32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

This weekend I joined almost 60 high schoolers from around our diocese for the winter High School Discipleship Weekend.  These are young men and women serious about living out their Catholic faith: they want to continue growing in a deep and genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, they are learning to be active leaders in the faith, they are growing in intentional service to God and others, and they freely chose to give up their entire weekend in order to make these things a priority in their busy lives.  Although I had basically lost my voice by Sunday morning, here is my homily from this amazing weekend! 

Themes: trust in God, giving what little we have, God compares us to our former selves (not to other people), knowing when spiritual growth really begins to happen (which is opposite of what we usually think) - all of which, by the way, lead to a freedom in life, a freedom of heart, a deeper peace that we all want but that can only be given by God!