Homily for May 17, 2015 (Ascension of the Lord)

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

The Ascension of Jesus is my favorite feast. For some people, Christmas is their favorite feast. For others, it is Easter, or Pentecost, or one of the feasts of Mary. But for me, it is the Ascension of the Lord Jesus into heaven. This is my favorite feast.

With the Ascension of Jesus, I have a place in heaven. I have access to the kingdom of the Father. With the Ascension of the Lord Jesus, we have a place in heaven. We have access to the Kingdom of the Father.

On the twenty-fifth of March each year we celebrate the Annunciation. On that day we remember the message of the Angel Gabriel to Mary. We remember that Mary says yes to the invitation of the Lord. We remember that the Word became flesh in her womb. Divinity and humanity are perfectly united in the womb of the Virgin of Nazareth. Jesus is perfectly united with the Father and perfectly united with us. And when Jesus ascends to the glory of the Father, when the days of his earthly ministry were complete, the humanity of Jesus enters into heaven. Humanity and divinity are present in the Kingdom of the Father. Jesus goes before us to prepare a place for us. We can have a place in heaven because the Lord Jesus has ascended to the Father.

And we have access to the Kingdom of the Father because Jesus has ascended into heaven. Two of my favorite saints, Saint Ambrose and Saint Leo, preach about this mystery. They say that with the ascension of Jesus, the power of the earthly ministry of Jesus now passes into the sacraments of the Church. The power and the presence of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ remain with us and we have access to heaven. The power of the blessing of Jesus as he ascends to the Father is the same power that was extended to me by the imposition of apostolic hands. It is the same power that touched each of you in the waters of baptism. It is the power that makes marriage holy. It is the power that extends mercy. It is the power that heals the sick. It is the same power that sends us forth, from generation to generation, with the message of the Good News. It is the power that makes sinners into saints. We have access to this power in the sacraments. We have access to the Kingdom of Heaven because the Lord Jesus has ascended to the Father.

The Lord Jesus ascends to the Father and he prepares a place in the Kingdom for you and for me. Through the power of the sacraments which Jesus gave to his Church, he prepares you and me for a place in his Kingdom.

This is my favorite feast day. The Lord Jesus ascends into heaven. Where he has gone, we hope to follow. Amen.

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

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Homily for May 10, 2015 (6th Easter B)

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Homily for May 3, 2015 (5th Easter B)

Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. If we remain in him we will bear much fruit.

Homily for April 26, 2015 (4th Easter B)

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

See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. Yet so we are. What we shall be has not yet been revealed, but we know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

There are always so many things to say. There are always so many things to think about. There are always some many things that take up our time. And there are always so many things that I could preach about each week. There are always so many things.

We have three powerful readings today. We have three powerful proclamations of the Word of God to us today. There are so many things that we could think about, that we could talk about, and that we could pray about. But dear brothers and sisters, there is really only one thing. There has always been only one thing. And for that matter, there will always only be one thing: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called children of God. Yet so we are.

God our Father has loved us and he continues to pour out his love for us. Through the power of his love he invites us closer to him, both in this life and in the life in the kingdom that never ends. He has made us his children in Christ Jesus. Through the Sacrament of Baptism we were claimed for Christ our Savior by the sign of his holy cross. We were reborn in the waters of the font, cleansed of original sin, and made members of the flock of the Good Shepherd. This is our Christian dignity. This is our first and fundamental vocation: to be children of God and sheep of his flock.

We can see the love the Father has bestowed on us when we look to Jesus the Good Shepherd. Our Lord tells us in the Gospel that he is the Good Shepherd. He knows the sheep of his flock and the sheep of his flock know him. Think about that for a moment, dear brothers and sisters. Think for a moment about what that statement really means. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the Eternal Father, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the one who healed the sick, fed the hungry, raised the dead, suffered, died and rose again, knows and loves YOU. And I do not mean you in the plural sense, you individually. Just like Jesus called Mary Magdalene by name, and he called us by name in the waters of baptism, he loves us by name, individually. The heart of the Good Shepherd is so filled with love that what he has done for all of us, he would have lovingly and willingly done for each of us. Jesus loves us, and he knows us better than anyone else. Jesus knows our gifts, because he gave them. But he also knows our weaknesses. He knows our wounds, and he knows our sins, and he continues to love us and to call us closer to himself.

See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Amen.

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

Homily for April 19, 2015 (3rd Easter B)

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

I was ten years old, and I was called to the office of the principal. To be clear, I was not in trouble. I was called to the principal’s office because I had seen something happen. I had seen the fight, between the two girls, on the playground, near the swings, during recess. I was called to the office to tell the story of what happened. I was called to the office because I was a witness to the events on the playground.

What does it mean to be a witness? A witness has a personal experience of an event. I saw and heard what happened on the playground. The witness needs to have an understanding of the event. I knew that I saw a fight on the playground and not a game. And a witness is able to describe and explain what happened. I could tell the story to the principal of what happened on the playground. I could give testimony. A witness is someone who has personal experience and understanding of an event and is able to give testimony about it. They have experience. They have understanding. They give testimony. That is what it means to be a witness.

On the day of the resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples who were gathered in a room. Earlier in the day, Jesus had appeared to two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Though the two disciples did not recognize him during their journey, they did recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Those two disciples ran back to Jerusalem and were sharing their experience when the Lord Jesus appeared in the room. The risen Jesus greeted the disciples with words of peace. He showed them his hands and his feet. He invited them to touch him, and he asked them for something to eat. Then, he told them that the law and the prophets were fulfilled in his suffering. He opened their minds to the meaning of the Scriptures. Jesus revealed that what had been seen in the lives of Moses and the prophets, and what had been proclaimed in the songs of the Suffering Servant by the prophet Isaiah, were fulfilled in his suffering. He was the servant of the Lord who was rejected, and beaten, and mocked, and killed. He was the one whose sufferings revealed the thoughts of many hearts. And when he announced his resurrection, he said that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations. Then he called his disciples witnesses. For the first time, Jesus called them witnesses.

And he called them to be witnesses. Later, when Peter was preaching in the Temple area, he would claim this title. Peter would claim to be a witness of Christ’s suffering and of his resurrection. Peter would preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the apostolic mission of Peter and the other disciples: to be witnesses of the suffering and resurrection of Jesus and to give testimony before the world. The apostles are called to be witnesses.

And Jesus calls us to be witnesses. He calls each of us to be a witness to the resurrection. He calls each of us to proclaim the good news of forgiveness in Jesus Christ in the circumstances of our daily life. Jesus calls us to be witnesses and he calls us to give our testimony to the events that have redeemed the world.

Now we were not at the empty tomb in Jerusalem, and we were not at the cross on Calvary. We did not even walk the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yet we are witnesses. We are witnesses because each of us has a personal experience of the Risen Lord in the waters of Baptism, and in each of the sacraments. We are witnesses because in the celebration of the Liturgy, we hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us and we celebrate the mighty acts of the Almighty God. In the Liturgy, we go to the Upper Room, to the Cross of Calvary, and to the empty tomb. We are witnesses because we experience the gift of the life of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, in the breaking of the bread, and in service to each other and the world.

We are witnesses of Jesus Christ. Through our prayer and through our weekly, and even daily, participation in the Eucharist our minds are opened to the teachings of the Scriptures and the mystery of our loving God. We come here each week to experience the Lord Jesus. We come to ask him for the gift of understanding, and we come to be strengthened to give our testimony: The Lord is risen, we are his witnesses. Amen.

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

Homily for Easter Vigil (April 4, 2015)

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

There is something different about this particular Easter Vigil.  We will not celebrate the liturgy of baptism tonight.  We will not celebrate the rite of reception into full communion with the Church.  But we will renew our own baptismal promises.  I will not pour the water tonight, but we will celebrate because the water of salvation has been poured upon us.  Though we will not see new life in Christ begin this night, we will celebrate that Christ has made our lives new.

Throughout the season of Lent we have been preparing for this night.  As we have traveled from the call to conversion with the imposition of the ashes of repentance, and we have heard of the mighty deeds of the Lord Jesus at the well, on the road, and at the tomb of Lazarus, we have been preparing for this night.  Tonight we have been preparing to renew the promises of our baptism, because tonight, beginning with the creation of the world, we have heard the story of the promises that God has made to us.  This is the promise made to Noah and to Abraham, to Moses and to David, to Isaiah and to Ezekiel.  This is the promise that Mary Magdalene and the holy women heard, as they stood in the empty tomb very early in the morning on the first day of the week.  He has been raised.  He has been raised.  And we have been raised with him.  The Father has fulfilled the promise that has been made in his Son. 

And so we will renew our promises.  We will reject sin and Satan and all of his empty works.  We will profess our faith in God the Father, in God the Son, and in God the Holy Spirit.  We will be sprinkled with the water in remembrance of the day when the water was poured upon us.  And we will be fed with the Bread from Heaven which gives us strength on our journey to Heaven.

We have heard the promise.  We will renew our promises.  But then, my dear brothers and sisters, we will be called to live as children of the promise.  We will be called to live as witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We will be called to give testimony to our faith and we will be called to give a defense for our hope.  We may even be called to shed our blood for our faith in Him who shed his blood for us.

Only a few days ago, in Kenya, the price of professing the Christian faith was immediate death for one hundred and forty-eight Christians.  Nearly every day we hear of the killing of our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world.  Nearly every day we hear of those who renew the promises of their baptism in their own blood.  There is a price to the promise that we make and that we renew.  There is a price, dear brothers and sisters, and throughout the world each day Christians are paying it.

But for us, we shall live our promise and we shall pay our price here.  Here in this parish, in this community, and in each of our homes, we will live the promise.  We will live in the hope and in the overflowing joy of Mary Magdalene and the holy women.  We will share the message, because we have heard the promise.  We will share the message because God has kept his promise.  Jesus has been raised!  Alleluia!  Amen.

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