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Homily

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Mal. 3: 1-4; Ps. 24:7-10; Heb. 2:14-18; Lk. 2:22-40

 Mary and Joseph take Jesus the infant to present him to the Lord in the temple to comply with the Law.  Simeon recognizes the child as the Lord’s “salvation…a light of revelation”.  He also foretells to Mary that she will be tested through suffering with the words “you yourself a sword will pierce”.   How are we prepared to face the test of suffering? 

Jesus tested through suffering comes to help us being tested in our own suffering.  This is the way that the Lord God prepares the way for himself sending his “messenger” of the covenant that he desires to have with his people.

Jesus comes through great joy as the joy we experience at the birth of a child but he also comes through suffering as we encounter him on the cross in his suffering for our sins.  We prepare for both by being a people of faith, hope, and love.  In faith we believe that even our suffering has merit in the salvation of our souls.  It is the “refiner’s fire” spoken of in the first reading reminding us of our mortality and destiny as suffering helps purify our souls. 

Our hope lies in knowing that our suffering even in death is not the final ending of our lives but another of the tests we must endure to enter into the glory of God.  God is love and love is our final destiny that is now and is coming in greater force.  Love allows the cross of suffering to be bearable in the most difficult of conditions.  Love sets us free from suffering and from the evil one. 

The presentation of the Lord represents our faith, hope, and love of God and like Anna the prophetess in “prayer and fasting” we wait upon the Lord and speak of this child Jesus as the beginning and the end of our salvation.  Jesus a “light for revelation…and glory” for his people. 

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Homily

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – A Jubilee Year

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Neh. 8: 12-4a, 5-6, 8-10; Ps. 19:8-10, 15; 1 Cor. 12:12-30; Lk. 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Jesus proclaims “a year acceptable to the Lord” and this is our Jubilee Year because he is with us to bring the “glad tidings” to his people.  Pope Francis has declared this our Jubilee Year to pour out special graces upon God’s people and upon this world. We come to him as one body to celebrate because “Today is holy to the Lord your God”.  Let us recognize God’s holiness in his mercy and love as he cleanses us of our sins and restores us in our own call to holiness. 

“Rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”  A Jubilee year is a year of rejoicing giving thanks for all the Lord’s blessings.  The Lord comes to set us free, free of sin, free of evil, free of fear.  The Lord comes to be our strength in a world that remains lost within itself, he guards us against the temptation to follow ideologies of human creation.  Truth comes from the Lord in perfect law, clear commands, right judgment, and lifegiving word.  It is up to us to trust and to follow. 

We follow best when we follow together as one body bring our God given gifts to the service of our faith in God.  As we read today “all the parts of the body, though many are one body” and we all live in the one Spirit of God.  We are each given a different state of life to serve the different needs of the one body.  Even among clergy, a bishop cannot live an isolated contemplative life and neglect his flock, nor a married man ignore his call to work for the support of his family, nor a woman spend her time in prayer when her children need to be fed.  We are each living a different state whether single, married, widowed, young or elderly yet each state offers us an opportunity to be a voice for God right where we are.  It all begins with a state of being a person of love that transcends God’s love for each other. 

In God’s divine wisdom we were all given different gifts in the service of one body that requires of us to come together in support of each other.  We need the other in our life and cannot be living in the illusion of “self-sufficiency”.  There is an inherit interdependence in humanity that we may be humble in receiving and giving of each other to one another with love and generosity.  The body though one is most reliant on the head which is our high priest who reveal himself today as the word made flesh.  Jesus is our Godhead, the source of our life and our salvation.

Jesus’ revelation of himself comes to “proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord”.  Are we ready to celebrate his victory over death and to enter into his glory?  Are we ready to be the difference in our time, in our state of life, with those who share our space, our world, our hopes and dreams?  Our hope and dreams are for the eternal joy to come and it begins now in this our Jubilee year.   

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Homily

The Baptism of the Lord – My chosen one

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Is. 42: 1-4, 6-7; Ps. 29:1-4, 59-10; Acts. 10:34-38; Lk. 3:15-16, 21-22

Jesus is “my chosen one” whom the Lord is well pleased.  When we speak of the baptism of the Lord, we refer to Jesus being baptized by John but we should also recognize the words of John who states “he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire”.  Through Jesus’ baptism of us we become his chosen ones.  To be chosen is to be called for a greater good into the kingdom of God.  We are chosen to fulfill a purpose in salvation history.  Jesus “my chosen one” came to free us from sin through his passion, death, and resurrection.  Do we recognize our chosen purpose? 

We are chosen to live holy lives in the practice of our faith.  To give to God our praise and worship and to allow him to work through us in the care, conversion, and covenant of his people.   Care comes through the corporal and spiritual needs of others with the understanding that if one part of the body of Christ suffers, we all share in that suffering and so we lift each other up.   Conversion by our witness in the way we live our lives that gives testimony to our faith.   Covenant by obedience to the commandments and the moral and ethical choices that place God first.   Our “right actions” are to be right before the eyes of God. 

In Jesus we find “the victory of justice” and live in covenant with him.  Jesus came to show us the way and he did it by his care for the people, calling them to conversion by offering himself up to the Father for our salvation and always being one in covenant with the Father and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God.  The victory of justice is to always remain as one with God in the Trinity by doing the will of God.    

Justice is the right action before the eyes of God.  Peter recognizes that the right action of a follower of Jesus is to “show no partiality” based on a person’s state of life that is Jew or Gentile.  Partiality is for the separation of sin from the sinner.  Jesus comes to free us from our sinfulness through “fear” of the Lord and by “acts uprightly”.  “Fear” of the Lord is not the Old Testament view of fear of punishment but fear of separation from the Lord as revealed by Jesus.  Upright acts come through love of the Lord and neighbor.  Love desires and acts for what is in the best interest of the other. 

The love of God for his people meant that what was in their best interest was sometimes a difficult road to travel as we see the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years.  Their final destination was relatively a short distance compared to the years they spent in the desert but it allowed their souls to be purified.  Love of God often comes with cross to carry for our own salvation that we too may act uprightly and be called his chosen ones.  How do we handle our hardships of life?  Some may question God with “why God”, others may find it as a punishment coming from God, while others may simply believe it has nothing to do with God and blame it on “bad luck”.  None of these attitudes serve God’s purpose which is to prepare us for his coming, to free us from sin, and to lead others to himself. 

John points to Jesus as the chosen one who will baptize with “the Holy Spirit and fire”.  Thus, the Spirit of fire comes through Jesus to us by that same baptism of water and the Holy Spirit.  We are anointed priest, prophet and king into the priesthood of Jesus.  We are given the fire to proclaim his word in upright action and to live within the kingdom of God even as we live our earthly pilgrimage.  For this reason, we claim to be in the world but not of the world.  The Passover has been given to us and death has no power in our souls.  In time we shed our mortal bodies to rise up to immortality.  To be among the “elect” is to fulfill a purpose greater than ourselves, to lay down our lives at the feet of Jesus and let God by our God and we be his chosen ones. 

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Homily

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the Mother of God

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Num. 6: 22-27; Ps.67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Gal. 4:4-7; Lk. 2:16-21

Why the Mother of God?  This is the question we get asked as Catholics.  Mary is just the mother of Jesus we are told.  This is the question that is often raised by our protestant brothers and sisters.  Mary is the mother of God because we believe in one God in three persons.  The mystery of the Trinity is that there is but one God in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Jesus lets his disciples know that in seeing him they see God.  What more explanation do we need?  The argument continues “but Mary is the creature and God the creator, how can Mary be before the creator?”  Mary is the creature in who God the creator chose to become incarnate and become visible for our salvation.  He who is and always will be chose Mary as the vessel to manifest his infinite glory. Mary is thus both the Mother of God and Mother of the Church.

Mary as a Jew received the blessing of the Israelites as we hear it from Elizabeth “blessed are you among women” for the Lord’s face shines upon her with kindness and peace to bear “God’s son born of a woman”.  For this reason, we also say to pray to Jesus through Mary.  If Jesus is our brother who intercedes for us to the Father, then Mary is our mother.  The maternal love of a mother always points us to do the will of her son just as she responded at the wedding of Cana with the words “do whatever he tells you”.  A mother’s love always seeks mercy for her children but she also seeks obedience to the father.   

In baptism we are his adopted sons and daughters.  This raises the question then “if it takes baptism to become children of God, what are we before baptism?”  We are God’s creation that is creatures of God with a soul in need of a Father, Mother and brother.  Often the general assumption is made that just by being born we are “children of God”.  All creation belongs to God but baptism makes us reborn of spirit and truth, adopted sons and daughters, temples of the Holy Spirit to share in his divinity.  Baptism is the gate to heaven and to the kingdom of God given to us by Jesus as he commanded his disciples to go and baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” for our salvation.

What was the message given by the angel to the shepherds we hear in the gospel today.  It was the message they had been waiting for that this child was to be the “savior, the messiah” who has come to free us.  Jesus was born during the reign of Ceasar Agustus who was seen as a “god” who was the savior bringing peace to the region.  The world then expected a new king to come and rule over them.  They had no idea the type of king that was born to Mary.  A king both human and divine bringing freedom of sin through mercy and love.  Not exactly what they were hoping for and for this reason in the end they all cried out “crucify him”. 

Today the God of mercy and of peace offers us a different world in the midst sin, war, crime, and hate.  It is a world of his love and peace.  It is transformative when we choose good over evil, when we seek virtue over indulgence, when we show mercy over vengeance.  It is a call to live the word made flesh that is to put on Jesus and let him rule over us.  Through faith we receive power, through suffering we receive redemption, through death comes the resurrection and through judgment a new majesty. 

What New Year’s resolution will we make this year that we will soon be forgotten?  Is it to improve our health, improve our relationships, work to reach a financial goal?  Usually, we focus on what is temporary and forget the eternal.  We are to resolve to prepare ourselves for eternity, for a closer walk with Jesus, for spiritual growth and understanding and to be all that Jesus is calling us to be.  We don’t want to just reach for the stars we want to reach for heaven.  There is no place like home and home is where God is.  God is with us, welcome home.    Happy New Year!

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Homily

4th Sunday of Advent – Blessed are you

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Mt. 5: 1-4a; Ps.80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; Heb. 10:5-10; Lk. 1:39-45

“Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb”.  Mary is not only blessed among women but blessed among all humanity for her act of faith having believed in the word spoken. 

Blessed are we when we believe and accept the word of God that comes to us in scripture and in the teachings of the church.  Blessings come through acts of faith, hope and love.  The Lord waits for us to turn to him, seek him, and love him to shower us with his blessings as a father loves his child. 

Blessed are you Elizabeth by the Holy Spirit for having believed to give birth to the child John to prepare the way of the Lord as a voice for repentance.  John prepared the way with a baptism of repentance but who baptized John?  Could John be Jesus’ first baptism in the Holy Spirit in the water of his mother’s womb? 

Born of spirit and water, John came into the world ready to lay his life down with the knowledge of a prophet having encountered his savior in his mother’s womb.  Blessed are you the unborn children who have died before birth whether by natural cause or by those who chose to end its life for the love and mercy of God is the innocent.  Yours is a special place in the kingdom of God. 

Blessed are you who fulfill the “will” of God by which “we have been consecrated” through our baptism to the Lord.  Do we realize we are born with special gifts to fulfill a calling that adds to the kingdom of God?  When we live to serve God’s will, the Lord adds to the graces we need to not only overcome all trials, hardships, and even persecution but to live in the glory of God with joyful triumph over sin, temptation, and evil. 

Again, blessed are you who believe and then act on that belief trusting in the Lord.  We are reborn in baptism to be great disciples as priests, prophets, and kings and no evil can enter when we remain faithful to the Lord. 

Blessed is this season of Advent as a time of preparation not only to get our home ready for Christmas but to prepare our souls for the Lord’s coming.  The temptation of Advent is to spend our time and energy in the external signs of his coming like a good Martha but it was Mary who chose the better part to sit and be still open to the Word of God. 

The better part for a Catholic is taking time to make a good confession, reconciling and making peace with family and friends, coming to Church to give thanks to the Lord for the blessings of this year and giving the gift of self by our love for others. 

The blessing of Advent is the giving of Jesus to us and our giving of self to him.  In this the word is fulfilled “He takes away the first to establish the second”.  God the Father takes away the sacrifice for fulfilling the old law and gives us the new law by example of his son Jesus as a sacrifice of self. 

It is in giving of ourselves that we are born to eternal life.  This Advent let us be true lovers of God by the many ways we can be a blessing to others by the gift of self that is greater than any material gift wrapped in paper.  There was a priest back in the 80’s who would sing the same little chorus at daily Mass here at St. Francis Xavier “Count your blessing, count them one by one…” 

We are more prone to keep count of the things that go wrong than all the blessings to go right in our life.  Sometimes even when something is a setback it can be a form of blessing reminding us to trust in the Lord, give it to him, and remain at peace knowing all things work for the good of those who serve the Lord. 

The psalm prays for the desire to see the face of the Lord and yet we can only see a reflection of his face when we gaze upon a newborn baby or see a mother bird hover over the nest of her babies, or a 90 year old man sit in silent prayer.  It is moments like these that we realize there is a greater purpose in life than to simply to go about our business absorbed by the demands of this world.

Blessed are we when our life is set in right order before the face of God.  The God who sees all and knows the depths of our hearts will reward his faithful this Advent with his coming to fill us with his love, mercy, and grace.  Let us count our blessings and give thanks for the gift of Christ our Lord born in a manger to show us the way. 

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Homily

3rd Sunday of Advent – Rejoice in the Lord

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Zep.3: 14-18a; Ps.12:2-6; Phil. 4:4-7; Lk. 3:10-18

Rejoice in the Lord who comes with the good news of salvation.  This is the 3rd week of Advent and the color of the candle is pink to represent the joy of the Lord’s coming.  It also signifies the joy of the Shepherds when the angel told them that Christ was to be born.  We are to come to the Lord in a spirit of thanksgiving in our prayer and petition knowing that we belong to God and our peace rests in him. 

Anxiety, stress, worries then is a sign that we lack the peace of God and our minds and hearts are restless not with fear of the Lord but with fear of the world.  Fear and worry not only steal our joy but it can lead to despair and darkness separate from the light of Christ.  We cannot rejoice in the Lord simply by hearing the good news but by living the good news.  This is the message of John the Baptist who gives to each the answer to “What should we do?”  We rejoice in the Lord by doing what is right, just, charitable, and loving. 

We rejoice in the Lord because the “great and Holy one” is among us and “the Lord has removed the judgment against you”.  The Lord comes with glad tidings of his mercy to wipe away our sins.  He restores us to wholeness in recovery of our brokenness.  It is up to us however to avoid sin and the near temptation to sin.  This is not easy but we can begin by avoiding people, places, and things as much as possible that tempt us to sin. 

The people ask, “What are we to do?”  Treat others as you would like to be treated and know when to engage and when to walk away.  Two young seminarians were walking through the mall on a summer day where there were young women lightly dressed in shorts and tops.  One could not avoid staring while the other simply tried to look away.  One said to the other, “I think its time to leave and go to the car and say a rosary.”  Which of the two made the request to leave speaks to the faithful heart.  It could have been the one who had had enough temptation or the one who simply felt no need to be in that environment. 

“What are we to do?”  We rejoice in the Lord, trust in the Lord, pray to the Lord and give thanks to the Lord for the answer to our prayer that his will be done.  We rejoice in the Lord when we pray “Blessed be God, blessed be his Holy name, all glory and honor is yours almighty Father”.  We rejoice in the name of Jesus that we have been redeemed, forgiven of our sins, and restored to holiness.  This is why we rejoice in the holy cross of Jesus and carry it on us as a sign that we belong to him and he is our savior. 

What are we to do with anxiety?   We read that we are to “have no anxiety at all” but anxiety and worries are not the same thing.  Worries come from our thoughts and we can change our thinking about a situation.  Our thought can lead us to action to face our worries and resolve our concerns.  We also can surely pray and petition to the Lord all our concerns.  Anxiety however goes beyond our thoughts as an attack on the body. 

First of all, as someone who has suffered with anxiety it can be a very debilitating cross.  It is the evil one’s thorn at my side that remains despite all prayer and learning how not to feed into it.  It does not come from my thoughts or else I would long have changed my thinking.  It comes suddenly as an autonomic nervous system response of the body.  The body is broken and gradually begins to fail us.  Our soul however can also be injured from anxiety but it can be healed and learn to be free from the attack of anxiety even if the autonomic response of the body remains.  We must prepare for the death of the body but rejoice in the freedom it will bring to the soul for we will be given a new body that will not perish and body and soul will be eternal.  This is our joy in the Lord that our God comes to renew us and set us free from sin, sickness, and the death of this body.

Advent is our time to rejoice in the Lord for his coming is our freedom. 

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Homily

2nd Sunday of Advent – A work in progress

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Bar.5: 1-9; Ps.126:1-6; Phil. 1:4-6, 8-11; Lk. 3:1-6

The Lord has begun the good work in us and will bring it to completion but as any good work in progress it takes two, God and our response to God.  We are not passive participants in the work of our conversion but required to be joined to the Lord through the grace and gifts we are given.  The Lord saves but he will not save us without us.  We must desire his glory and be prepared for his calling in the way that we are to follow. 

The Lord does great things for us who are open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot just go about our like and expect great things to happen simply because God is good.  Great things include the work in progress for our salvation.  It is not enough to just say “Lord, Lord” in a moment of need and ignore our Lord for most of our days.  The work that has begun in us is for a divine purpose “to discern what is of value” for our souls to be “pure and blameless”.  The work in progress for the conversion of sinners to saints. 

The Church is given to us to “prepare the way of the Lord”.  It is the Church that determined which books belong to the canon in the Bible.  It is the Church that Jesus instituted to continue to consecrate bread and wine to bring us his body and blood.  It is the Church who Jesus gave authority to bring us the sacraments including the forgiveness of sins.  Many claim to believe in God but not in his church.  The devil also believes in God but not in obedience to God.  We can all say that every day we are all a work in progress but we are not all headed in the same direction.  Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God. 

We are told “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” but it will be little consolation if he simply slips passed us.  The gospel reveals to us how in the time of Jesus, John went about preparing the way with a call to repentance.  Repentance is more than just our sins that we can confess.  Repentance is also to make straight our path by the way we live our lives, the values we hold onto, and our priorities in life.  For example, a good question to ask ourselves is what time, talent and treasure to we give to God through prayer, charity, and service?  How we spend our time is a good measure of what we really value in life. 

The first step on the way to Jesus is to acknowledge not only our sins but also our failure to come to Jesus.  Jesus desires our hearts and he offers us his heart of love yet our indifference towards God is the sin of what we have failed to do in response to God’s love.  Jesus came in the flesh and yet most of the world denied him or cried out “crucify him”.  We too can deny him with our indifference of his presence in this world. 

When our thoughts center on us and God is given lip service we return to the days of the Pharisees and Sadducees who stood in the temple only to be noticed but their hearts were far from God.  If God is seen as simply being far above in the heavens we miss out on his revelation in our lives.  Jesus is alive!  He lives to live in us and for us to live in him.  This is what we celebrate with the “splendor of God forever”.  We rejoice not only in a person but in a relationship that saves.  We rejoice because we see the hand of God guiding us, and the greater he reveals himself to us the greater our desire for him to open our minds and hearts to his will.  A restless heart can only find rest in Jesus’ plan for our lives. 

Doing the will of God is our peace.  God’s will is not a promise of an easy road.  It is a promise of victory in the transformation of our lives that the work he has begun in us we will see revealed in his glory for all eternity. 

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Homily

1st Sunday of Advent – Live with the end in mind

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Jer.33: 14-16; Ps.25:4-5, 8-10, 14; 1 Thes. 3:12—4:2; Lk. 21:25-28, 34-36

The Lord is coming, the Lord has come, and will come again.  Today begins the new liturgical year in anticipation of the coming of the Lord just as we have completed the celebration of the Lord King of the Universe.  The Lord’s kingdom is before us but are we before the Lord ready for his coming “blameless in holiness before our God and Father”?  Advent brings on a somber reality that we are to live with the end in mind.  Living with the end in mind will not find us unprepared or distracted by all that the world brings on. 

Since the Lord fulfilled his promise to the house of Israel and Judah with the coming of Jesus we have been living in the end times.  All that was prophesized with signs “in the sun, the moon and the stars” as well as the earth has been happening in each generation from natural disasters to world wars but it is not the final coming yet.  The blessed Mother Mary has appeared multiple times and around the world calling us to repentance while there is still time but most of the world has ignored her signs.  The world continues to live for itself unprepared for the “tribulations that are imminent”. 

We hear it said “We are in the world but not of the world.”  This means that we have been set apart by our faith and even if death should come it is only a death to this mortal body but our soul is eternal and we will be given a new body.  We are not to fear an end to this world but be prepared “to stand erect…because your redemption is at hand”.  We are to pray for strength to endure the final test with faith not fear.  This can only be our reality if we live our lives with the end in mind. 

Often when we experience a major event in life, marriage, the birth of a child, a new job, a tragedy or even death of a loved one, we come to recognize what is most important in life, what is our priority, and even ask ourselves “who do we serve?”  Every day we are tempted to make life all about ourselves, my wants, my choice, my pleasures, and my will be done.  In the end life becomes out of balance and we lose sight of the end to come.  As one man said to me as we stood at a funeral, he had made no arrangements for death because he felt he would live forever.  The funeral was a hard reminder mortal death is imminent and he didn’t want to think about it.  This is not living with the end in mind but living an illusion about to become a shock. 

To live with the end in mind is to always be aware of “who do we serve”.  Jesus came to serve and not to be served.  This advent is our opportunity to “reset” our priorities and keep Jesus at the center of our life.  Thanksgiving was a good reminder of what are we doing for the others in life and in our world.  We are given life in order to give life to others by our love, our charity, and our sacrifice.  Christ in Christmas is all about our giving of what matters.  A material gift is a good sign of our love but giving of ourselves, our time and our love is the gift that lasts more than an object. 

Living our life with end in mind is doing that which lasts till the end.  For example, what new memories are we creating that we will be sharing years from now?  What service have we done that will stand the test of time as a blessing to others?  What act of love is God receiving from us in our prayer, our worship, and our even our confession that is freeing us from all sin and building the kingdom of God for others to follow. 

Let this be our testimony this Advent that what other see in us they will seek to follow in imitation of Christ. 

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Homily

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Dn. 7: 13-14; Ps. 93:1-2, 5; Rev. 1:5-8; Jn. 18:33b-37

Our Lord Jesus Christ has come and is coming again.  The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all things is calling us into his kingdom while there is still time.  The majesty of the Lord surrounds us in all of creation.  We are to contemplate the beauty of creation from the heavens above to all of nature on earth, and the miracle of life that reveals the God who is with us. Creation is not an accident but an act of love from the King of the Universe who was from all time, remains with his elect, and keeps coming until the end of time.  Praise the King of glory! 

This act of love from God speaks to each of us that we are not an accident of humanity but an act of love from God who has given us the breath of life for a God given purpose.  Are we living our purpose for being here?  Our purpose is fulfilled only when we unite ourselves to his love.  Only then that our individual talents, the work that we do, and our state of life become a blessing from God and for God turning to gold, the gold of heaven that lasts for eternity.  This is the manifestation of God revealed to us and through us to be his disciples and witnesses that Jesus Christ is King in our hearts and that we belong to him in his kingdom. 

The alternative is what we see in this world that has rejected the God of all creation to become a god unto themselves.  It carries the mantra of “my choice my will”.  It denies the power that is greater than itself from which all creation exists to become the center of power for itself that no one else cares for.  It leads to a lonely world filled with darkness of soul, a sequence of disappointments with short-lived pleasures of the flesh.  It has rejected the grace of life for a culture of death.  The irony is that while it seeks to run away from death it is in reality running to it dying from within.  This is not the will of God but the free choice of those will it. 

The King of glory comes in the majesty of his love.  Jesus Christ joined our humanity that we may encounter him in a personal intimate bond of love.  We are called to love with all our heart, mind, and soul that our whole being may be an act of love to God and with God to others.  This is our communion of faith to join together in this act of love we call the Mass.  Here we offer ourselves up to him in his sacrifice for us to God the Father. 

The Mass is not an institution the Church created but a gift that Jesus Christ instituted for the Church, that is for the body of Christ in which we come to love him and to serve him.  The Mass is not about us and what we receive or as we sometimes comment as what we “get out of the Mass”.  Yes, we receive the Word and Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and sometimes the homily will speak to us with a word of knowledge but the Mass is foremost Jesus Christ going to the Father in his sacrifice for our sins.  Jesus is the lamb suffering on the cross as an offering to wash away our sins we confess as we begin the Mass.  He is worthy to be king of the universe. 

When we hear that “his kingship shall not be destroyed” we are reminded how Jesus spoke that his kingdom was not of this world.  The kingship of the Lord is his reign over his elect and we will not be destroyed but live for all eternity with the King of kings.  For this we not only bear the cross of this world but celebrate that the Lord is asking us to carry the cross of fidelity, the cross of love, the cross suffering but only for this brief time on earth.  This world is the extraordinary time of suffering before we enter into the ordinary time of eternal love in heaven.  Sin came into the world and took us out of the ordinary creation God desired for us.  Jesus Christ came into the world to take us back from this period of life that is outside of God’s perfection and bring us into his perfection.  Jesus Christ reigns! 

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Homily

33rd Sunday Ordinary Time – In those days

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Dn. 12: 1-3; Ps. 16:5, 8-11; Heb. 10:11-14, 18; Mk. 13:24-32

“In those days after the tribulation” now becomes our days, the end times in which we live.  As we come to the end of ordinary time the readings speak of what is to come in the “end times” or Eschatology.  Traditionally this is taken as futuristic, something to come along the historical clock that marks human time.  We should however also consider the end of ordinary time in the context of the end of our earthly time and the beginning of the divine life, the glorified state of coming face to face with our Lord and our particular judgement day. 

Daniel also speaks of what is to come in those days which is now our inheritance.  In other word, Jesus died for us and he is our inheritance here to remain with us when we choose the path of salvation.   Jesus is the “path of life”.  Jesus is the turnkey of what was predicted and is now with us in our times for the “wise” to shine brightly and the foolish in “horror and disgrace”.  As we come to the end of the Church calendar year we are reminded to “remain vigilant at all times” because we never know the hour when our own ordinary time on this earth can[JG1]  come to an end.

Who can say they are living the perfect life of holiness ready to “stand before the Son of Man”?  We are weak and only through God do we gain the strength to stand before him by remaining faithful to his will.  The flesh is weak and often settles for being minimalist when it comes to God.  The common sentiment is “I go to Church and I am a good person” and that is enough.  I once had someone say to me “I know I am sinning but as long as I go to confession before I die God will forgive me.”  Do we really want to be gambling with God?  We have a poor understanding of judgment. 

Judgment is for everyone.  We will all be judged and suffer the pain of our sins and it starts at the moment of our death with purgatory.  Purgatory is purifying our souls from the stains of sin that we may be perfect as God calls us to be.  We are called to holiness and nothing impure can enter into the glory of God.  How long we will suffer in purgatory is being determined today by how little or how much we are dedicated to loving God.  God isn’t interested in a “part-time” Christian or a cultural Christian who simply follows the social norms of society.  We are to remain in him, to pray always, to offer ourselves up to him in all, through all and with all of our being that our judgment will come to pass quickly.  The Mass is the prayer in which we offer ourselves up to him and seek his mercy. 

Jesus also speaks of his second coming “in the clouds with great power and glory” to gather his elect. By our baptism we have joined the elect but we remain with our free will to choose to remain in him or go our own way.  It only makes sense that what we do with our lives matters to God.  As some protestant theology preaches “once saved always saved” is a false teaching.  There is a “work” in salvation that we are called to be and do and not everyone is committed to doing the work.  The elect comes by being consecrated to him as a daily commitment to the divine will.  This is the cross we are to take up daily focused on his coming into our lives.  It is a work of joy and celebration done with love. 

We are the post resurrection generation that will not pass away until all that he promised is fulfilled.  How long will this “generation” last is not ours to know.  What matters is the lesson of the fig tree applied to our own lives.    God will look to see the fruit of our lives and the growth of our souls.  We may appear withered and dying away by our sins, spiritually dead with no life to give.  The Lord approaches our “gate” to call us to account for ourselves and we are living in those times.  What we call ordinary time we will look back as the extraordinary suffering of our sins and the new ordinary will be the glorious for all eternity. 

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