Saint + Elizabeth + Ann + Seton + Parish

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. 

Sharing the Faith—sharing what we know to be the key to eternal happiness, sharing the joy we have in relationship with God the Father in Jesus Christ—is a fundamental part of who we are as a Church. 

Abraham learned to walk with God. Abraham learned to listen to the things of God and pay attention. Abraham learned to trust God over the course of his lifetime. That’s what Lent is all about. We’re given a certain period of a few weeks a year when we’re asked to change the way we live in a way that helps us to listen to the voice of God amid all the voices we hear in the course of a day. To pay attention to the things of God amid all of the distractions that come to us in life. And to trust God among all those things that call out to us in the course of a day. 

A popular misunderstanding of Christian faith––we can even dare to call it a heresy––is that salvation is only forgiveness of sins. All of us surely need forgiveness, but the salvation that leads us to eternal life is so much more. We come to God and ask for the gracious forgiveness of sins because of the death of Christ, but we need to understand it is so that we can be healed of the tragic brokenness that affects all of us. 

Create a clean heart in me, O God . . .  As we begin our Lenten observance so aware of our sinful failures, we must remember that God offers us new hearts. For man this may be impossible, but for God, all things are possible. 

The Church is being very honest about a natural tendency that we have. If left to ourselves—let’s admit it—we had rather life always be comfortable and convenient. And so the Church says, you need to do some things sometimes to be reminded that our hearts do not always want to go in the right direction. 

We no longer banish persons with leprosy. In fact, more than 16 million people in the world have been cured of leprosy in the last 20 years. But sadly, we still neglect and reject the sick.Download Transcript

We are called to become instruments of God’s love—to touch each and every one with love, with mercy, and with kindness . . . In a world that is threatened by hate and divisiveness, you and I as Christians, we are called to become imitators of Christ. 

What we learn from Job and what we learn from Saint Paul is that, in those difficult struggles of life—when we are facing the anguish of a faltering faith, when we find it hard to believe in God, when we find it painful to face a prayer that appears unanswered, when our hopes are dashed—we do not suffer this way alone. Rather, the Church prevails for us. We pray for each other. We hold each other up. This is what it means to belong to the Church, to be a member of the Body of Christ. 

What kind of friend are you? The friend who sits like Job’s friends—commiserates but really does nothing—or the kind of friend who brings one who is not well . . . not healthy . . . not in a good place . . . brings that person to Jesus. 

Realistic optimism is the fact that, truth be told, sometimes life is not fair. Sometimes innocent people suffer. Sometimes things you don’t deserve come to you in life. Sometimes sickness and pain you don’t deserve comes to you. That is reality. That is the reality of life. But the optimisim is that we believe there is hope, because we are fundamentally a people of hope. And so for us as Christians, pain does not define life. Suffering does not define life. 

What caused people to realize that with Jesus and the kingdom he proclaimed there was a distinctive power and authority? By all external observations he was an ordinary man, even a nobody. But when he talked, people were amazed. When he acted, people were astounded. And as he talked and acted, people could not help but be attracted.Download Transcript