Homily for February 23, 2014 (7th Sunday A)

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

When a new church building is consecrated for divine worship there are an elaborate series of rites that occur.  At the front doors of the church, the Bishop marks the door with the sign of the cross and claims the building for Christ.  Then the Bishop blesses water and sprinkles the building and the people of the congregation.  At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word the Bishop presents the lectionary to the readers for the Mass, demonstrating that the Word proclaimed in this community has been received from the apostles.  After the Bishop’s homily, the litany of the saints is chanted, and the prayer of dedication is sung.  Then the Bishop anoints the altar with Sacred Chrism.  The walls of the church are anointed with Sacred Chrism with the sign of the cross.  Following this anointing, incense is burned throughout the church, the candles are lit, and the first Eucharist is celebrated in this new Temple of the Lord.

On the day of our baptism, at the beginning of the liturgy, our foreheads were marked with the sign of the cross and we were claimed for Christ.  The water was blessed for baptism and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we were washed in the waters of salvation.  Our ears and mouth were touched so that we might hear the word of the Lord and proclaim our faith to the praise of the Father.  Our Godparents were given a candle as a sign of the light of Christ now present within us.  On the day that we received the Sacrament of Confirmation, the bishop anointed our forehead with Sacred Chrism in the sign of the Cross.  As children of God, living in communion with the Church, we have the obligation and the privilege of participating in the celebration of the Eucharist.  Through our Baptism, each of us has been made a temple of the Lord.  We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation, and we are fed with the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Each of us has been made a Temple for the Lord, and holiness is fitting for God’s temple.

In our readings today, we hear the command and the invitation of the Lord to strive to be holy as the Lord is holy.  The Church reechoed this call at the Second Vatican Council when she declared that all of the faithful are called to holiness of life.  All of us, priests, religious, married and single, all of us are called to holiness.  All of us are called by the Lord Jesus to share in his love and to imitate his mercy.

We seek to live a life of holiness by being faithful to the duties of our particular vocation.  Fulfilling our daily obligations in a spirit of joy and hope, we grow in our relationship with the Lord.  Each day the Lord invites us to turn to Him in prayer and place before the throne of grace the needs of each day.  Each night the Lord invites us to turn again to Him in prayer and to ask Him for mercy for the sins we have committed that day through our weakness.  Every week we are invited to the celebration of the Holy Mass where we are fed by the Word of God and the Bread of Life.  Living our life close to the Sacraments that Christ has given to His Church is how we grow in holiness.  This is how we live as Temples of the Lord.

As we celebrate this Eucharist today, let us thank the Lord for the grace that he has given to us in our baptism and our confirmation.  Let us commit ourselves to responding to the invitation to holiness of life that the Lord has given to us.  And let us rejoice today for the Lord has made His temple and promised to dwell within us.  Amen.

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

Homily for February 16, 2014 (6th Sunday A)

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

The greatest joy in my life as a priest is the celebration of the Holy Mass.  In every celebration of the Eucharist the priest and the holy people of God enter into a sacred dialogue.  I offer to you an invitation and with faith and love you respond in the words that belong to you as a baptized child of God.  At the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer, I invite you to “Lift up your hearts,” and you respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.”  We say these sacred words so very quickly and so often that we can miss the invitation of the Lord.  The Lord Jesus invites us to offer our hearts to him.  The Lord Jesus invites us to unite our hearts to his Sacred Heart to the praise and glory of God our Father.  Today in our reading from the Gospel, the Lord Jesus desires our hearts.

In nearly every passage in the sacred scriptures, we learn something about ourselves or we learn something about what the Lord God has called us to do.  In our first reading today, we learn about the freedom that God has given to us and the freedom that he sustains in us.  Each of us was created in love and each of us was given the ability to choose between good and evil.  It is true that because of original sin evil and sin are appealing to us.  We are subject to temptation.  The choice to follow that temptation, however, remains our own.  We have the ability to say “Yes” to the invitation of God.  We also have the ability to say “No” to God.  That is the gift of freedom that the Lord has given to us.  The Lord will not take our hearts from us.  He will only receive our hearts as a gift.

In our Gospel today we hear from the Sermon on the Mount.  The Lord Jesus has gathered his disciples on the mountain and he is instructing them in the ways of discipleship.  He teaches his disciples and he teaches us the greater meaning of the Law of Moses.  The law that Moses gave to the people of Israel was concerned with correct actions.  That is the focus of all law.  The Lord Jesus invites us to something greater.  The Lord Jesus invites us not only to love in our actions, but also to love in the motivation for our actions.  The Lord Jesus invites us to purify our hearts.  We hear today of the danger of anger, lust, and deceitful speech.  These dangers are present in our hearts long before they are present in our actions.  The Lord Jesus invites us to fight against them in our hearts so that our hearts may be a pure offering to him.

Anger is deadly poison.  It slowly kills the one who keeps it.  Every day in our prayer and every time we participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we have the opportunity to turn toward the Lord and ask him to cleanse us of our anger.  We beg the Lord to take from us the anger that we hold in our hearts from wounds that we received years ago, and from wounds that we received yesterday.  We ask the Lord to purify our hearts of anger so that love may take its place.

The danger of lust is that is fails to recognize the dignity of another person.  Very simply, lust makes another person into a thing.  When lust is allowed to reign in the heart of a person, then every other person is viewed as a thing to be used, rather than a mystery to be reverenced.  Lust is a corruption of the gift of God.  Lust takes what is holy and makes it profane.  Lust takes what belongs to a sacrament, and makes it into a sacrilege.  We beg the Lord to turn our eyes and our thoughts toward him and to grant us the grace to love as he loved and to speak as he spoke.

Deceitful speech destroys relationships.  When we are not truthful in our speech, and when our words and our promises have no meaning, then we destroy our relationships with each other and with God.  We beg the Lord to purify our hearts and our lips so that we might speak the truth in love.

As we celebrate this Eucharist today, let us ask the Lord for the grace to use the gift of freedom well.  May the power of his love and the sacrifice that we offer cleanse our hearts of anger, lust, and dishonesty.  And when the invitation is given to “Lift up your hearts,” may we respond with the gift of our whole heart and proclaim, “We lift them up to the Lord.”  Amen.

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

Homily for February 9, 2014 (Our Lady of Lourdes Sunday)

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

She brought an invitation.  One hundred and fifty-six years ago, on the 11^th of February, the Mother of God brought an invitation.  In the small village of Lourdes in France, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a humble, peasant girl named Bernadette.  Mary would appear to Bernadette eighteen times between the 11^th of February and the 16^th of July of that year.  The Blessed Virgin Mary gave an invitation to Bernadette.  She gave an invitation to the people of France.  She gave an invitation to the people of the world.  And today, the Mother of God gives an invitation to you and to me.

Mary invites us to conversion.  The Blessed Virgin Mary invited Bernadette to pray for the conversion of sinners and to do penance for them.  The invitation to conversion is an invitation to follow the way of the Lord Jesus more closely.  It is an invitation to turn away from sin and to turn toward the Lord.  The invitation to do penance is an opportunity for us to cooperate with the grace of God so that what has been damaged through the horrors of sin might be restored through the light of grace.  The Mother of God invites us to follow her Son.

Mary invites us to the cross.  The appearance of Our Lady in Lourdes has always been associated with the sick and the suffering.  Mary invites us to join her at the foot of the cross of her Son.  Mary looks upon those who suffer with the same eyes of mercy and loves with the same pierced and compassionate heart as she looked upon and loved her Son.  In every suffering and in every kind of suffering, Mary invites us to stand with her and to be cared for by her.  She is the loving mother who comforts her children.  She is the loving and compassionate mother who meets us along the road to our own Calvary.  The Mother of God invites us to the cross of her Son.

Mary invites us to experience healing.  During one of the times that Mary appeared to Bernadette, Mary invited her to drink from the spring of water.  What originally appeared as only a few drops of muddy water is now a mighty spring whose waters flow abundantly and bring healing and peace.  Lourdes is a place of physical healing, but more importantly, it is a place of spiritual healing.  It is a place where those who doubt are restored to faith, where those who despair are restored to hope, and where those who are dead in their sins are restored to life in Christ’s love.  The Mother of God invites us to experience the healing power of her Son at Lourdes.

In the Shrine of Lourdes in France, the Blessed Virgin Mary invites the world to conversion, to the cross, and to experience healing.  And now, dear brothers and sisters in the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes in Monroe, the Blessed Virgin Mary invites you and me to conversion, to the cross of her Son, and to experience healing.  We come to this place, to this sacred ground, to follow the Lord Jesus more closely.  We come here because at this moment the invitation of Christ is more powerful to us than the passing things of the world.  Here we turn away from the lies of the world, the flesh and the devil, so that we can embrace the truth in Christ Jesus.  We respond to the invitation of Mary because we know that our sufferings will only find their meaning and only find their completion in the holy cross of the Savior.  And we come here to receive the healing power of Christ, so that we will flow from this place like the waters of Lourdes.  Like the waters of Lourdes we will flow from this sanctuary and the witness of our lives will bring faith to those who doubt, hope to those who despair, and to the spiritually dead, life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

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

Homily for February 2, 2014 (Presentation of the Lord)

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

Today we celebrate the feast of the Presentation of the Lord Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Forty days after his birth in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph brought the Child Jesus to be presented in the Temple, in accord with the Law of Moses.  With the child, they brought the offering of two turtledoves, or two young pigeons.  This was not the original offering prescribed in the law, but was an exception: it was the offering of the poor.  In poverty and humility Mary and Joseph brought not only the offering, but they brought the Lord to his Temple.  What had been prophesied by Malachi was fulfilled on this day.  Where God had been worshiped, now God with us, Emmanuel, entered the Temple carried in his mother’s arms.  And there in the Temple, Mary and Joseph and the Child Jesus encountered Simeon and Anna.  Simeon had been told, by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that he would live to see the Christ of God.  Simeon would not see death until he had seen the face of the conqueror of death.  Anna, the prophetess, worshiped the Lord day and night in the Temple.  She too, had the grace to recognize the redeemer of Israel.  On this day, Simeon and Anna rejoiced because they were privileged to receive Jesus Christ.

The lives of Simeon and Anna had been a time of preparation for their encounter with the Lord.  They were people who were attentive to the worship of God.  They knew that they would encounter the Living God as they joined in the prayer of his people.  They were attentive to the inspiration of the Spirit of God.  They were believers in the promises of God.  Through their worship in the Temple of God, their attention to the Spirit of God, and their faith in the promises of God, Simeon and Anna were prepared to receive Jesus Christ.

On that day when Mary and Joseph presented the Child Jesus in the Temple, Simeon and Anna received him with faith and joy.  Simeon took the Child Jesus from his mother’s arms into his own, and he praised God.  Simeon rejoiced because he held in his arms the light of the nations that had been promised and the glory of the people of Israel.  Anna recognized the Child as the Redeemer of Israel.  He came to the Temple not as a conquering hero, but as a child in the arms of his mother and St. Joseph.  Simeon and Anna rejoiced, because they had received Jesus Christ.

And having received Jesus Christ, Simeon and Anna responded in praise and thanksgiving.  Simeon blessed God for his faithfulness and for the mighty works that would be accomplished through this child.  Anna gave thanks to God and spoke to everyone about the Child Jesus.  The one they had received in humility and expectation, they now shared in joy and adoration.  Simeon and Anna responded with joy because they had received Jesus Christ.

And dear brothers and sisters, the joy that was theirs, is ours.

Every day in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we have an opportunity to receive Jesus Christ.  Our lives are a time of preparation for our encounter with the Lord.  We prepare to receive him through our acts of worship.  Attentively listening to the words of the prophets and the proclamation of the Good News, we experience the inspiration of the Spirit of God.  We come together as believers in the promises made to us in baptism.  We come together as believers who accepted the promises of our baptism as our own with our “Amen” at First Communion.  We prepare to receive him, and we approach him with faith, humility and joy.  He does not appear to us as a conquering hero, but in the arms of our mother the Church and through the ministry of your father in God.  We receive Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, and he invites us to respond in praise and thanksgiving.  Christ invites us to respond to the gift of his presence with the gift of our presence.  He gives you the gift of eternity and invites your response, in time, of thanks and adoration.  Amen.

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