Come Away By Yourselves

Jesus' forty days in the desert serve as a model for Lent.  Detached from normal necessities, Jesus fasts, prays, and battles the devil. Our Lenten sacrifices help us to live more dependent on God, focusing on the “one thing necessary.”  Fasting and self-denial give life and energy to the spirit.  A generous and fruitful Lent takes insight and courage. The reward for our spiritual life is more than worth the effort. 

The first daily Lenten Homily.   Originally published 2021. 

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The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus's teaching on how to live with faith.  At once challenging and comforting, Jesus's vision of faith calls us to a radical dependence on God and detachment from all other goods.  At the heart of faith is an unshakable trust in God's infinite love for us.  This conviction frees us to live without fear and to strive for virtue without anxiety.  To have a living faith, however, takes personal prayer: times in which we apply the basic truths of our faith in God to the concrete circumstances and concerns of our current lives.    

A woman suffering from a  hemorrhage fights through a crowd to touch Jesus with faith.  This Gospel story teaches a great deal about our own relationship with Jesus.  Her miracle has three key ingredients: need, faith, and contact with Christ.  Our own encounters with Christ will be more impactful and fruitful the more we need him, trust him, and have direct contact with him.  Like this woman, we are all spiritually bleeding and wounded.  By contact with Christ--in communion, confession and prayer--we can learn what these wounds are and experience his healing power.  

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The parable of the prodigal son is a parable of freedom and filiation.   The prodigal son and his older brother both misuse their freedom.  They mistakenly feel constrained by their relationship with their father and end up rejecting him.  The prodigal son rediscovers his sonship by reflecting on the truth of his situation.  This speaks to a close connection between true freedom and the truth itself.  The elder son acts correctly for the most part, but does so without charity, without an identification with his father's heart.  This leads him to a resentful and self-righteous fulfillment of his duties.  To avoid all of these pitfalls, we look to Jesus, who always acts freely because he always wants to please his most loving Father. 

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This is the audio of a Zoom class given last year to a women's group at a local parish.  The topic is The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  We review the basic theology of this wonderful doctrine: why we believe it, where it comes from in the Bible, why it's possible, how it works, and its import for our spiritual life.  There are about 30 minutes of lecture followed by a time of Q and A. 

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Originally published 9/23/20

Having the true God as our personal God is a great accomplishment and privilege.  The worship of false gods can take various forms.  In order to be truly human and  to love God as he deserves, we need to identify and cast out our idols. 

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Jesus is the anointed one, sent by God to preach good news to the poor, to liberate captives, to give sight to the blind, and to free the oppressed.  Believing this means bringing all of our problems to him.  If we don’t depend on Christ in this way, he is not truly Christ for us.  Our souls also need to grow in loving Jesus above everything and everyone else.  St. Paul is a model of loving Christ in this way.  By reading about and meditating on Christ, conversing with him in our prayer, we grow to love him in the way that he deserves and needs to be loved. 

At the wedding feast of Cana, a young couple is privileged with the presence of Jesus and Mary.  Mary's interaction with Jesus shows us the power of her intercession and teaches us to have a great trust in God.   Our Lady's advice, 'do whatever he tells you,' is at once practical and profound.  Coming from her own experience of fruitful submission to God's will, this piece of advice is a foolproof way to grow in holiness and in love.  

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First published 1/11/21: In Jesus's Baptism we see Jesus doing something unnecessary and in a sense unfair.  He takes on the role of a sinner, allowing John to baptize him with his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  At the beginning of his public life, this event foreshadows our redemption at the end of Jesus's life--his death on the cross.  Jesus loves us by lowering himself, forgetful of his status and his rights, giving himself in a way that is beyond all necessity and human logic.  Christian life is an invitation to do the same