Homily for December 29, 2013 (Feast of the Holy Family)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family.  We are once again presented with the model of St. Joseph.  On the first of January, we will celebrate the feast of Mary, the Mother of God.  These two feast days, occurring so close together in the calendar, give me the opportunity to preach about St. Joseph and fatherhood today, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and motherhood on Wednesday.  Essentially there will be one homily about fatherhood and motherhood, given in two parts and on two different days.  And because the first of January is a Holy Day of Obligation, I am confident that everyone who is here for the celebration of Mass this weekend will also be here for the celebration of Mass on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, and will hear the second part of this homily.

St. Joseph provided for the Lord Jesus and he provides for us an image of the heavenly Father.  In his life and in his actions St. Joseph gives a model for those of us who have received the gift of fatherhood through nature or grace.  St. Joseph teaches us how to be a father.

Our reading from the Gospel today is the story of the flight into Egypt.  This event occurs after the visit of the magi and just before the slaughter of the holy innocents, when many young boys in Bethlehem were killed by the order of Herod.  Like the patriarch Joseph in the book of Genesis, the will of the Lord is made known to St. Joseph in dreams.  Today the angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and tells him, “Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you.”  After several years in Egypt, St. Joseph is told in another dream, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel.”  This is the first thing that we learn about St. Joseph and about fatherhood.  St. Joseph listened carefully and prayerfully to the will of God.  The father must be a man who listens to God and to the family entrusted to his care.

Having listened carefully and prayerfully, St. Joseph acts in obedience to the will of God.  He takes the child and his mother to Egypt.  He does not send them to Egypt.  He takes them with him to Egypt.  St. Joseph exercises his fatherhood in obedience and by being present to the child Jesus and to his mother Mary.  The father is obedient to God and present to his family.  Acting in obedience, St. Joseph suffers for the sake of his family and he protects them.  This is the mission that the Almighty Father had entrusted to St. Joseph.  He was to be the protector of the Virgin Mary and the child Jesus.  He would sacrifice himself for the good of his family.

St. Joseph teaches us that a father must be a man who listens carefully and prayerfully to the will and the word of the Lord.  He teaches us that being a father means being a man of obedient action and also being a man who is present to his family.  St. Joseph teaches us that the role of the father is to protect the family entrusted to his care and to offer himself and his own will as a sacrifice for the good of his family.  And St. Joseph teaches us that the father looks forward to the future.  After their years in Egypt, St. Joseph brought his family to Nazareth so that the words of the prophets would be fulfilled.  This is the ultimate task of the mission of a father: to prepare his children for their own mission.

May St. Joseph intercede for us that we may listen, that we may act, that we may be present and willing to sacrifice, and that we might prepare the family, or the flock, entrusted to our care for the mission of proclaiming the Good News to all of the children of God. Amen. 

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for Christmas (December 24-25, 2013)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

It was an unexpected invitation.  The shepherds in the field, who were keeping watch over their flocks by night, received an unexpected announcement and an unexpected invitation.  The angel of Lord brought the shepherds the announcement of the birth of the Savior and the invitation to come to Bethlehem.  And the shepherds went in haste to see this great thing that had occurred.

Mary and Joseph were unexpected visitors.  The innkeeper had received unexpected visitors in the City of David.  It was not the angel of the Lord that brought this announcement to the innkeeper, but a humble carpenter from Nazareth and his pregnant wife.  There was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable.  The animals in the stable would make room for the Savior.

When the shepherds came to Bethlehem, they brought a gift for the Son of God.  It was not the gold, frankincense and myrrh that the magi would bring much later.  It was not the riches of a kingdom.  The shepherds’ only possession was the flock entrusted to their care, and the gift the shepherds brought was the gift of their presence.  At the invitation of an angel, the shepherds came to welcome the child Jesus.

The shepherds gave the gift of their presence, and the animals gave him a place in their home.  The animals made room in their home for Mary, for Joseph, and for the baby Jesus.  They would not reject him.  They would not fear him.  They would only welcome him.

Tonight it is not the voice of an angel that invites you to Bethlehem.  It is not the voice of an angel or the choirs of the hosts of heaven that announces the good news that the Savior has been born for you.  It is the voice of a shepherd who wants to give his flock to Jesus on this most holy night.

The Lord Jesus asks for the gift of your presence.  He asks for some room in your home.  That is the gift that he wants from you.  He wants the gift of your presence and a place in your home. 

And dear brothers and sisters, dear beloved children of the Most High God, the Lord Jesus has a precious gift for each of you.  It is the gift of his presence, and a place in his home.

Merry Christmas.  Amen.

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for December 22, 2013 (4th Advent A)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

Today we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent.  It seems like only yesterday that we were beginning the Advent season.  The four weeks of preparation are now reduced to only a few days.  Our time of preparation for the great feast of our Lord’s birth is coming to an end.

On the first Sunday of Advent, we were invited to prepare ourselves for the Lord’s return at the end of history.  The prophet Isaiah invited us to wait with patience for the kingdom of peace.  On the second and third Sundays of Advent, we heard the preaching of John the Baptist calling us to repentance for our sins and directing us to look to the Lord Jesus as the promised Messiah.  During these days we have also celebrated the great feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and we have remembered with great devotion the appearance of Our Lady at Guadalupe.  We have listened attentively to the prophetic word of John.  We have received the great gift of the Father’s love in the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary and we await the celebration of the birth of our Savior.  Today, however, in these final days of preparation for the feast of the nativity of the Lord Jesus, the Lord gives us one more gift and one more example.  Today we are given the gift of Saint Joseph, the righteous man and the model of fatherhood.

In our gospel reading today, we encounter Saint Joseph. He is a righteous man and is betrothed to Mary.  He knows that his beloved Mary is pregnant and that the child she bears is not his.  A devout follower of the law, Joseph was not willing to expose Mary to the penalties of the law.  Saint Joseph is a man of justice and silence, not a man of vengeance and impatience.  In the soul of Joseph the swords of anger had been beaten into the plowshares of peace.

In the same way as the patriarch Joseph of the book of Genesis, the Lord reveals his will to Saint Joseph in a dream.  The angel of the Lord, calling Joseph by name and recognizing him as a descendant of the royal house of David, tells him not to be afraid to welcome Mary into his home.  The angel announces to Saint Joseph that the words of the prophet Isaiah, that the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and he shall be called Emmanuel, were being fulfilled in Mary.  And now Joseph would share in the fatherly role of the heavenly Father, and he would name the child Jesus.

In his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul tells us that he has received the grace of apostleship for the sake of the name.  The apostles in the book of Acts, and generation after generation of disciples of the Lord Jesus, even to our own day, have rejoiced that they have been found worthy to suffer for the sake of the name.  Only one however, was found worthy to give the name.  Saint Joseph will stand in the temple, on the eighth day after the Lord’s birth, and declare “His name is Jesus.”

At the conclusion of his sacred dream, Saint Joseph awoke and followed the command of the angel of the Lord.  Joseph welcomed Mary and the gift of the unborn Christ that she bore into his home.  In humble silence and believing the Lord’s word spoken to him, Saint Joseph prepared for the nativity of the Lord Jesus.

My brothers and sisters let us join Saint Joseph in these final days as we prepare to celebrate the human birth of the Savior of the world.  In moments of humble silence, let us welcome Mary into our homes, so that she might present her Son to us and us to her Son.  And let us proclaim with Saint Joseph, that more than important the gifts and the gatherings and the travels, is that we have seen the promised Messiah of God, and His name is Jesus!   

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for December 15, 2013 (3rd Advent A)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

Last week we heard the preaching of John the Baptist.  This week we hear about the mission of John the Baptist.

Today in our reading from the Gospel, John the Baptist performs the last of his duties as the last of the prophets, except for the shedding of his blood.  He sends his disciples to the Lord Jesus.  The mission of John the Baptist has always been to send people to the Lord Jesus.  In the womb of his mother Elizabeth, John rejoiced at the greeting of the Blessed Virgin Mary, because he sensed that the Savior was near.  Indeed, it is an unborn child who is the first to worship Jesus Christ.  John the Baptist is the one who pointed to the Lord Jesus and said “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  And John the Baptist said of the Lord Jesus that “he must increase and I must decrease.”  It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus would say that “among those born of women there has been none greater that John the Baptist.”

John the Baptist points to the Lord Jesus.  That is his mission.  As he fulfills the mission that was entrusted to him by the Lord, John fully becomes the one that the Lord has called him to be.  As we follow John the Baptist during the final weeks of the season of Advent, we too are called to point to the Lord Jesus.  We too are called to rejoice in the womb of our mother, the Church, because the Savior is near.  And we too, dear brothers and sisters, will more fully become the people we were created to be, as our voices, our hands and our lives, point to the Lord Jesus.  Amen. 

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for Our Lady of Guadalupe 2013 (December 12, 2013)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

Tonight we gather to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We gather to celebrate the feast of our loving mother.  We gather to remember the message that she gave to St. Juan Diego and we gather to gaze upon the image that she left with us.  We are here tonight, dear brothers and sisters, because the Virgin loves us.  We are here tonight because the Virgin invites us to life.

The Virgin of Guadalupe invites us to life in the Church.  The message that Our Lady gave to St. Juan Diego was that she wanted a chapel built.  She wanted a chapel for the people of God to gather so that they could worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  She wanted a chapel built so that the holy people of God could participate in the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  She wanted a chapel built so that the precious gifts of life in the Sacraments of the Church could be celebrated for the people of God.  The Virgin of Guadalupe invites us to life in the Church because she loves us.

Do you love the Virgin?

Do you love the Virgin enough to respond to her invitation to life in the Church?  Do you love the Virgin enough to assist at the Holy Mass on every Sunday and every holy day and not simply on the twelfth of December?  Do you love the Virgin enough to bring your children to be educated in the faith of Christ?  If you do not brothers and sisters, then you do not love the Virgin enough.

But the Virgin loves you. 

The Virgin invites you to life in the Church because she invites you to life in Christ.  She invites you to share in the life of her Son.  She invites you to grow in Christ Jesus under her loving protection.  She invites you to grow in the grace of your particular vocation protected by her loving arms.  She protects me, with her loving image and her loving hands, so that I can be a Father to you.

Let us love the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Let us respond to her invitation to life in Christ and in his Church.  Let the flowers that we bring and the prayers that we offer be our sign that we desire to love the Virgin more.  And let every breath of our lives cry out: Viva la Virgin!  Viva Cristo Rey!  Amen.

Preached in Spanish at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for December 8, 2013 (2nd Advent A)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

This week I have been assisting at a few other parishes with the celebration of first reconciliation.  It is always a great joy to help introduce the children to this beautiful sacrament of the Lord’s love.  However, I did hear something this week that I have never heard before.  A nervous child began the first confession with these words: “Bless me Father, for you have sinned.”  That caught my attention. 

And the preaching of John the Baptist caught the attention of the people in the desert of Judea so many years ago.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is a hand.”  The preaching of John the Baptist was an invitation to turn away from sin and to prepare the way of the Lord.  It was an invitation to change their lives because the one prophesied by Isaiah, the one who is filled with the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, was soon to appear.  God was coming near to them.  Life would never be the same.  They would see face to face the one who would not only cleanse them from their sins but the one who would call them to life.  John the Baptist called the people to repentance.  He called them to prepare the way of the Lord.  He called them to turn away from their sins so that they could look upon the face of Christ.

The little child this week reminded me again that I am a sinner in need of the mercy of God.  The preaching of John the Baptist reminds all of us of our need to repent and to prepare the way of the Lord.  May this season of patience and preparation be for each of us also a season of repentance so that we may welcome our God who is coming near to us.  Amen.

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC

Homily for December 1, 2013 (1st Advent A)

May Jesus Christ be praised and may his holy Mother pray for us.

Today we begin the season of Advent and today we begin a new year of grace in our celebration of the sacred liturgy.  The word advent means coming or arrival.  During this season of Advent we prepare for two comings of Christ.  The second coming of Christ, which we focus on in the early days of Advent, is the return of the Lord Jesus at the end of history.  The first coming of Christ is the human birth of our Lord in Bethlehem.  We will prepare for that event in the coming weeks as we prepare for the feast of Christmas.  We await the second coming of Christ with patience and expectation.  We celebrate the first coming of Christ with this time of preparation.  Advent is a season of patience and preparation because our God is coming near to us.

In our first reading we hear of the vision of the prophet Isaiah.  We hear that in the days to come that the mountain of the Lord’s house will be established as the highest mountain.  All nations and all peoples will stream toward this mountain and desire to be instructed in his ways so that they might walk in his paths.  This will be the establishment of the kingdom of peace, where the swords have been beaten into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks.  The event that Isaiah prophesies will reach its fulfillment only when Christ returns in glory.  It will be the day on which all of creation, the whole of humanity, responds to the invitation that was sent out at Pentecost.  This universal kingdom of peace is the kingdom for which we are preparing.  The Lord Jesus in the Gospel invites us to be prepared for his return in glory.  He will return on a day and at an hour that we do not know.  The Lord Jesus invites us to prepare for that final day when he will come near to us.

During our time of preparation, the Lord Jesus calls us to be patient.  He calls us to stay awake and to be watchful.  In the letter to the Romans, Saint Paul advises the early Christians and he advises us that it is now the hour for us to awake from sleep.  Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed in the promise.  It is time for us to throw off the deeds of darkness and to put on the armor of light.  We are invited to put on the Lord Jesus.  We are invited to dwell patiently in him as we await the full revelation of the children of God.

God is coming near to us.  This is the joy of the Advent season.  The Most High God has looked upon us with such love that he desires to come near to us.  He desires to share his life with us.  That, my dear brothers and sisters, is how precious we are to God.  We are given this season of preparation so that we might watch for his coming in glory and majesty.  Until that day, when all creation is made new and all of the peoples of the earth are drawn to the mountain in the holy city of Jerusalem, God comes near to us in humility and simplicity.  Through the simple gifts of bread and wine, and the simple and powerful words of Christ the Lord, and the simple voice of his unworthy priest, God is near to us. Amen.

Preached at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Monroe, NC