, which the devil refused to do. The petition for forgiveness for our trespasses counters both the despair and the unrepentance the devil would like to sew in us—he wants us neither to ask for forgiveness or believe that we are capable of receiving it. And he hates that we would pray for the grace to extend forgiveness to others, for the devil is completely unmerciful, and wants to refashion us in his own cruel and merciless image. 

The last two petitions are when the battle for truth and goodness really get going. “Lead us not into temptation” humbly recognizes that we are capable of temptation. And this the devil also hates, for he wants to remain hidden, not wanting to be exposed for his corrupting influence. For if an unholy thought can be traced back to him, his defeat is near at hand. 

Nor does he want us to think of the consequences of following his temptations which lead to perdition.

Finally, “deliver us from evil” unravels the devil’s great lie that we are beyond salvation, that God is absent or unwilling to help us in times of trouble. The devil does not want us to cry to God for rescue and help, he wants us enslaved and puffed up with pride and independent from God as he is. His misery loves company. But this petition is the slap in the devil’s face and provides the path of freedom for God’s people. It is always heard and answered for those who pray it fervently.

The Devil hates the Lord’s prayer, for it unravels his designs, it exposes his hatred for God and mankind; it is painful to him, for it shines light upon the darkness of his lies. 

May it be found on the lips and hearts of God’s people today and all days, for by it we reject with determination the falsehood and evil of the devil, and we turn to the Word of Truth of our good and loving God and provident Father, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For “an immediate end to the hostilities in Ukraine, for a restoration of peace and for the safety of all Ukrainian citizens. And for the Ukrainian community in Northeast Ohio, that their friends and family members in their beloved homeland be kept out of harm’s way.”

For mercy for the most vulnerable of our human family, the unborn; that their mothers may choose life and be supported by a culture of life. 

For the young people of our Church. May they be strengthened to be witnesses to the Gospel of mercy and work for a future that embodies a genuine culture of mercy.

For those preparing to enter the Church at Easter: that they will be profoundly blessed in their preparation for full initiation into the Body of Christ.  .

For the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those who are sick, unemployed, or suffering from addiction, mental, or physical illness, imprisoned, and those most in need: that the Lord in his goodness will be close to them in their trials.  

For the repose of the souls of our beloved dead, for all the poor souls in purgatory, and N. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ Our Lord.

1st Week of Lent 2020 - Tuesday - Words, words, words

In Scene II, Act II of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark sits in a library, reading a book, when Polonius, the King’s chief counselor asks the melancholy prince, “What do you read, my lord?” And Hamlet replies, “words, words, words.” Of course, Polonius wants to know what Hamlet is reading about, the meaning of the words in the book. Hamlet’s deliberate misinterpretation of Polonius question suggests that the words he is reading are meaningless to him. The words of the page could not penetrate the mind and heart of the melancholy prince.

In our first reading, Isaiah the prophet speaks of how the word of God waters the human soul and does not return to heaven void as did the words of Hamlet’s page.

So, too, the words of prayer the Lord teaches in the Gospel today, are not empty, like the words of the pagans, whose prayers amount to a bunch babbling.

The Word of God brings transformation. It is meant to bear fruit. We are always to approach the scriptures with a hearts and minds ready to be changed by them. We are to be constantly ready to learn from them and be directed by them, to put them into action.

Hamlet could not be moved by words because they were the words of man and symbolic of his own inabilities, his frustrations at accomplishing his plans. But the Word of God brings life to souls and impels us into cooperating with God’s plans.

The Lord called the words of the pagans a bunch of babbling, because they did not wish to be changed by their prayers, they didn’t wish to engage in the work of God, they just wanted to be seen, through their empty words they wished to gain attention for themselves. Rather, the first petition of the prayer Jesus teaches is “Father, Thy Will be Done”.

Hamlet’s melancholy is shared by all who, seeking only after their own wills, their own false gods, end up exhausted and unfilled.

During Lent, we do well to spend much time reflecting upon the word of God, especially our Lenten Mass Readings and the passion narratives, and allow them to till the soil of our hearts and to help us surrender, like Christ, the Father’s will in all things, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.

For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

That we may generously respond to all those in need: the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence. And for all victims of the coronavirus and their families.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

17th Sunday in OT 2019 - Purification from earthly pride

The Catholic poet, Dante Alighieri, wrote a famous poem, almost 800 years ago now, called the Divine Comedy—La Comedia Divina.  In the three books of La Comedia, Dante chronicles a pilgrimage he makes through hell, purgatory, and heaven.   He describes the horrific sights and sounds of the punishment of the wicked in hell for their failure to repent from their self-centeredness. He then makes his way up the mountain of purgatory, where he meets those undergoing purification from the effects of their life’s sinfulness. Dante finally visits heaven, il paradiso, where amidst glorious celestial light he meets the blessed saints who free from all selfishness now enjoy the beauty of being in God’s presence.

Dante uses an interesting literary device to depict the suffering of the wicked in hell, a device called Contrapasso. Contrapasso means the punishment fits the sin. For example those who in hell unrepentant of the sin of lust are caught blown about the second circle of hell by this terrible hellish whirlwind. How does the punishment fit the sin? As the lustful allowed themselves to be carried by the winds of their passions on earth, in hell they are subject to these uncontrollable winds for eternity—without rest.

In purgatory, for Dante, the purification also fits the sin. At the base of the mountain of purgatory, the largest group of people Dante meets are those who need to be cleansed of the sin of pride. For Dante, every sin can be traced back to pride. Pride turns away from God, pride claims to know better than God, better than the Church. We commit pride when we act as if we were the center of the universe. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their pride and traced their inability to recognize him as the Son of God back to pride.  Our self-centered pride keeps us from loving God and loving neighbor as we should.

So if for Dante, the purification fits the sin how did he depict the purification of the prideful? Well, what is the opposite of pride? Humility. The purification of the prideful of purgatory involved a very specific act of humility, an act of humility prescribed by the Lord Himself. Their purification, the healing of their willfulness, their self-centeredness, their sinful egotism, was to recite over and over, humbly and devoutly, the prayer we find at the beginning of the Gospel today, the Our Father.

Why does Dante see the Our Father as a fitting purification for pride? Sinful Pride claims “MY WILL BE DONE”, the Our Father prays “Thy Will be Done.” Sinful pride asserts its own self-sufficiency and control; the Our Father approaches God with open hands, seeking the daily bread that can only come from God. Sinful pride refuses to forgive, never forgiving an affront to our almighty egos, the Our Father asks God for the grace to forgive, allowing the wounded ego to heal. Where sinful pride does not acknowledge that it could ever make a mistake, could never sin, the Our Father pleads mercy for our sins, mercy that can only come from God.

A good priest once suggested to me that our holiness as a Christian can be measured by our ability to pray the Our Father from the heart. In Dante’s purgatory, the Our Father is prayed over and over as an act of purification from pride, until these souls truly learn to pray it from the heart, with a heart in union with the heart of Jesus.

The Our Father is one of the first prayers we learn as Catholics: we commit it to memory, we pray it every week at Mass. I remember committing it to memory in first grade PSR. Now, once committed to memory it becomes easy to rattle off the words, barely thinking about what they mean.  So, there is certainly a difference between praying the Our Father from memory and praying it from the heart, isn’t there? 

To pray the Our Father from the heart means to pray it from your very depths, to mean every phrase of it, to pray it with the heart and the mind of Jesus Christ.  As a spiritual exercise it is helpful from time to time to pray the Our Father, very slowly, reflecting upon every word, what those words really mean for us as Christians.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, by the way, is a wonderful resource for this, the entire final 100 paragraphs of the Catechism deal with each line and each phrase of the Lord’s Prayer.

Let’s just like at the first word of Jesus’ prayer. Where pride focuses on me, me, me.  The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to focus on us, on we.  We are to address God as part of a community.  The first word of the Our Father is Our. 

In teaching us to pray, Jesus teaches us to focus not just on ME, my life, my needs, my desires, rattling off my wish list. For Christianity is not a mere private affair.  The Church Jesus founded is not just a gathering of isolated individuals, but persons who have been brought into a new communion with God and one another.  We go to God together. 

Look at Sunday Mass.  We cannot fulfill our Sunday obligation by sitting in a room, by ourselves, communing with God.  We are meant to come together, at least every week, in united prayer. Someone who claims that they don’t need the Church to be Christian needs to reexamine the data and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Christian Church is a communion, a community, a family of souls on earth united in faith and prayer to the souls in purgatory who both receive the help of the blessed souls of the saints in heaven. And the Our Father, to be prayed by every Christian every day, opens us, reminds us, recommits us, to being a faithful members of this communion. It humbles our egocentrism, opening us up to new vistas of charity and living in harmony.

Seek and Ye shall Find. And in the Our Father, the Lord teaches us a prayer of perfect and unselfish love offering ourselves entirely to God and asking from Him the best things, not only for ourselves but also for our neighbor.

May this Holy Eucharist help us to truly be purified from all earthly pride, to grow in humble surrender to the holy will of God in all things, to pray with the hearts and minds of Jesus, united with all of the holy souls and the saints, that Our Father may truly be hallowed on earth as He is in heaven, for the Glory of God and the salvation of souls.

3rd Week of Lent 2019 - Tuesday - Forgiveness from the heart

One of the great Lenten themes is that of forgiveness.  On Good Friday, we will hear Jesus plead from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”  All that Jesus suffered, all that he endured--the tortures, the mockery, the humiliation—he endured that our sins may be forgiven.  Yet, Jesus was willing to die for the forgiveness of sins because of his great love for us.

When GK Chesterton was asked why he became Catholic, his simple answer was “to get my sins forgiven”.

God does not force his mercy upon us.  We must want it, desire it, seek it, and do what it takes to receive it.  The soul stained by original sin must receive baptism.  The baptized soul stained by mortal sin must receive the sacrament of reconciliation.

Asking God to forgive, and asking God to help us forgive is at the heart of the Lord’s prayer: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And immediately following the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours.

Parable_of_the_Unforgiving_Servant - Claude_Vignon

Today’s Gospel contains a parable about a servant who refuses to forgive. Jesus judges this servant’s refusal to forgive as wicked. A Christian must never say, “I will never forgive you.”  For if we are closed to forgiving others, we become closed to receiving the forgiveness which leads to heaven.  Jesus describes refusal to forgive as wickedness.

Forgiveness is not easy.  It might feel like, say, being crucified.  If upon examining our hearts we detect any resentment or bitterness, we need to bring those feelings to the foot of the cross and let them go.  And if they rear their ugly heads again in the future, to repeat the process over and over.  If you are keeping a list against anyone of times they’ve offended me, rip up the list and consider the slate wiped clean.

The healing of the wounds of sin and division in our hearts and our world requires our openness to forgive others. So as we meditate this Lent upon the Lord’s forgiveness of our sinfulness, we also recall our own need to forgive without limit.  Forgive completely, forgive regardless the cost, forgive from your heart, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That readiness to forgive may mark the life of every Christian.

That all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.  We pray to the Lord.

That this Lent we will be faithful to fasting and to all the ways that the Lord sanctifies us.  We pray to the Lord.

For generous giving for the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those who are sick, unemployed, victims of natural disaster, terrorism, war, and violence, the grieving and those most in need.  We pray to the Lord.

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  We pray to the Lord.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.

1st Week of Lent 2019 - Tuesday - Gentle Rain in the Lenten Desert

With the Gospel of Jesus going out into the desert to pray and fast for forty days this Sunday, I reflected upon Lent as the Desert season of the Church year. We enter the desert, free of the distractions of modern civilization, in order to listen to the voice of God who desires to speak to our hearts, to enter into conversation with God that we miss out on when we are busy about the things of the world.

The paradox is, there is water out here in the desert, there is a gentle rain that will nourish our thirsty souls if we let it. Not a single moment of Lenten prayer is wasted time, listening to God's voice is never wasted, for God’s word, as we heard in our first reading, comes down from heaven and does not return to God void, “it does God’s will achieving the end for which he sent it”.

There is a joy in this penitential Lenten season, joy in simply soaking up the word of God in silent prayer, Lenten prayer brings joyful refreshment and new life. The watering of our souls through prayer in this desert season will make our souls fertile ground to produce good fruit for the next season of our life, but for now, it is good, simply to be watered.

Our Gospel helps us to recall the prayer that Jesus teaches us to pray, the Lord’s prayer. A powerful Lenten practice is to meditate upon the Lord’s prayer very slowly. Take the Lord’s prayer, line by line, word by word, and ponder over its meaning: the meaning the Lord wants you to understand at this point in your life, in the concrete details of your life.

What does it mean that you share in the relationship with Jesus that enables us to call upon God as “Our Father”? What does it mean that he gives you “daily bread” in all of your needs? “What does it mean that he wishes to deliver you from evil”?

We are to return to the Lord’s prayer over and over, for it is a never-ending stream of water flowing from the very heart of Jesus, and the Lord wants us to drink deeply of this water.

In your Lenten prayer, do not simply babble, like the pagans, but allow Jesus to teach you to pray, to lead you into the conversation He is having eternally with the Father, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring purification from sin and selfishness to all people.

For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

That we may generously respond to all those in need: the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy.

Homily: Tuesday - 1st Week of Lent 2017 - Rightness of life depends upon rightness of prayer

In the section from the Catechism on “The Lord’s Prayer” we read, “the rightness of our life depends upon the rightness of our prayer”. Struggling to overcome particular sins, not remaining patient with certain people in your life, not able to overcome a particular addiction? Consider your prayer life.

Often in the confessional, I will hear sins of anger, resentment, bitterness, impatience, and lust. After the penitent confesses, I often find myself asking about the penitent’s prayer life. How often do you pray? And so often, I hear, “I don’t pray as often as I should, Father.”

How can we be surprised when we fail to love our neighbor as we should, when we don’t love God as we should—when we fail to come to Him who is the fountain of love and mercy through prayer?

“The rightness of our life depends upon the rightness of our prayer”

Throughout His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives his followers clear teaching on how to rightly order their lives, so to be he faithful disciples and to become worthy of the kingdom of heaven. And right at the heart of His Sermon, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. Prayer is needed for faithful discipleship.

The Lord then teaches the perfect prayer. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, “The Lord's Prayer is the most perfect of prayers. . . . In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them.”

The Our Father can be divided into seven petitions. The first three petitions ask God to draw us toward His glory; the last four petition God for the assistance only He can give. First we seek God’s glory, then we seek His aid in our earthly lives.

“The first series of petitions carries us toward him, for his own sake: thy name, thy kingdom, thy will! It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love. In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves”

In the Lord’s Prayer, just helps us order our lives by turning to God, asking God, to help us put His Will First. Why do we so often sin? Why do we so often fail to love the people in our lives with selfless love? Why are we so impatient and unforgiving? We fail to put God first.

Lenten prayer helps us to reorient, recalibrate, redevote our lives to God. May our Lenten prayer help us to overcome our sins, to be filled with God’s love, and seek first the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the Church will experience the graces of profound renewal during this season of Lent.  We pray to the Lord.

That all families will recommit themselves to fervent prayer this Lent so as to grow in greater love and holiness.  We pray to the Lord.

For an end to abortion and for the reverence and protection of human life.  We pray to the Lord.

For the engaged couples attending our parish’s Pre-Cana Day this weekend, that the Lord will increase in them His gifts of love to prepare them rightly and chastely for the sacrament of marriage, and for a strengthening of all marriages. We pray to the Lord.