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Saint Paul tells us just where our value is in this phrase: Your life is hidden with Christ in God. The true, essential value--the eternal value of your life--is hidden. It can't be measured, it can't be weighed, it can't be valued by the things that you have or the paycheck you earn or the money that you bank. Your value is eternal. It is intrinsic. It is spiritual. It is hidden in Christ.

We know that this meal took place as Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. In fact, tradition has it this occurred the night before what we call Palm Sunday, the Lord's final entry into the city. He had already told His apostles that He was going to Jerusalem, and there He would suffer and die. He stopped at Bethany, only two miles away from the city of Jerusalem, there for a dinner and an overnight visit with friends. We can only imagine what in the heart and mind of Jesus that evening, but we can be certain he was there, aware of the onslaught that would come soon enough, to spend a quiet evening with friends.

Remember that no one who struggles deeply with personal faith is alone. It is common to humanity to have critical questions which go to the core of one’s being. It is even more common to face circumstances that strike at the heart of life’s meaning and purpose (that is the effect of the original disobedience). If you have deep questions . if you have been hit with suffocating circumstances ... you are not alone.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

The very excuses we have for not following Jesus instantly, giving ourselves totally into his arms and care and providence ... the very obstacles that keep us from being true disciples, through and through ... the fears we have ... may be the doors through which Jesus can most clearly enter our hearts. Not obstacles at all, but entry points for grace if we but turn them around.

No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks back at what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God. The number 12 stands for those who, in spite of the challenges and difficulties they face--with the yoke, the oxen, the furrowing, the planting, the reaping, with obligations to farm and family--nevertheless plowed forward in the plan and purpose that leads to salvation.

Everything that God intends for us is encapsulated in the life of the God-Man Jesus. In Jesus, the Incarnation is the permanent unification of the Spirit of God with the human body. That is what Christmas is all about. It is the beginning of the story of what it truly means to be a godly human being.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Our Lord reduced the whole corpus of commandments revealed in the Old Testament to three of them: relate to God, relate to one other, and relate to yourself in an appropriate and respectful manner. And that is the summary of the whole Law. So it is the relatedness in the Holy Trinity--the Father to the Son, the Son to the Spirit, the Spirit to the Father and the Son--there's where we can grasp how important our relationships are in our lives. They literally form, shape, and define who we are. We're not just islands, isolated, developing entirely apart. We're related.

The truth is, when we are brought into Jesus by His Love, we share in the love that the Father has for the Son, and the Spirit of God is in us because of that love.

I wonder if you've had someone in your life who you just could get along without? And you wonder, why is this person in my way? It's like when we received a gift. We don't like it; we put it in a drawer. And then it comes out of the drawer with a new appreciation. Our Lord reframed and redefined the relationship between the disciples and himself, between himself and the disciples, when he said, "Father, they are your gifts to me."

Around the world and throughout time, the whole human race has a record of seeking God. As Christians we know why: There is a “God-shaped hole” in our hearts––we are the result of special creation in the image of God. DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

In this homily that really began at the beginning of Mass, Monsignor King asks us to consider the words of the "I confess" prayer and what they mean to us as a community of believers.

Father Schenck gives us a quick overview of this special day.

We don't celebrate motherhood and we don't affirm motherhood in our culture as motherhood deserves to be affirmed. Let's always keep in mind that the image that we have and the language given to us of the Church is not masculine and is not paternal. It is feminine and maternal language. We speak of the Church as "she" and "her." We have the feminine image of the Church and we have the maternal image of the Church given to us. And we speak of the first Disciple, the first Church, embodied in Mary, who is called the Mother of God, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of us all. We can't lose sight of that.

There is a wildness to God's mercy. We like to think of religion as peaceful and calm and gentle. But that's not always the way of the Lord. There's a wildness to the mercy of Jesus, and if we let Him loose in our lives, He will tear our lives apart because, as the Good Shepherd, He will stop at nothing to get rid of those things that harm us, those things that endanger us, those things that will imperil our immortal soul.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd. The image of the shepherd, think about it: that profound connection that Jesus has with you and me as people of the flock. That deep bonding that Jesus has with all of us. That's what we celebrate tonight.

How do we know what Jesus commands? How do we know what to obey? For almost 2000 years the Rule of Faith initiated and confirmed by Peter and the other Apostles has formed and guided Catholic belief and practice. Above all the other voices trying to get our attention for the many issues inundating our world, we are called to listen to the teachings that flow from the Petrine Office. When the voice of the 2000-year-old Church instructs us, warns us, and seeks to guide us, it is living out this calling Jesus initiated with Peter: Feed my sheep. DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

The question I've been asking myself all through the week is, how can we fight evil, but not let evil limit the power of love? How can we overcome evil, and not let the anger that is created by evil, to limit the light of love? And that's the challenge. Because the problem is when anger begets anger, when hate begets hate, then evil wins. It's part of our human mind to feel angry in the face of tragedy, to feel angry in the face of injustice. We have a challenge.

It wasn't the glory of the Risen Christ that he showed them at his first appearance, or any other. It was the wounded Christ who stood before them. It was not a resurrected body free of wounds, but it was the pierced body of the one who suffered he showed them as he offered them, "Peace."It isn't in the removal of all of our wounds that we find the peace that Jesus offers. It is precisely in the wounds of Christ that we find healing and peace.

Has it occurred to you, as it has to me, to ask, why did Christianity ever catch on? Think of it for a moment. An obscure Jewish rabbi from a dusty corner of the globe, who didn't attend a rabbinical college and did not attain formal ordination, who was rejected by the religious authorities, repeatedly investigated by the politicians, and who died a condemned criminal, how is it that he became the most noted personality in human history--at least one of the three most influential persons ever?

The burial cloth that was used to cover Jesus was now rolled up. Does that tell us anything? It simply reminds all of us, now speaking metaphorically, that the cloth of pain and death that sometimes weighs us down, the fear of sickness that sometimes weighs us down, the pain of broken marriage, the pain of divorce, that sometimes has weighed us down, the pain of dysfunctional family relationships that sometimes weighs on us so heavily ... in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, that burial cloth is now rolled up. And that's the faith we have in the Resurrection. And so what we celebrate this morning is not really that hopeful joy that, yes, we shall live eternally, but that, because He lives, we can face tomorrow.