Sunday, June 29, 2014

Homily for June 29, 2014 (Solemnity of Sts. Peter & Paul)

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

Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.  This is the patronal feast of the city of Rome, because both Peter and Paul died in Rome, and both of them are buried there.  The bones of the Apostle Peter rest in a tomb that is directly beneath the high Altar in St. Peter’s Basilica.  The tomb of Paul is beneath is the Altar in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.  These two men changed the world.  They were not rich in the things of this world.  They were not kings.  They were not successful business men.  They were proclaimers of a message.  They were followers of the Savior.  These men changed the world because they were first changed by their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.

The names of Simon and Saul were changed because of their encounter with Jesus Christ.  The Lord Jesus gave the name Peter to Simon the fisherman.  It was a sign of a new relationship and a new mission.  The name Peter means rock.  When the Lord Jesus gave Simon the name Peter, it meant that he would be the rock on which Christ would build his Church.  Saul was the name of the first king of the people of Israel.  The name Paul means humble.  When Saul began his missions among the people of all nations, he proclaimed the message of salvation with both confidence and humility.  Their names were changed because of their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.

The works of Peter and Paul were changed because of their encounter with Jesus Christ.  Simon was a fisherman.  He became Peter the shepherd.  He moved from the water to the land.  He exchanged the sea for the pasture.  Paul was a tentmaker and a scholar of the Law. He prepared shelter for those on a journey.  As the greatest evangelist that the Church would ever know, he prepared people on their journey to eternal life.  Their names and their works were changed by their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.

The ways that Peter and Paul died were changed by their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.  After years of imprisonment, and many different trials, Paul was beheaded, outside the walls of the city of Rome.  He would not die a peaceful death after years of labor.  He was executed as an enemy of the state.  They killed him for hatred.  He died for love.  Peter was crucified with his feet toward the sky.  It is said that he requested to be crucified in this way, because he said he was unworthy to be crucified as the Lord Jesus had been crucified.  He was executed in the circus of the emperor.  They killed him for hate.  He too died for love.  Peter and Paul died as witnesses to the power of the love of Christ.  They lived in faith.  They preached in love.  They died in hope of the promise of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They had seen the Lord and they had been changed forever by their encounter with Him.  Because of their encounter with the person of Jesus Christ their names, their works, and the way that they died were changed.

The Lord Jesus did not change our names, but he did give us a new one.  By his invitation and by our encounter with him, we have become Christians.  That is our name.  We are Christians, followers of the one who was crucified and now lives forever.  For most of us, the Lord Jesus did not change our work.  He has, however, made our daily work the place where we grow in the practice of Christian virtue and reflect the love of Christ.  Our place of work is our mission field.

The Lord Jesus has changed the way that we approach death.  Death is not the end.  The Lord Jesus Christ, by his passion, cross, and resurrection has changed death forever.  He has conquered the power of death by his glorious resurrection. He has promised to his faithful people that death will only change our lives, not end them.  We will be transformed by the power of the resurrection.

For St. Peter and for St. Paul, for you and for me, the encounter with the person of Jesus Christ has changed us and is changing us forever.  May we glory in the name of Christian.  May we walk and work in the love of Christ.  And may we live and die in the blessed hope of the revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ.  Amen.


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

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Homily for June 22, 2014 (Corpus Christi A)



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


May the Lord Jesus Christ protect you and lead you to eternal life.  That is a very nice phrase.  It is a pious thought and a thoughtful blessing, and you have probably never heard it before.  May the Lord Jesus Christ protect you and lead you to eternal life.  When a priest is called to attend to a person who is dying, there are a series of rites that we follow.  First, we will offer to hear last confession of the person, give them absolution and the apostolic pardon of the Church, and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.  Then, if they are able to receive it, we give them Holy Communion.  What is unique about this Holy Communion is that the Body and Blood of Christ are given as Viaticum, which means food for the journey.  There is a special formula for giving Holy Communion as Viaticum.  After saying to the person, “The Body of Christ,” only on this occasion are these words added: May the Lord Jesus Christ protect you and lead you to eternal life.  The Eucharist is given as food for the final journey to the Promised Land.


In our reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, the Israelites were given manna from heaven as food for the journey to the Promised Land.  They were a people who were fleeing the slavery of Egypt.  The manna was given to them by the Lord as their daily bread.  Each day the manna would fall from heaven.  Each day the Lord provided for his people.  Each day the people ate as those who had been freed from slavery.  They were slaves no longer.  The Lord God had delivered them and now by the hand of Moses, the Lord was leading his people to the Promised Land.  They were fed manna from heaven because they had been set free.


The daily gift of manna from heaven kept the people on the journey to the Promised Land.  Without the daily gift of manna, the people would have likely returned to the slavery of Egypt.  They would have traded their freedom for food.  They would have given up the promise of the Promised Land without the gift of manna from heaven.  They were fed manna from heaven so that they could remain free.


Our manna does not fall from the sky.  Certainly our manna is from heaven, but it does not fall from the sky.  Saint Paul reminds us that we have a participation in the work of the Lord God.  The Lord Jesus invites us to be part of the work that he is doing.  We participate in the Body and Blood of Christ in our life of worship, our life of service and in particular in our reception of the Lord Jesus in Holy Communion.  Like the Israelites, we are a people who have been set free from bondage. We have been set free from sin, death, and the devil by the cross of Jesus Christ and through the waters of Baptism.  We have been claimed as children of the Most High God.  We are slaves no longer.  We have been invited to the Promised Land.  The Eucharist is given to us because the Lord God has set us free.  The Eucharist is our manna from heaven that feeds us on our way to the Promised Land and keeps us from returning to slavery.


May the Lord grant us the grace to continue to live in the freedom of the children of God and may the Lord Jesus Christ protect us and lead us to eternal life.  Amen.


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

Friday, June 20, 2014

Our Lady of Guadalupe and the New Evangelization (June 20, 2014)

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

I saw her, and I wept.  In the summer of 2006, I was sent, courtesy of the Diocese of Charlotte, to the city of Guanajuato in Mexico to study Spanish.  While I was there I made a pilgrimage to Mexico City and to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  And there I saw her, and I wept.  I wept because as I gazed upon her miraculous image, I knew that the mother of my Lord had come to me.  Her image was not a painting.  The ground on which I stood was not selected by the diocesan properties commission.  This holy ground had been chosen by the Lord God Almighty and revealed through his Ever Virgin All Holy Mother.  She had claimed it.  The footsteps of St. Juan Diego had walked where I now walked.  Millions upon millions of pilgrims, popes and prelates, priests and peasants, peoples of all nations had come here to see Her.  And when I saw her, I wept.  Far from home, I found my mother. Perhaps it is better to say that she found me, a pilgrim not only to the Shrine at Guadalupe, but on my way to a Cathedral floor, to the imposition of apostolic hands, to the Calvary that is the Altar, and to that holy pasture of the flock of God.  I had this sense on that day that I stood in the presence of her miraculous image, that she had called me by name.  With the tenderness that only a mother’s voice can summon, my soul heard her summons to me.

Our Lady called St. Juan Diego by name.  In the midst of an ordinary day, as he walked to Divine Worship and sought to know the one who has loved him from all eternity, Mary called him by name.  She made a request and she gave him a message.  On this ground, which had been stained for centuries with the blood of human sacrifice, Our Lady wanted a chapel.  She wanted a church.  She wanted a temple that would be the foundation of the new city where the praises of the Father and the sacrifice of the Son would be celebrated in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Our Lady was claiming the land, and in Juan Diego, she was claiming the people for her Son.

I have been asked to speak today about Our Lady of Guadalupe and the New Evangelization.  Let us be clear, dear brothers and sisters, there can be no new evangelization of the world without radical and intentional discipleship.  We must first respond to the call of the Lord, to the call of Our Lady, and to the call of our Holy Mother the Church to allow the grace of God to conform us to the image of Christ the Savior.  Juan Diego only becomes a messenger of the Most High, because he was first a disciple of the Lord.  He can bring the message of Our Lady only because he has listened to her.  He can bring the message only because he is first convinced that She has given him the message.  St. Juan Diego never proclaims himself.  The message the he brings is not his own.  He hands on to others, in clarity and charity, the message that he has received.  St. Juan Diego is a witness to the facts, but also a revealer of the truth.  He is the recipient of divine grace and heavenly favor.  He is able to respond to Our Lady in obedience because humility reigns in his soul.  These are the conditions of discipleship: obedience and humility.  St. Juan Diego is ever obedient and ever humble.  He had gazed upon the face of the Mother of God, yet he always showed respect and reverence to the Church and her bishop.  St. Juan Diego reminds us how we are to be disciples before we can witness to the message of salvation. Our Lady is the perfect disciple.  She heard the word of God and kept it.  At Guadalupe, Our Lady shows us how we are to be evangelizers as well.

First, at Guadalupe, Our Lady shows us that a culture is more than just a language.  In her miraculous image, she takes unto herself the elements and customs of the culture that is to be evangelized, purified by the light of the Gospel, so that her Son can be better proclaimed and better received.  She does not simply speak to Juan Diego in his native language.  She is revealed to him as a sister, a mother.  She is not an outsider.  She has entered into the culture.

My parish is a least eighty percent Hispanic.  However, most of the children in my parish have only a basic knowledge of Spanish.  Most of them were born here.  Nearly all of them have been educated here.  They are culturally Hispanic, more accurately, they are culturally Mexican, but their primary language is English.  I was asked by the Hispanic parents shortly after I arrived in the parish to preach in English, as well as Spanish, at the Spanish Masses.  What was the reason for this?  The parents told me that they wanted their children to understand the homily.  The culture is more than a language.  Even as the language changes, the customs and the faith and the piety of the culture endure.  Our Lady teaches us at Guadalupe that a culture is more than the language.  In order to evangelize, we must engage, but not necessarily embrace the culture.

In Our Lady of Guadalupe, the people recognize their mother.  She speaks the truth.  She reveals the will of God.  There is no lack of clarity in the message that Our Lady gives to Juan Diego.  She always speaks with a mother’s voice.  She approaches with love and tenderness.  At Guadalupe, Our Lady is taking possession of a mountain that had been the place of human sacrifice. With love and tenderness, she is overcoming evil and hatred.  At Guadalupe, we see evangelization as a work of gentleness.  It is the tender voice of the mother that conquers the evil in men’s hearts.  Never shying away from the truth, and never being afraid to be bold in our proclamation, even so, Our Lady at Guadalupe teaches us to evangelize with the gentle voice of a loving mother.

In the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady is not the center.  Her eyes are cast in reverence of the Lord who is within her.  The black sash and the four-petal flower demonstrate that she is pregnant.  The appearance at Guadalupe is the Visitation of the Lord.  She draws us to herself, so that she can bring us to Him.  Juan Diego is not the story of Guadalupe.  Our Lady is not really the story of Guadalupe.  This is the story of Jesus Christ.  He is the focus.  He is the one in whom we gaze upon the face of the invisible God.  He is the one we preach.  He is the one to whom we are united in Baptism and in all of the Sacraments.  He is the one who leads us to the house of the Father.  It is Christ the Lord whom we proclaim.  Our Lady brings us to him.  The Loving Mother makes us a gift to her Son, and she makes her Son a gift to us.  Mary does not keep us for herself.  She gives us to the Lord Jesus, and then she gives us to his people.

As Our Lady draws us to the encounter with her Son, she sends us out to reveal his love.  Mary pushes us along the missionary road.  Sometimes the mother walks ahead of her child, sometimes a protective step behind.  When I was selecting the vestments for my First Mass some two and a half years after my visit to Guadalupe, I had three requirements.  First, the vestment needed to be white, because my first Mass was celebrated on Trinity Sunday.  Second, some of the decoration needed to be blue, as a sign of devotion to Our Lady, but also as a prayer that she would protect my priesthood.  And third, I wanted an image of Our Lady on the back of the vestment.  When I placed the order with a vestment company in Mexico, the picture in their catalog was the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, my favorite image of Our Lady. I realized a few days later that I had only requested an image of Our Lady, not a particular one.  I prayed to Our Lady and said, “You pick the image.”  Some weeks later, my vestment arrived.  It was not what I expected.  I’ll admit I was a little disappointed at first.  I really love the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, but it is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that adorns my vestment.  I knew that she had made her choice for a reason.  I immediately treasured the image and the vestment.  It is my wedding garment.  It is my vesture for the feast of heaven.  With her image behind me, Our Lady of Guadalupe pushes me on every step along the apostolic road, whether to Galilee, to Calvary, and even unto Emmaus.  Our Lady sends us out with the message of her Son.

Our Lady of Guadalupe calls us by name.  She teaches us that a culture is more than a language.  She speaks to us with the gentle voice of a mother.  She draws us to herself so that she can give us to her Son.  And she pushes us along the road of evangelization.  She has given us her miraculous image to inspire us and to lead us.  I knew that she had chosen the image for my First Mass vestment, but only a few years later would I know why.  As I said, the parish where I am blessed and privileged to be the pastor is about eighty percent Hispanic.  Upon my arrival at the parish almost two years ago, one of the dear Hispanic ladies helped me to unpack some of my vestments in the sacristy.  The white vestment, with the blue banding and the miraculous image came out of the box.  The dear lady looked at the vestment, and with a tear in her eye said, “You have come here to be our Father.”  And together, we looked upon Our Lady, and we wept.  Amen.     

Presented after a screening of “The Blood and the Rose” at the Catholic Media Conference, Charlotte, NC


Sunday, June 15, 2014

Homily for June 15, 2014 (Solemnity of the Holy Trinity)



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

Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity.  This is the fundamental mystery of our faith.  We believe in one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Father is God.  The Son is God.  The Holy Spirit is God.  Yet, we do not believe in three gods.  We believe in one God.  We believe in one God, in three divine persons.  We believe in the Holy Trinity.  This is the mystery, but it is a mystery of love.

The Holy Trinity is the relationship of perfect love.  The Father gives himself completely to the Son.  The Eternal Son of God responds to the gift of the Father by giving himself completely to the Father.  The relationship between the Father and the Son is complete and total gift.  It is a relationship of complete generosity.  It is a relationship that is so real and so powerful that the relationship between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Trinity is the relationship of perfect love.  The Holy Trinity contains perfect blessedness and perfect happiness.  There is no selfishness, so there is no need.  Nothing is lacking.  The Holy Trinity is perfect and perpetual love.

And yet the perfect and perpetual relationship of perfect love, in a superabundance of love, created the world and all that is in it.  The Trinity needs nothing.  We are unnecessary to the Trinity for perfect love and perfect happiness.  Yet, we are.  We are here, not because God needs us.  We are here because God wants us.

And God wants us to share in his life.  With the incarnation of God the Son, and the sending of God the Holy Spirit, we have been invited into the life of God the Father.  In Jesus Christ, we gaze upon the face of the invisible God.  In the power of the Holy Spirit, we participate in the life and the love and the sacrifice and the glory of Jesus Christ.  We are drawn into the relationship of perfect love.  We are prepared through the Word and through the Sacraments to take our place within the life of God.

The relationship of perfect love created us in love.  The relationship of perfect love invites us to participate in perfect love.  As we enter into the sacrifice of Christ, and we join in the offering of perfect love, may we accept and embrace the love that God has for us through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

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

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Homily for June 8, 2014 (Pentecost A)



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

In the season of Easter the Lord has given us many gifts.  We were given joy at the empty tomb and mercy in the upper room.  We were given a walk to Emmaus and talk from the Good Shepherd.  We were given the promise of protection and the assurance of the Lord’s direction.  Today, we bring the season of Easter to a close, and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

After the Ascension of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of the Father, nine days passed.  These were days of anticipation and days of prayer.  The disciples and the Mother of God kept vigil in prayer.  They awaited the promise of the power from on High.  They awaited the Advocate who had been promised by the Lord Jesus.  They awaited the gift of the Spirit who would remind them of all of the things that the Lord Jesus said and did during his earthly ministry.  They awaited the gift of the one who would cast out the idol of fear and install Christ as King in the hearts of all believers.  In prayer and expectation they awaited the gift, and on the day of Pentecost the gift was given.

The gift of the Holy Spirit was given to the Church on the day of Pentecost.  The tongues of fire that rested on the heads of the apostles burned away their fear and their doubt.  They could not hide their faith.  They could not keep their silence.  The Word of God that burned in their hearts now poured forth from their lips in the language of every people.  On the birthday of the Church, the entire world was invited to the celebration.  This was the invitation to every race and people, to every language and nation.  The gift of the Holy Spirit sent the apostles out into the world, so that all of the world could be gathered into unity by the Holy Spirit.  In many languages they professed one faith.  In many languages they proclaimed one Savior.  The gift of the Holy Spirit empowered the apostles to announce the Good News.

And the gift of the Holy Spirit that was given to the apostles on the day of Pentecost is given to you and to me.  In the waters of Baptism, the Holy Spirit took possession of our souls.  In the anointing of Confirmation, the Holy Spirit both gives and ignites the fire of divine love and pours forth His seven gifts.  It was not a tongue of fire, but the imposition of the Bishop’s hands upon my head that entrusted to my care an apostolic ministry.  And yet, while I participate in an apostolic ministry, we all participate in the apostolic mission.  We are all sent to the world with the gift of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead and that our loving Father desires to share his life with us.  The gift of the Spirit is given to the great diversity of persons so that we may be drawn into unity with the Lord.

The season of Easter comes to its conclusion with the day of Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  As we receive this gift and live in the grace of this gift, may our lives be aflame with the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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

Friday, June 6, 2014

June 6, 2014 (5th Anniversary of Priestly Ordination)


Remember what happens on the day of ordination.  On that blessed morning, a young levite, overwhelmed by the sentiment of his own unworthiness and weakness, prostrates himself before the bishop who represents the heavenly Pontiff; he bows his head under the imposition of hands by the consecrating prelate.  At this moment the Holy Spirit descends upon him and the eternal Father is able to contemplate with ineffable complacency this new priest, a living reproduction of His beloved Son: Hic est Filius meus dilectus. While the bishop holds his hands extended and the whole assembly of priests imitate his gesture, the words of the angel addressed to the Virgin Mary are accomplished anew: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.”  At this moment, full of mystery, the Holy Spirit takes possession of this chosen one of the Lord, and effects between Christ and him an eternal resemblance; when he rises, he is a man transformed: “Thou art a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”


Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ – The Ideal of the Priest

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Homily for June 1, 2014 (Ascension of the Lord A)



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

Last week the Lord Jesus gave us the promise of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is given in response to prayer.  The gift of the Spirit empowers us to live in the love of Christ and the gift of the Spirit gives us the defense for our hope.  Today, the Lord Jesus gives us a command, a commission, and a promise of consolation.

Forty days after his glorious resurrection, the Lord Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father.  He returns to the glory of the Father.  He returns to the glory that was his from all eternity.  Yet he enters into heaven with the human nature that he received from the Virgin Mary.  Jesus Christ enters into the presence of the Father and takes humanity with him.  Bearing the wounds of his passion and cross, which are now signs of his victory over sin and death, Christ our High Priest enters the heavenly temple.  He lives forever to make intercession for us.  He goes ahead of us to prepare a place for us, but he does not abandon us.  As the Lord Jesus returns to the glory of the Father, he gives his disciples and he gives us a command, a commission, and a promise of consolation.

The command of the Lord Jesus is to go to all nations.  For three years the Lord Jesus had gathered his disciples unto himself.  On the day of the Ascension, the Lord Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.  But then they are sent forth.  Go to all nations.  The faith of Jesus Christ is the faith of missionaries.  We are a people who have been gathered to be sent.  The whole people of God in Christ Jesus is sent to the whole world and every part of it, to every land and every people, to every place and every parish, to every home and to the most difficult mission field of every heart.  The command of the Lord Jesus sends us forth.

We are sent forth with a commission from the Risen Lord.  The Lord Jesus has made us sharers in his mission.  We have not been sent to the world to proclaim ourselves.  We are sent to the world to proclaim him who died and rose again.  It is the message of the Lord Jesus that we proclaim.  It is his teaching that we share.  We are not free to change the teaching of the Lord Jesus because it is difficult.  We are not free to change the teaching of the Lord Jesus because it is unpopular.  The Word of the Lord endures forever.  We become truly free, dear brothers and sisters, when we allow the powerful and merciful teaching of the Lord Jesus to change us.

The Lord Jesus has given us a command.  He has made us sharers in his mission, and he gives us the promise of consolation.  The Lord Jesus promises to remain with us always even unto the end of the world.  He promises us a presence beyond the power of his word.  The Lord Jesus does not leave us just a memory.  The Lord Jesus does not leave us.  In the Ascension of the Lord, the power and the presence of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ passes into the Sacraments.  In these seven sacred rites and realities, the Lord Jesus claims us for himself.  He strengthens, heals, and forgives us.  He makes his kingdom fruitful and reveals in our midst his love for the Church his bride.  He feeds us with himself, so that we will have the strength to go to all the nations.  In the Sacraments of the Church, the Lord Jesus prepares us to respond to his command.  He gathers us together and strengthens us with his word and with his presence to equip us for his mission that he has given to our care.  And he has promised to remain with us always, so that as we are renewed by his presence, we will become his presence for the world.  Amen.

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