Homily: Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception - "Full of Grace"

St. Maximillian Kolbe had a burning love for the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and he composed a novena in her honor, which I prayed this year.  On the final day, Fr. Kolbe composed a beautiful passage titled the Immaculata’s fullness of love,

“The Immaculata never knew the slightest stain; in other words, her love was always full, without flaw. She loved God with all her being, and from the first instant of her existence her love united her with God so perfectly that on the day of the Annunciation the angel could say to her, "Full of grace! the Lord is with you!"

He wrote these words just six months before his death at the Auschwitz concentration camp, when took the place of a Jewish man with a family who had been sentenced to execution.

“Hail, full of grace.” How many people over the centuries have greeted the Immaculate One with those words, spoken by the angel Gabriel.  The Greek word St. Matthew uses for the phrase “full of grace” is kacharitomene, which is the perfect passive participle, and can be translated, the one who has been made full of grace and continues to be made full of grace.

From the very moment of her conception, God made Mary full of his grace, and preserving her from the least stain of sin.  She was made Immaculate.  And as St. Maximillian Kolbe reminds us, her love for God, was also without flaw.

In the epistle, St. Paul reminds us that we too have been chosen from the foundations of the world to be holy and without blemish.  God chose each of us to be holy. 

We must let our Immaculate Mother teach us how to radically surrender to God, how to be free from selfishness and self-centeredness in God’s service.

May she help us respond to God with wholehearted surrender, obedience, and trust, and prepare well for all God has in store for us, for His Glory and the salvation of souls.

Homily: 2nd Sunday of Advent - The joy of repentance

On Tuesday I was invited down to the 2^nd grade classroom to meet with the 2^nd graders who were preparing for their first confessions, which they celebrated Wednesday evening.  Some of the 2^nd graders were a little nervous, so we went over the steps of confession again: how you greet the priest as you enter the confessional, then, already having examined your conscience, you tell your sins to the priest; remembering how at that moment, the priest is really standing in for Jesus, and it is like you are speaking your sins into the ear of Jesus himself. So the priest doesn’t get mad at you if you tell him really bad sins, and he won’t embarrass you, and he’ll never tell a living soul what you confessed because Jesus doesn’t do those things when we come to him, sorry for not being his disciples as we should.  The priest might ask you some questions, and you might discuss how you will try to avoid these sins in the future.  He will then give you a penance, and then speak the powerful words of absolution over you.  And when he offers the prayer of absolution, Jesus is using the priest to truly wipe away your sins and give you grace to be faithful in the future.

We then had a chance to do a few practice runs.  So the 2^nd graders sat down next to father and we practiced Confession a few times.  Hopefully, that helped to calm their nervousness and prepare them for encountering God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession.

We talked about how Advent is a perfect time for Confession because Advent is a time of preparation.  During Advent, we prepare for Christmas, and we prepare for the coming of Christ at the end of time.  And, part of preparing for God’s coming always always always involves turning away from sin.

St. Matthew tells in the Gospel today, John the Baptist was out in the desert, preaching, helping people prepare for the coming of the Messiah.  And what were the words he used to help them prepare?  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  The Greek word John the Baptist uses, you’ve probably heard before is Metanoia. “Meta noia” means to change your life, change your thinking, change your heart, turn away from one way of thinking and acting towards a new way. 

Metanoia isn’t always easy, just like going to confession doesn’t always feel easy.  Metanoia, repentence involves honesty, and sometimes honesty, especially honesty about ourselves is hard.  It’s sometimes hard to admit that we’ve failed to love God as we should, or we’ve failed to love others as we should, or it’s hard to admit that I’ve been selfish or greedy or acted in a way unbecoming of a Christian disciple. 

John the Baptist and Jesus himself were often critical of the Pharisees precicely because of their failure to acknowledge their sinfulness.  Often times, the person going from one mortal sin to another fails in the same way.  He fails to be honest that skipping Mass is wrong.  Fornication is wrong.  Hurting others with our words and actions to get back at them is wrong. 

But, we as Christians take John the Baptist very seriously, that we are to repent that Jesus might come more deeply into our life.  This is why the Penitential Rite is at the very beginning of Mass.  We begin Mass by calling to mind our sins, so that we can be open to God who comes to us in Word and Sacrament.

If we’ve committed a mortal sin, we are to prepare ourselves for Jesus by going to confession.  For in the Sacrament of Confession, God does for us, what we cannot do ourselves.  Sure, any time and any where we can acknowledge our sins, and express our sorrow for our sins and failures.  But in the Sacrament of Confession, we really, truly receive God’s forgiveness.  Just like in the Eucharist we really, truly receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, it’s not just a symbol, but in the sacraments something really real is received.

Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Confession because that is the way he chooses to forgive repentant Christians.

If we are not in a state of grace, if we have committed mortal sin and have not gone to confession, we are not ready for Christmas, we are not ready for Christ’s coming, and we are not ready to receive Jesus in Holy Communion. 

When I met with the 2^nd graders this week, I gave them one extra piece of homework, which I hope they completed.  I said, 2^nd graders, you are preparing for your first confession, but not your last.  We are to go to Confession often as Catholics.  Pope Francis said that he goes to confession every two weeks.  I heard that Pope John Paul II went every week.  Personally, I go about once a month.  Not because I am going out and committing all these mortal sins.  But the habit of going to confession, the act of examining your life and turning away from sin and selfishness should be a regular one.

So, I have a piece of homework for you 2^nd graders.  I want you to go home today, and tell your parents how you are ready and excited to make your first confession, and then I want you to ask your parents, “when was the last time that you went to confession?”  And the entire class went, “oooooooooh”.  That spoke volumes.

I then told them a story from my first confession.  That after I made my first confession back in 2^nd grade, I remember my mom also went to confession that day.  And I remember her being in there a while.  But I remember when she came out, she was beaming.  That was the first time I saw her go to confession, and it had probably been a while since her last one.  But she emerged from the confessional radiant. 

That’s what God wants to do for us when we go to confession.  He loves us so much and he wants us to be radiant.  But we so often not radiant with God’s life because we carry around all this guilt and all of these justifications for our sins, that the life of God is hindered in us. God is ready and willing and waiting to set us free and to make us radiant.

Repentance prepares us to encounter God in a deeper way.  And that encounter changes us, and makes us more like God, radiant with love, truth, and glory.

During this Advent season may we prepare well by turning away from our sins, and encountering the Lord’s mercy, that by preparing our hearts, we may receive him with joy, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: December 6 - St. Nicholas, bishop - Defender of Christ's Divinity

Children of all ages can readily identify the saint we honor today.  The man with the twinkling eyes, the smiling face, the ample body and the pillowed red suit.  Historically, we know that Nicholas was a bishop of Myra a city in what is now Turkey in the fourth century.

Perhaps one of the best-known stories about Nicholas concerns his generosity towards a poor man whose daughters were about to be forced into lives of prostitution.  Bishop Nicholas threw bags of gold through the poor man’s windows so he could pay for his daughter’s dowries enabling them to be married.

There’s another story about  the food shortage in Myra, and the local butcher abducted and killed three young men, and put them in brine to cure them before making them into a ham.  Bishop Nicholas became aware of this through the Holy Spirit, found the boys, restored them to life, and converted the butcher.

My favorite story is when Bishop Nicholas was gathered with the other bishops at the Council of Nicaea.  One of the issues the bishops gathered to discuss at Nicaea was the true nature of the incarnation. 

The heretic priest Arius was claiming that Jesus was not really God because he claimed there was a time when the second person of the Trinity did not exist, and that the Father created the Son.  Since, he claimed, the Son was created by the Father, the Son was not fully God, and therefore Jesus, the Incarnate Son, was not fully God.

In the heat of the debate, when Arius was claiming that Jesus was not of the same substance as the father, Bishop Nicholas heard Arius’ heresy, and slapped Arius in front of all the other bishops.  Definitely a violation of protocol, but Nicholas reminds us exactly what we are preparing for during this Advent season.

We prepare, during Advent, to celebrate the birth, not just of a very holy man named Jesus, but God coming in the flesh to save us of our sins.  If Jesus is not really God, then Christmas is a waste of time.  Our culture has lost the sense of Christmas because it has lost the sense that Jesus is really God.  It has become vastly Arian again. 

St. Nicholas, the defender of Christ’s divinity, has been replaced by, the cult of Santa, who unfortunately can distract us from the treat meaning of Christmas.

Parents do well to tell their children about the real Saint Nicholas, for he can be a powerful reminder that God truly became man to free us from our sins, and calls us to a life of charity towards others.  For here was a man who dedicated his life to teaching and preaching the true faith,

In the Opening Prayer we prayed, “Lord, protect us in all dangers through the prayers of the Bishop Saint Nicholas, that the way of salvation may lie open before us.”  May we be inspired by his example and helped by his prayers, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Thursday of the 1st Week of Advent - Is your life built on rock or sand

Isaiah 26:1-6 View Readings

Psalm 118:1, 8-9, 19-21, 25-27

Matthew 7:21, 24-27

After the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, back in 2005, some of the engineers who examined the breached levees in New Orleans found that some of those structures were built on sand and were breached not because of the force of the surge, but because of the poor foundation.

On this fifth day of Advent, our head about to us about "a strong city" (Is 26:1), "a nation of firm purpose" (Is 26:3), and a house "solidly set on rock" (Mt 7:25). God's Word is calling us to be strong, firm, and solid by building our lives on obedience to the Lord, the "eternal Rock"

Advent can really bring out the best and the worst of human nature.  We continue to hear stories of people trampling each other on black Friday, as if all concern for the happiness and welfare of our neighbor takes back seat to being first to get that good deal.  Advent, instead of being a time of peace, for many, becomes a time of exhausting frenzy.

On the other hand, during Advent, we do see, so many people strive to focus less on themselves; they look for ways to be generous with their time and abilities, focusing more on prayer and service; they make their annual confession, and try with God’s help to turn over a new leaf.

They understand that Advent is not meant to be an exhausting, frantic, search for the right present, but a passionate, refreshing search for the Savior.

Advent has a unique way of manifesting whether our lives our built on the strong, firm, solid foundation of God’s word, or the shallow, fragmented, unsound foundation of worldliness.

What does Jesus say makes the difference between a life headed for disaster and a life that is solid?  Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount, focus your life on doing the will of God, curb your anger, reconcile with enemies, curb your lust, be faithful in marriage, speak with straightforward honesty, respond to hostility with nonviolence, with a spirit of trust and childlike dependence turn to God in prayer.

God’s word is the strong, firm, solid foundation for a happy marriage, a right society, a rightly ordered Church, a joy-filled life.

As Christmas nears, may we continue to turn away from worldliness and build our lives on the eternal Rock of God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Tuesday of the 1st Week of Advent - God is Salvation

Throughout Advent, as we await and prepare for the coming of the Savior, so many of our scripture readings are taken from the prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah lived about 700 years before the birth of Jesus,  in a very troubling time, a very dark time for God’s people.  God’s people abandoned many of God’s commandments God, they were even worshipping false Gods.  Because of their wickedness, they became vulnerable to their enemies.  An enemy army marched into their homeland, destroyed the city, destroyed their temple, and took the men, women, and children from their homeland and carried them to a foreign city.

So God sent Isaiah the prophet to tell the people to have hope, that God will deliver you from your enemies, that he bring you back to your homeland, restore your temple.  Isaiah then told the people, that God will send them a Messiah, who will deliver them from all of their enemies, and make Jerusalem the most important city in the world, he will heal the wounds of sin, and division, and will usher in a kingdom of peace that will last forever.
Isaiah’s name in Hebrew literally means “God is salvation”.  That’s the bottom line of Isaiah’s prophecies—God is salvation.

Near the beginning of the Advent season, we celebrate every year the memorial of the great Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier devoted his life to bringing God’s salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the far corners of the earth.  In the course of his 10 years of missionary work, he traveled to India, the Philippines, Japan, baptized over eighty thousand people.

What a wonderful saint for Advent, reminding us that preparing ourselves for the coming of Christ also involves bringing Christ’s salvation to others.

During Advent we turn to God who promises to save us, bringing those parts of our personalities and attitudes and habits to him which are in need of salvation—that he might bring about an end to the reign of sin in our hearts and in our world—and end to destruction and ruin and hatred and oppression and violence.
Then having received the salve of salvation may we bring that salvation to all those we meet for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: Monday of the 1st Week of Advent - Isaiah, the Prophet of Advent

Isaiah 4:2-6 View Readings

Psalm 122:1-9

Matthew 8:5-11

Throughout the season of Advent we will read extensively from the book of the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah speaks about many of the same themes as Jesus: the need for repentance, salvation, mercy, judgment, justice, and the need for faith.

Yet, about 700 years before Jesus’ birth, Isaiah proclaimed the coming of the promised Messiah in great detail and in some of the most beautiful prose in the entire Old Testament of the Bible. 

Isaiah guides our journey through Advent in our preparation for Christmas, inviting us to look forward to the coming of the Messiah.

And Isaiah tells us today that when the Messiah comes, “The Lord will wash away filth, he will create a new assembly of faithful holy people.”  Over the next few days, Isaiah will continue these prophecies of God restoring, and making new, and cleansing and healing and protecting, bringing an end to strife and division, and ushering in an era of peace.

Through Isaiah, God promises to bring peace to the world and justice for all peoples. God’s is the peace we all long for, the healing we all long for, the fullness of life that we know deep down we are meant for—the life of holiness in communion with God and with one another.

The Gospel passage for this first week day of Advent shows Jesus to be the fulfillment of God’s promise of healing.  A paralyzed, dreadfully suffering man is healed at Jesus’ word. Jesus is the one who heals and brings justice for the oppressed and freedom to captives.  He is long waited for Messiah.

We pray during this Advent season that we will come to recognize Jesus as Messiah in a deeper way, that we will allow him to cure our paralyses, and bring conversion to those parts of us which are set in opposition to God, free us from our captivities, wash away our filth, and strengthen our communion with God and the Church. 

We pray too that we may be God’s instruments in the world this Advent, that we can bring others to recognize Jesus as savior, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Homily: 1st Sunday of Advent - History, mystery, and majesty

I can’t remember what grade I was teaching, but I was telling the children about Advent, that the word advent, comes from the latin word for ‘coming’; and that during advent we prepare for the coming of Jesus at Christmas.  And one of the kids asked, “Father, how are we supposed to prepare for Jesus’ coming when he has already come into the world?”

A great question!  Jesus, our messiah, our savior, did come already in history, almost 2000 years ago.  He came in history, born as the holy infant of Bethlehem, the newborn savior of the world into the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

That first coming of the savior in history already happened.  And we can’t do much for to prepare for that any more than we could prepare for any other event that happened in the past, in history.

We can however prepare to celebrate Christmas with reverence, gratitude, and joy the anniversary of that first coming of Christ in history. And the season of advent helps us to do just that.

As Catholics, we await a second Advent, though, a second coming; Jesus came in history 2000 years ago, and we believe that Christ will come again in majesty at the end of time to judge the living and the dead and usher in the eternal kingdom, as he explained himself, in the Gospel we heard today.

His first coming, his birth in Bethlehem, that he would be born of a virgin, was foretold by the prophets, and Jesus himself tells us that he will come again.  But he says, we do not know the day nor the hour of his second coming. The Pope doesn’t know the exact day, the mayans can’t predict it, Nostradamus and other fortune tellers can’t predict it; only the Father in heaven knows when Christ will come again in majesty and glory; it could be this afternoon, it could be in 4000 years.  But when he does return, he will come garbed in the glorious and majesty robes of judge and eternal king.

We can and must prepare for his second coming: by living faithful lives, by repenting of our sins through baptism and remaining in right relationship with God through the other Sacraments of the Church.

Jesus came in history, he will come in majesty.  Yet, there is a third coming of Christ that we can experience now, an experience of the savior here and now: a coming of the savior that we can bask in, and relish in, and adore him in, even now.  In a mysterious way, a way, hidden to our senses, he comes in mystery every time we celebrate Mass.  Under the appearance of bread and wine, Jesus comes in the mystery of the Eucharist.  This is why at every Mass the priest announces, “The Mystery of Faith”.  He announces Jesus is here, in a mysterious way, which we know through our Faith.

It is a rock solid conviction of our faith that Jesus Christ comes to us really and truly at every Mass.  As surely as he came that first Christmas in Bethlehem, and as wondrously as he will come in glory, Jesus Christ really comes to us in the Mass.  This is why we genuflect to the tabernacle when we come into a Catholic Church; this is why we kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer, because our King is here. 

Yet, this coming in mystery is hidden, it is gentle, and tender, and unassuming, and every day—so simple, to our senses, that we can often miss him.  This mysterious coming of Jesus at Mass can become so routine for us, that we can get bored at Mass, not really paying much attention to the real presence of God here, with us. 

Most of the world failed to recognize him when he came in Bethlehem.  Much of the world fails to recognize him when he comes at Mass.  And many will not be prepared when he comes again in glory.

We prepare for his coming at Mass by arriving to Church a few minutes early to pray, to become recollected, to remind ourselves of the amazing miracles which occur during the Mass, pray that we can be awake and conscious and aware of what God is doing in our midst.  

I encourage you during this season of Advent, to take a spiritual inventory of your life.  What am I doing to prepare to celebrate Christmas in a more reverent way this year?  Is my soul prepared for Christ’s coming at the end of time through Sacramental Confession?  Do I prepare well for Mass?  If not, what changes do I need to make?

When we prepare well for Mass, the Holy Spirit awakens our hearts to whole new levels of Christian joy—joy at the awareness of God’s presence in our midst.

Speaking of joy,this last week, Pope Francis issued a letter to the Church called, “Evangelii Gaudium”, the joy of the Gospel.  It is truly a work of genius.  Instead of watching the Browns lose this afternoon, you might consider reading the latest words of Our Holy Father.  His words are inspiring and cover a wide range of topics: the importance of joy in the Christian life for the work of spreading the gospel, he talks to bishops about how to be good shepherds, he speaks about unjust economic systems, and the role of women in the Church, and the importance of strong Christian marriages. 

He talks about how so easy it is for Christians to become “sourpusses”, where instead of spreading the Gospel with boldness and zeal, we can become so pessimistic about the lack of faith in the world, we decide that the effort to spread the gospel isn’t even worth it.

The reason I bring up Pope Francis’ new document is because how much he stresses the importance for each of us to not just encounter words about Jesus, but to encounter Jesus in our prayer life.  Pope Francis wrote, “I never tire of repeating those words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”

The Popes urges us, just as the saints urge us, to open ourselves to encounter Christ in a deeper way.  Being a Christian isn’t just buying into a set of ideas, but encountering Christ who comes into our life. 

But if we are too busy with worldly things, if we have not recollected ourselves when we come to Mass, if we are too busy thinking about the television we will watch, or the video games we will play, or the host of duties we have as important as they are, if we do not come to Mass wanting to encounter him, open to encountering him, we will probably miss him.

Advent is a time of preparation.  We will never regret time set aside for God during this Advent season.  But we will regret time we do not give to God—time which we allow to become filled with busyness, and worldliness.

Don’t let the world tell you how to prepare for Christmas, allow your faith to guide these Advent weeks that you might be filled with true joy, joy which the world cannot give, that we may celebrate Christ’s coming in history, mystery, and majesty, with reverence and with holy lives for the glory of God and salvation of souls.