Fr. Brendan McGuire - Podcasts that Break open the Word of God

The famous from Phase from St. Augustine’s encapsulates what the celebration of the Mass is all about; that when we come forward to receive the Body of Christ and we say, “Amen” we are saying that I agree that “I become what I receive. Amen. I will become the Body of Christ broken for others. I will become the Blood of Christ poured out for others.” This isn’t just bread and wine we become this living Body and Blood of Christ.

For centuries, theologians, priests and religious people have tried to express the meaning of the Trinity and some are more memorable than others. Of course, being from Ireland I have to mention St. Patrick’s classic of the three-leaf shamrock. Three persons on one leaf. But none of these explain what the Trinity means. There is the concept of three persons in one God. It is beyond our comprehension. 

If we look back at this last 15 or 16 months since the pandemic, it’s been like a collective cannonball experience. But the the temptation is to not listen to the Holy Spirit; it is to be distracted by the other spirits that tell us nothing is different. Whereas the Holy Spirit will always invite us to use the cannonball experience for an opportunity to change and grow and to not come back the same way. My homily from Pentecost follows...

When our loved ones suffer; when our loved ones are dying; when our loved ones leave us then we have this memory. We have a memory that our love was and is real and that love and memory will never die. You see that is the message of the Ascension; that no matter whatever else happens in our world, the love that we share never, ever dies.

In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that we must remain part of him because we can do nothing outside of him. He uses this beautiful metaphor of the vine and the branches. If you take a branch off the vine, clearly it is not going to be able to grow or anything because it is separated from the source. But if it remains part of the vine, it will grow and it will produce much fruit.

Historically, this Sunday has been called Good Shepherd Sunday, the obvious connection to the gospel today, a reminder that Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd that draws us into his one flock as Shepherd of us all...

The Easter season offers us all the opportunity to be witnesses to these things and that begins with a beginner’s mind; to witness to God present here and now. Now there are two things to a witness: a witness sees and observes but a witness also testifies to what they see and observe.

There are two things about this gospel that have always stood out for me and have somewhat troubled me. Here is my homily from the Second Sunday of Easter, sometimes known as Thomas Sunday or Divine Mercy Sunday.

My hope today is that today as we celebrate this Eucharist and come around this time, to recognize the sacredness and the grace and the preciousness of this time that God has given us no matter how long it is.

When we come to the Cross today, we see what Christ gave us. It was courage. It was commitment. It was community. And it was all in love. Love that costs everything.