Homilies

Sunday Homily, September 16, 2012, 24th Ordinary Time B

ByRosemary September 16, 2012

Readings:

Isaiah 50, 4-9, I gave my back to those who beat me.

Psalm 116, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

James 2, 14-18, What good is it if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Mark 8, 27-35, Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself.

Harper and…

Isaiah Observations:

Date of Composition:

A picture of the time span:

1. Solomon (he of Wisdom, the temple builder, 700 wives, & 300 mistresses–if he really existed) dies ca. 900-1000 before Christ.

Her Grandmother, Cathy

2. The Hebrew kingdom divides into 2 parts, the north, Israel (Galilee today), the south, Judah, around 900 before Christ.

3. Assyria destroys Israel and obliterates the 10 Hebrew tribes located there, ca. 700.

4. Babylon carries into captivity the Hebrews of Judah, the 2 remaining tribes, ca. 600.

Contemporary scholars conjecture that this work could have been composed over a period of 400 years, i.e., 700-300. It obviously begins by predicting disasters, typical of prophets. They happen, 2 of the biggest tragedies in Jewish history up to the Romans' destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (70 years after Christ) and the Holocaust, that is, the Assyrian destruction & the Babylonian Captivity. 4 big tragedies.

Emma and guest arriving

Author (s): obviously it was composed by numerous people. Isaiah himself is considered behind chapters 1-39. In fact, line 1 identifies Isaiah as the author of the ideas.

What is it about: 1^st, 2^nd, & 3^rd Isaiah

1^st Isaiah, Chapters 1-39: predict doom for the Hebrews because they have not been faithful to their one god.

Leo rolling along

2^nd Isaiah, Chapters 40-55: this & the remaining chapters are called The Book of Consolation. They try to assure the people who are now in exile that God will restore them to their former glory & peace. In fact, in chapter 45 the composer even mentions the name of Cyrus, the king of the Persians who defeats Babylon & sends the Hebrews back to Jerusalem. So the composer knew of Cyrus and a date can be narrowed down.

This 2^nd Isaiah section presents 4 suffering servant songs, #3 being our selection today. Jews see the servant to be the Hebrew people/nation. Christians see the servant to be Christ. Isaiah 2 is considered maybe the most influential O.T. book. On Isaiah 2 Mark built much of his gospel, especially the story of the crucifixion.

Handel's Messiah uses 2nd Isaiah for its lyrics.

3^rd Isaiah, Chapter 56-66: more assurances of a return to peace & glory.

Zoe coming to the front play zone

Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself and take up his cross

I would like to say a few words this morning about denying myself and taking up my cross.

A story from our CO trip last week.

Julie with her dad, Rudolfo, preparing to enter

The day is the third of our trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. The 7 of us have left a delightful campsite and are headed over a pass, Flat Top Pass, right on the Continental Divide, about 12 thousand feet high. We are climbing one to two thousand feet.

Sanctuary, 1st Methodist, Dallas

As we climb the weather is getting nastier & nastier, cloudy skies, wind, and cold. We come across a series of what I describe as receding ridges. I see a ridge up ahead. I get to it only find another ridge 200 yards further up. We must have had 15 of these.

It begins to sleet and rain. The group of us is stretched out over a few hundred yards.

Rylie and Hayden

Suddenly I look up and see somebody coming down the trail by himself. Even from a distance I see he has on only running shorts and a light pack, not like ours. He is jogging down this rough trail and has already crossed over the pass in the sleet, rain, and wind.

I am astounded. Rose Banzhaf says that his whole trip is about 30 miles. She calls him The Mean Running Machine.

I mention this event to make a distinction about denying myself and taking up my cross. Unhealthy and healthy. Observations.

Campfire

Unhealthy. In my early years as a Jesuit I think we had some unhealthy attitudes and behaviors influenced by this demand. I am embarrassed to admit that, yes, we had little scourges that we were supposed to use on our backs and we had chains with little spikes we were supposed to wear on our thighs.

Once we joined the Jesuit community we never expected to return home. I did not return for 7 years. I came back to teach for 3 years at Jesuit, not go home. At the time I never thought anything about it.

In my years as a spiritual director especially for priests & nuns I found a lot of guilt for not being hard enough on myself. I personally can still feel guilty if I take a 15 minute morning break or a day off. Rosemary is good for me on this. She calls me to relax.

Mike in Flat Top Pass

Healthy. Self discipline to achieve a goal. The runner obviously has some kind of goal. Look at high school sports and how strenuously so many kids drive themselves. Look at education, the discipline to achieve a Ph.D., to be a doctor. What about Alcoholics Anonymous or giving up smoking? The reward: inner peace.

Finally, let me remind you of that gospel dynamic I mention so often, infinite demand plus infinite acceptance.

Why we go

I would suggest that the runner I met at 12 thousand feet in sleet was denying himself and carrying his cross. Hopefully he has a healthy goal.

How do you deny yourself and take up your cross?

Homilies

Sunday Homily 4-4-10, Easter
ByRosemary April 4, 2010

Readings: Acts 10, 34-43; Psalm 118, This is the Day the Lord has Made, Lus Us Rejoice and be Glad; 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8; John 20, 1-9

The Readings:

It is almost impossible for us today to understand how significant the story told in Chapter 10 of Acts was for the Jewish people at the time Luke wrote it. Our first reading is part of that narrative. The two main characters are Peter, who is in Caesarea, and Cornelius a Roman Centurion, in Jaffa, about 30 miles south on the Mediterranean coast. The scene is the home of Cornelius a centurion.

Remember up to this point the Jews had felt like they had a monopoly on God. In this chapter 10 Luke uses two separate incidents taking place in different locations to set the stage for our reading. We meet Cornelius having a vision of an angel who tells him to send for Peter. Meantime Peter is sitting hungry on the roof in Caesarea and has a vision of all different kinds of animals and being told by God to eat.

There is the usual discussion about unclean and Peter is made to see that God only makes clean! The folks from Jaffa arrive and summon Peter to go see Cornelius. Peter heads off to Jaffa, worried about his dream and then when he hears about Cornelius’ dream he sees the connection and proceeds to baptize Cornelius and his household. Our first reading today is what can best be described as a quick lesson from Peter about Jesus.



Our second reading is from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. I am going to take a certain amount of license in focusing only on the word yeast in the reading, as the full topic of this section of the Letter does not need to be brought up here. Read it for yourselves! Yeast is used in beer making and bread making and basically it converts sugars into bubbles. So we are to be bubbles in society! Gas pockets! But seriously, when I think about yeast, I think about the huge effect just a little has on the dough. And for us in society as Christians, I believe that we too can have a huge effect on society.

Easter Homily:

I remember one Easter when I was studying in seminary. We normally had to stay in the seminary until Easter Sunday morning before we could go home for Easter holidays. This one year I skipped out and caught the boat from Dublin to England arriving at about 6AM. I found a church and went to early morning Mass on Easter Sunday and then took the tube out to my cousin Eileen’s flat in Kensington. She was married to Bill who was protestant,  Church of England. Bill was going to church that morning and invited me to my first protestant Easter Service.



I can remember being amazed by the fact that most of the service was all about Easter eggs. The whole sanctuary of the church was full of them. I had never associated the Resurrection with eggs before then. Yes, we always got chocolate Easter eggs, but I put them in the same category as toys at Christmas, nothing to do with the Birth of Jesus, just a very happy coincidence!

Right now in our front garden at home there is a dove, patiently sitting on some eggs in a nest in one of the trees. Our next-door neighbor has a duck doing the same thing in their front garden in some bushes. The Church, by some happy coincidence chose spring as the time of year to celebrate the Resurrection and I think this gives us our first clue in how we should view the Resurrection. We can’t understand it, it is a mystery, but analogies can help us part of the way. The Resurrection requires an act of Faith, end of story. Don’t try to understand it. It is outside our human capability.

And it was outside the expectations of the apostles and also of Mary of Magdala in our Gospel reading today. She was heading to the tomb to properly bury Jesus. As you will recall, when Jesus was arrested it was abandon ship, everyone fled, Peter didn’t hesitate to deny that he even knew Jesus. We know that the apostles went back to their old trades, Peter, James and John to being fishermen.

The event we are celebrating today was not what any of the people who had walked with Jesus before his death had expected. And it is not an easy event to describe and understand. So the accounts in the New Testament are all over the map on what exactly happened, but one thing was certain in the minds of the early church; God had raised Jesus from the grave and that made all the difference in their lives.

If we look back at the different gospels readings we have listened to during this lent we will recall the Temptation of Jesus, were Jesus is tempted and so can understand when we are tempted.



The story of the Transfiguration, when Peter attempted to capture the impossible moment by putting up tents, again a perfectly human reaction to being faced with the Divine, the second chance being given to the useless fig tree and then the two very powerful stories of forgiveness with the Prodigal Son and the Woman caught in adultery.

The strong message of forgiveness from these stories has to give us hope and encouragement.   We can always start anew with God his love is constant. And the message of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus is that an indication of how unreserved that love is. Armed with the knowledge of God’s love and forgiveness, we can be like yeast to the lives of those we meet in the world. Lets not worry about how big a difference we will make, let’s just be sure we make a difference.

The message, the victory of Easter, is that mankind’s biggest fear, death is finally laid to rest.

We have a God who not only loves us unconditionally, but who wants us to be in His presence forever. Not something which we can prove or even understand, except thru faith. The presence of the Holy Spirit helped the early Christians believe, and that same Spirit can help us today too. We too have a new life. Happy Easter.

Picture 1: Mass beginning

Picture 2: Want to know what happens to priests who marry? They become grand dads. Fr. Tony with Emma.

Picture 3: And with mom, Julie

Picture 4: Quads with mom & dad

Picture 5: Quads with grandmother & aunt

Picture 6:   Holy Thursday, Washing of Hands, at the Robinsons

Picture 7: Good Friday Stations at the Robinsons

Read More Sunday Homily 4-4-10, Easter
Homilies

Sunday Homily, December 31, 2017, Holy Family
ByRosemary December 31, 2017

Could we be looking at Santa or Kevin?? Welcome in, Whoever you may be.

Readings:

Genesis15, 1-6; 21, 1-3    Look up at the sky and count the stars. Just so shall your descendants be.

Psalm, 105, the Lord remembers his covenant forever.

Hebrews 11, 8, 11-12, 17-19  By faith Abraham obeyed.

Luke 2, 22-40, Simeon & Anna meet Jesus

Thanks, Dearest Harper, for bringing along you grandmother Cathy.

Genesis obserevations :

What : the very first book of the bible beginning with Adam & Eve, the two creation myths, Cain & Abel, Noah and the flood, the Tower of Babylon, and then the big 3 patriarchs of the Jewish nation. They are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The book is a fun read. It is not history, but speculation and tribal myth.

Date: contemporary scholarship thinks that the work was composed either before or during the B.C., the all important Babylonian Captivity. Why? Give the Jewish people a sense of historical identity and tribal cohesion.

The "A" Team, complete with lights.

Today’s selection: all about Abraham, the first of the 3 Great Patriarchs. Abraham is crying and lamenting the fact that he has no children. Why? Sarah was childless and Abraham was 99 years old. A “we have a problem, Houston” situation. The Lord hears Abraham and uses a beautiful metaphor to show Abraham what is going to happen.

Because the editor of this reading has so taken the fun out of it, I want to read a bit more. Sit back and enjoy the story of how Abraham and Sarah had a baby. I'm including parts of three other chapters between chapters 15 and 21.

Ben, our Candle Lighter of The Week, in action.

David Vanderpool

This morning, the last of the year 2017, I have a New Years story for you. Actually, it comes from the front page of last Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. Mike Carrell saw it and gave me a heads up.

There is a guy named David Vanderpool. His dad was a surgeon and David attended St. Mark’s Boys’ School. When David was 15, he made a trip to Israel. In the town of Nazareth he happened to get into a conversation with another 15 year old, a girl from Nazareth and a Christian.

Cheryl reading The Blessing of the Candles.

At some point the girl asked David what he planned to do when he grew up. David had not thought a lot about it, but assumed he would become a doctor like his dad. David was impressed by the girl. She had taught herself English. He asked her what she would do.

“I will carry water and have babies,” she responded. There were no other options. David was stunned and embarrassed by his affluent and free life.

Even after the spectacular Christmas Eve (200 plus), Shonda, Ben, and David sing and play on.

So, David did go to college at TX Tech and became a surgeon, but the girl’s response stayed with him. He married Lauri and they had two sons and a daughter. During this time two things took place.

First, they made a number of medical relief trips to countries in Africa and South America where there were crises. Secondly, David and Laurie made a promise to themselves that when their last child, Jacklyn went off to college, they would move to a third world country in need.

So, all went well for some probably 15 years, until 2013. Jacklyn was going off to college. Decision time.

John & Alison bringing up the Offertory of Bread (baked by Alison) and Wine. What?? No wine, not even grape juice for everybody? Too cold, slippery, and dangerous to have Jan bring the communion cups. Thanks, Jan for staying home.

What did they do? Yep, they sold their house and all their belongs, including a $20,000 pet guitar, set up a foundation called LiveBeyond, and moved to Haiti. Haiti was chosen because they had already spent some time there after the 2010 earthquake. They had to go back.

In the four years since their move to Haiti, the couple have set up a 60 acre complex with a hospital and school. There was no clean water, no sewage process, no electricity in the village they chose because of its poverty, a town called Thomazeau.

The Great Father & Son Team, Cody & Ben.

A special joy came this year in the person of Jacklyn. She finished college at A&M and decided she wants to live and work with her parents.

How are you going to emulate the Vanderpools in your village and in your neighborhood this New Year of 2018?

Happy New Year.

Who wears these light up shoes? Hint: he's an altar server.

Read More Sunday Homily, December 31, 2017, Holy Family
Homilies

Christmas Eve Homily, 12-24-11
ByRosemary December 25, 2011

Readings: Isaiah 9, 1-6, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Psalm 96, Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord; Titus, 1, 11-14, The Grace of God has appeared; Luke 2, 1-14, In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. Terrific Readings!

Isaiah, a quick review.

This beautiful passage is just one of many reasons why I love the Work of Isaiah.

Yes, this is Isaiah I, who composed before the Babylonian Captivity around 600 before Christ. In fact, he wrote even before Assyria destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, around 750 before Christ. He saw it coming.

Incarnations

    Folks, it happened two weeks ago, that beautiful Saturday, December 10. Rosemary & I were volunteers at a picnic in Flower Mound for underprivileged kids. We were specifically employed at crowd control in front of a photo shop in a large pavilion where all kinds of things were going on, lunches, dances on a stage, face paintings, and so on. Horses for riding were outside.

    Then there were tons of kids, about 3000 according to one count. 60 school buses, 850 volunteers, and 4500 hot dogs which were totally gone in a nano-second. We had about 35 members of our own little community.

    A whole bunch of events touched me, but three stand out.

    The first person who touched me was Joey, a cute little black girl about 6 years old. I chatted up everyone in the line, but seemed to spend more time with Joey, which is how I came to know her name. She just told me.

    At one point in our conversations she handed me a small trinket she had glued onto her blouse. She said, “That’s yours. I made it.” I was so touched. Then she got her picture taken and was gone, happy as could be.

    Another time I was watching a black woman chaperon or bus driver. She was rounding up her kids and had them all sitting on the cement floor just beyond my line for the photo shop. When I talked with her she was up to 45 in counting her kids and had more to go.   Her care for all those kids knocked me over.

  Then there was a little black girl who was afraid. She, too, was about 6 and was with about five other girls a bit older and an adult lady. In the line ahead of her was a black man who was totally dressed as a clown, face painted white, and everything.

    I’m standing next to her and she whispers to me, “I’m scared of him.” I was touched that she told me. So we talked. Eventually I moved into her sight line so she could not see him, because it was like she was obsessing about the guy.

    She told the others and they scoffed at her. However, I was able to let her know that fear was okay and that here she was safe. I would not let the clown hurt her. That seemed to calm her; she got her picture, and went happily on her way.



    These were incarnation events for me, the spirit of God right there in this crowd of kids on a picnic. I suggest that these sightings take place daily, in people like the ones I mention, in people who make up my daily life, and in events, to say nothing about nature.

    What was your last incarnation event?

Picture 1:    The Team

Picture 2:    Emma as angel

Picture 3:    The Nativity Drama

Picture 4:    The Nativity Drama

Picture 5:    The Nativity Drama

      Video:     The Nativity

Read More Christmas Eve Homily, 12-24-11
Homilies

Sunday Homily June 9, 2013, 10th Ordinary Time C
ByRosemary June 9, 2013

Readings:

1 Kings 17, 17-24,  The life breath returned to the body of the child.

Psalm 30, I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

Galatians 1, 11-19, The gospel preached by me is not of human origin.

Luke 9, 11-17, Young man, I tell you, arise.

Emma with her arm back in a sling. She was getting a bit sporting before the collar bone had completely healed.

Observations on the readings:

1 Kings 17:17-24

The young man’s mother recognizes that the word of the Lord
truly comes from Elijah’s mouth. He
breaths forth life into her son in this parable.

Second reading: Galatians 1:11-19

Our Gospel is the proclamation of good news, where good news, is a noun. Paul is preaching good news that came to him
through a revelation of Jesus Christ, where preaching
good news is a verb. The Gospel
hadn’t been written, yet.

Leo has found a new toy.

Gospel: Luke 7:11-17

Paul uses the word ‘flesh’ at least 100 times in his
letters, once in our short reading from Galatians.

I want
you to understand a verse from John’s gospel.
‘What is born of flesh is flesh; what is born of Spirit is spirit. To be born only of flesh means that when a
decision needs to be made that person relies only on his mind…and the mind
seeks to have the flesh satisfied.

Celeste.

Everything
God created is good; the flesh is good. For example; if you work hard all
morning your stomach lets your mind know that your body wants some food. So, if you are home, you use your mind and go
to the refrigerator to find something to eat.
Your mind will seek to satisfy the flesh when you open that door. Anything is fair game.

Cupcakes of the Week, Mike, Diane, and John (really for Alison).

But, what is born of Spirit is spirit, where
the Spirit has a [capital S]. The Spirit
enhances the flesh! Instead of a desire
to satisfy your flesh your desire is to put your spouse first, even if he or
she is not there. What is born of Spirit is spirit.

Offertory, Jean, Doug, Cliff, and John.

A great way to hone in on Spirit-living
begins with, ‘in everything give thanks.’
If you go to the refrigerator only to find it empty, give thanks. Your
desire to satisfy just the flesh will begin to fade away. Pick up the list of things on the counter
that you and your spouse make to replenish the empty refrigerator. Give thanks when the parking place is further
away from the store than you had hoped. The exercise will be good.

Harper.

Someone left a cart in a good parking place.
Give thanks that someone will find it a good place as soon as you push it
toward the store doors.

Number 2. Affirm
your spouse for the great things that he or she put on the grocery list.   Affirm the stocker who has just filled up
the shelf, ‘looks great.’

Delgado Corner with Bernadette and Gilberto sitting with Emma, who has come to see where all her playmates are today. They are on vacation.

3, Be a good
listener at home, and enjoy looking into your spouse’s eyes and touching his or
her shoulder or hand.

Last of all always
forgive your spouse; it is in giving that you receive. Remember, forgiveness is the message of the
good news of Jesus Christ. Recall for a
moment our communal services in Lent and Advent. You listen, you look into each other’s eyes,
you ask to be forgiven, you forgive others; you embrace; you affirm; you give
thanks.

Little Axe, OK, scene of the first of 3 tornadoes around & in OK City. Notice how the wind has bent the two steel I beams which had been the foundation for a large mobile home.

In today’s gospel, a young man
is seeking forgiveness. The assembly ritually carries him. He’s not heavy; he’s their brother. The
assembly mourns along with his mother for all of times that they have not shown
love. They are professing their faith with
him.

Little Axe, we made 3 piles on the edge of the road, metals, wood, and trash. This is mostly wood. A trailer truck with a set of large jaws was picking this up and placing it into trash trucks. This pile has been pushed up to the road by a bulldozer.

In this parable Jesus is there to grant forgiveness to this young
man. He will rise to be set free, unbound from whatever had enslaved him. In faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit
we can say those words to someone; and we have during Lent and Advent.

Is there someone you know who needs
to be forgiven.   Give thanks that you
have the time to heal yourself and them this week.

Little Axe, upside down pickup with a trailer dumped on top. Chaos everywhere. More about the trip this coming Sunday.

Read More Sunday Homily June 9, 2013, 10th Ordinary Time C
Homilies

Sunday Homily 6-3-12, Trinity
ByRosemary June 3, 2012

Readings:

Deuteronomy 4, 32-34, 39-40, Ask from one end of the sky to the other, did anything so great ever happen?

Psalm 33, Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Romans 8, 14-17, The Spirit bears witness to our spirit.

Matthew 28, 16-20, Behold, I am with all days until the end of the ages.

Observations on the Readings:

1^streading from Book of Deuteronomy (Chapter 4)

Deuteronomy is the 5^thbook of Bible and of Jewish Torah or Pentateuch. Though traditionally attributed entirely to Moses, modern scholars agree that it is a collection of Jewish traditions, later adapted to nationalistic reform and its final form coming after the Babylonian captivity in late 6^th century BC.

It is written as if from the mouth of Moses, who was considered the greatest of the prophets, for the authority his name gave the book. See last verses of final chapter 34. The most famous verses are Ch 6:4-5: “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, our God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

3^rdreading from the Gospel of Matthew (Chapter 28)

This book is the second gospel chronologically, and was written with the Jewish people in mind, to show a direct connection between the Jewish Law and the Prophets and the teachings
of Jesus.

Homily

This year we are celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the opening of the
Second Vatican Council in 1962. I recommend the article in the blog by Giovanni Franzone, a former Italian Benedictine Abbot. As an Abbot, he attended the Second Vatican Council as one of the ‘Fathers’ of the council. He is now 86, and his article gives a fresh “I was there” perspective. I want to talk a little today about Vatican II, which has been called the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church in modern times.

Pope John XXIII became Pope following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. Less than a year later, John 23^rd announced that he would call an ecumenical council. You may remember his story of how he had a dream one night in which the church was coming together in a council to renew itself. He awoke thinking what a great idea that was and thinking “I must tell the pope about it.” And then he realized, “Wait a minute, I am the Pope.”

Some of The Jesuit Class of '58, reunion, New Orleans. 2 still active as S.J. priests, one in NY, one in Peru.

So he called the council to bring together representatives of the church all over the world, including many great minds of the time, and including representatives of other Christian faiths and non-Christian faiths. The two main purposes were “aggiornamento”, a bringing-up-to-date of the Church, and a striving for Christian unity. In answer to someone’s question about the purpose of the council, Pope John once said:
‘to let some fresh air into the Church”.

I didn’t just honor and give respect to Pope John 23^rd; I loved him—for who he was as a man, and what he did for the church’s world
community. And we also shared the same birth day of November 25^th.

Vatican II continued for a couple more years and eventually

Trinity Sunday Mass at Bob Baxter's house in New Orleans. Cathy Lichliter reading with her husband, Bill, on the left.

documents were approved by the council. Perhaps the five most significant were: The Constitution on the Church, The Decree on Ecumenism, The Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops, The Declaration on Religious Liberty, and the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Contemporary World. I will say just a little about the first three, and I hope we can look at more of them, and in more detail, during this 50^th anniversary year.

In the Constitution on the Church, the significant updating was, as
Mike said last week, a new (yet old) vision of the church primarily as the
‘People of God’, equal through Baptism, rather than primarily as a hierarchical and clerical structure.

Gab Session after Mass. A uniquely moving class reunion of 20 plus men who spent many of their early years as Jesuit classmates. Now meeting with their wives.

The Decree on Ecumenism reached out to people of all
faiths and erased the old belief that you had to be Catholic to ‘be saved’—to be with God. Remember we read a lot from some Acts of some Apostles during the Easter Season.

In Chap.10 of Acts Peter said: ‘I can see now that God is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation anyone who reverences him and
does what is right, is acceptable to him.’ In other words, every human being who reaches moral adulthood chooses between what his conscience judges to be right and what his conscience judges to be wrong. If a person makes the basic choice for right as he knows it, he is in fact choosing God.

The Decree on the Pastoral Office of Bishops included the notion of ‘collegiality’ among bishops with the Pope, that bishops are not just advisors to the Pope, but co-deciders with him and the People of God. The Decree encouraged the formation of regional councils and, all the way down to the parish community level, councils were to be formed to allow participation in decision making by the community from the ground level up. How many of you ever served on a parish community council?

Sunday brunch after Mass

We have good reason to remember the aggiornamento begun by Pope John 23^rd. I remember following the sessions of the council closely with enthusiasm and optimism. My 50^th was last year, so I was ordained the year before the council opened. Stack was just a few years from ordination and no doubt also following it equally closely. Pope John died in 1963 less than a year after he opened the council, and was followed by Pope Paul VI. The article by Abbot Franzone in the blog provides a lot more information about Vatican II and about the role of Paul VI during and after the Council.

Vatican II is the most significant event in the life of the Catholic Church in modern times. My question today is: how much do we know about it? and how are we living out its updated teachings and its spirit?

Read More Sunday Homily 6-3-12, Trinity
Homilies

Sunday Homily for April 28, 2019, 2nd Easter
ByRosemary April 28, 2019

Say Cindy & Dee, "Welcome in, Everybody."

Readings:

Acts of the Apostles, 5, 12-16, Peter said, "we are witnesses of all."

Psalm 118, Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his love is everlasting.

Revelation 1, 9-11, 12-13, 17-19, I, John, found myself on the Island of Patmos

John 20, 19-31, Jesus appears to the apostles in the upper room.

And guess who is also saying, "Come in, Folks," Tori & Harper.

Homily by Deacon Mike

The Father makes known to us, “He sent his Son into the world, not to condemn it; but rather, to redeem it; to grant it salvation through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

So, Jesus, in like manner, said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, I send you into the world, not to condemn the world but to grant it salvation through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Emma with her Magic Touch lighting our Easter Candles.

Two Sundays ago the Church welcomed and empowered with the Holy Spirit tens of thousands of the Elect from all over the world to become a part of the Body of Christ; not to condemn the world; but to redeem it, to join with us to bring forgiveness to the world.

So, we ask you, the Church, to redeem itself. You have hurt yourself and us; for we are part of you, and we suffer, but we know that we must forgive you.

The Blessing of the Easter Candles read by Buddy who knows it almost totally by heart.

So, we forgive you for allowing predators to abuse our children.

We want to assist you, so we ask that you do the following: Pray over your plan of action. Have you sought to realize that your plan must address predators who will seek to continue the abuse? You must address who you choose to send to your parishes. Your plan must replace them with ordained married men, and women who seek to be deacons, priests and bishops.

Our Great Offertory Team, Cathy, Sandra, and Judy.

The Apostle Paul placed no walls or barriers between those who have received and are living the gift of the Holy Spirit; we are Jew or Gentile, slave or free man, male or female. GOD HAS NO FAVORITES! We are one body in Christ.

Welcome Home, Grace, from your visit to Amsterdam, the home of your ancestors.

Read More Sunday Homily for April 28, 2019, 2nd Easter

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