Saint + Elizabeth + Ann + Seton + Parish

From the beginnings of nation-states, the issues of immigration and providing for refugees has been problematic. Every nation has the right to provide for the integrity of its borders. No nation has the right to protect its borders by unjust means, however.Within the past week, the United States bishops discussed and offered some critique to the current immigration practice of separating children from their parents at the United States borders.Download Transcript

In fact, the Church teaches that the family is the first cell of a civilization of love, and that the family is the first church, and the parents are the first pastors of their children —in fact, the first face, voice, and touch of God for a child.And so rightfully, as a society, we’ve chosen to honor mothers and fathers, because we have this innate knowledge of the potentiality—not only of parents biologically, but more importantly, spiritually, socially, and emotionally.Download Transcript

The way to be a good father is to take the Fatherhood of God as the preeminent calling of what fatherhood is all about. The way to honor our fathers is to practice the Truth of God through love. Fathers, love your wives and children the way God loves us and all will be well. But when we dishonor the Fatherhood of God in any way, individually or on a national scale, we are sowing seeds to our own destruction.Download Transcript

Our roles and our relationships are complicated, and they switch up. They change out with each other, and it is sometimes complicated. It is most certainly complex. And those relationships certainly have a bearing on our roles and responsibilities and vice versa. And it’s true also within the members of the Godhead. And that should not be strange to us because, after all, we are created in the image of God and after His likeness. So if our roles and responsibilities are complicated and complex, so is true with the relationships in the Godhead. This is why the Holy Trinity has been so complicated. It took centuries for the Church to work through the identification of the individual Persons within the Godhead and their roles and responsibilities. Still today, it’s complicated to contemplate and talk about the Most Holy Trinity. 

Here’s the astonishing thing, and Saint Paul tells us about it in our second reading: there are some people who do, in fact, spend more time nurturing seeds that grow toxic fruit than they do nurturing seeds that grow healthy fruit. Saint Paul tells us that there are two kinds of crops that can grow in the garden of our hearts: one kind is toxic, the other is healthy. You and I can grow healthy food within us, or we can grow deadly fruits. We bear fruit in our lives from the seeds we nourish.Download Transcript

At the end of the day, the feast of Pentecost reminds you and reminds me that we are now reconciled reconcilers. The Lord has reconciled himself to you, and now he wants you to reconcile with each other. And so our prayer this morning, as we join Catholics all over the world to continue to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, is that the love of God, the true peace of Christ, will abide in our world—that the peace, which Christ and Christ alone can give, will abide in your heart and abide in my heart today. Amen. 

You are the redemption of humanity. Because of Pentecost, humanity can be redeemed and made holy. Again, Saint Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes, “I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.” … The fruit of the Spirit is what makes humans truly human. The giving of the Spirit on Pentecost makes us who we were originally created to be. 

 Jesus wants us to have the oneness he has with the Father! And how the devil has sought to destroy the unity of God’s people! Christians are divided by ethnicity, nationality, economics, sexuality, and doctrine––just to mention some of the most significant. How can we be one? In our fractured world, what could possibly be a unifier? The simple answer is another of the desires we hear from Jesus: Consecrate them in your truth.Download Transcript

 Our belief in the Ascension is really rooted in our faith in the Resurrection. And as a matter of fact, the Incarnation and the Ascension are like corollaries—they go side by side. Just as in the Incarnation, Christ humbled himself and took our human flesh, at the Ascension, he now picks up all the glory that he poured into us at the Incarnation. That’s why this feast reminds that our faith in Christ is not in vain. 

The Ascension of Jesus from the realms of earth to the realm of heaven tells us more about him. As well, it tells us about ourselves, our own lives and prospects. 

Early Christians went back and took this word out of mothballs, and they dusted it off and they reintroduced it to describe God’s love. Because really, how can you “love God” the same way you “love chocolate”? You just can’t do it. You need a bigger, better word for love. And so they introduced this word agapeo. Some linguists have described this as “love which seeks the best for the other, even at the expense of yourself.” 

People need to know who Jesus is and what God has done in the death and resurrection of his Son. The Church needs faithful preachers. Parishes need faithful teachers. But beyond the roles that are rooted so visibly in the Church, every person who owns the name of Christ needs to be showing (and when possible, telling) the wonder of belonging to God through Jesus Christ.Download Transcript

The ‘new’ Thomas is really where we want to be as believers in the risen Christ. Yes, as humans, sometimes we will have anxieties, we will have worries, we will have concerns, we will have fears, but like Thomas, we should be able to say, ‘My Lord and my God.’ That is faith in the risen Christ—the ability to totally surrender, even when reason cannot capture it.

Although there’s much in our world to cause us fear and anxiety, we know Jesus walks into our Upper Room, where we have locked away our hopes, our fears ,and our anxieties, he walks into that Upper Room and boldly, quietly proclaims, ‘Peace be with you.’ So that you and I, together with Thomas, can look confidently to the Lord and say, ‘My Lord and my God, show me the way.' 

The message of Easter is that the very Life of God breaks into our world––this world where there is little escape from fear and sadness. It seems there is no escape…. unless there is something bigger and stronger and longer lasting. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is God shouting into our wolrd that death itself is not greater than the Life available to us in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Download Transcript

We encounter Martha only twice in the New Testament, and both times she’s complaining. We recall Martha from just those two encounters; we honor her as being one with an authentic heart. For although it can be said, ‘All you did was complain, my dear,’ it was in that complaint that she opened her truest self, her most authentic self—opened her heart to the Lord.

[In Psalm 51], David believes he’s finished. His career with God is finished. His reputation with the public is finished. And he’s even finished with himself. Now let’s face it—faith is tough, isn’t it? And there is a lot in our faith as Catholics, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, that is just tough for us to swallow . . . If you’ve had a tough time believing, then join Martha, David—oh, and by the way, join me. Faith is tough.” 

Billy Graham’s message was often ridiculed. Intellectuals would sneer, and many religious people dismissed it as naive. Theologians said it was too simplistic. Unrepentant sinners would scorn it and laugh and turn away. But many, many ordinary people heard that simple message and had their lives forever changed. I think our Catholic churches could be stronger if we took a bit of a lesson from Billy Graham.Download Transcript

Let me suggest three spaces that we need to reclaim: The first is the Earth itself, the Earth as God’s gift to us. It’s a sacred space . . . The second space is human life itself. Human life, even if it’s in the first second, is a sacred space. It’s a sacred gift . . . The third space is the human body itself. How is the human body treated in our culture, in our society today? The human body has been objectified as a commodity . . . 

There are two forms for the Gospel for this Sunday: one is long, and the other one is short. I asked Deacon to read the long form this morning. Everybody’s story deserves to be heard in its fullness. We have the story of the encounter between the woman and Jesus at the well. It points ups the divisions, the strife, the fracture that exists between people and within people. We live in a fractious, sharply divided world, and that affects our communities, it affects our Church, and it impacts our personal lives.