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

In Celtic Christian spirituality, we believe, that when we are born, we become a traveler. We move from the invisible into the visible and then journey through this life. Then when we die, we complete the circle and move from the visible back to the invisible and our soul continues the journey.  (Read more…)

Here is my homily email from the Feast of the Ascension. At the vigil Mass, I had the honor of celebrating the 25th anniversary of my ordination with family and many friends. I am blessed with the ministry of my priesthood and am grateful to everyone in my life.

The challenge is that we often do not want to listen to the Holy Spirit. We want our own opinion, and we want to what we want to do. What makes us as a church and institution different is that we promise that we are going to listen to the Holy Spirit. But this institution is more than just an institution. This church we do, we live. It is we, the body of Christ. We, the people of God, are the church. We are all called to listen to this Holy Spirit, to unify us together in all that we do in every day living. (Read more…)

Here is my homily email from the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share this email with others.

Jesus is talking about how they will know us by who we are. They will know that you are followers if you love one another, or if you see this constant behavior in your life. They will recognize in your behavior that you are a follower and a believer in me. You see, it is not enough just to believe in Jesus Christ. We have to become followers of Jesus Christ, and that requires action, and those actions need to be consistent with who we claim to follow, Christ. And the question is then, how do we do this? What does this look like? (Read more…)

Here is my homily email from the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share this email with others.

We all just know our mother's voice. It is not that we are not unfamiliar with it. It is just that we may not always be paying attention to it. In the same way, we all know God's voice in our own life. We may just not be paying attention to it. We may not be hearing what we are called to hear. And here is the interesting thing, we can be busy about many good things in this world and still miss still miss the voice of the Lord, because we are not attuned to it. We are busy with lots of good things. (Read more…) 

Here is my homily email from the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This week I am away at our diocesan Clergy Study Week. Please keep me and all of the priests in your prayers. Please feel free to share this email with others.

The reality is in all of our lives, we sometimes wander from the trail of life, in this journey of life, we do miss a sign or two. We get thrown off, and we follow a path that takes us to a place where we may sometimes take us a little time to figure out that we were down the wrong path. But then all we have to do is work our way back to that sign, the sign that points to God's love, and that sign is Jesus Christ in the world. (Read more…)

Here is my homily email from the Third Sunday of Easter. This was the First Communion Mass for our children, so I was preaching to the children directly in the first part of the homily. Please keep these children in your prayers and please feel free to share it with others.

No matter what, it is always better to be a person of the truth, and if you make mistakes, to tell the truth, to hold yourself accountable to that. It is not always easy to tell the truth or be a person of the truth because there is a certain amount of shame. But believe me, there is greater shame that comes from a lie when you do not tell the truth. (Read more…)

Here is my homily email from the Second Sunday of Easter. Please feel free to share it with others.

Pope Francis called the whole church with that sense of calling us back to the roots of who we are. He kept on bringing us back to Jesus. He kept on calling us back to primarily God’s mercy, his love, and his joy. I always remember his first letter to us, the Gospel of Joy. He talked about how important it is to be men and women of joy. And he has lived that in his papacy over these long years. He brought us back to the heart of Jesus. (Read more…)

On Monday we learned of the passing of Pope Francis and we held a memorial Mass for him here at St. Simon. So here is a special edition of my homily email from that Mass. Please feel free to share it with others. And stay tuned for more events as we move this this transition of our Church.

We are called to let the light of Christ shine not only on us and within us, but from us, so that others can see that they have the grace, the gem of grace within them. These luminous minerals that we have in rocks are like the luminous grace of God within us. We are called to shine the light of Christ on others. It is not enough that we just celebrate here together with all of us who believe, we have to become the light in the world. (Read more…)

Alleluia! He is risen! - Here is my Homily from the Easter Vigil. Please feel free to share it with others!

To watch a hopeless death is one to be avoided at all costs. But Christianity has a response. It may not be the answer we want, but it does have a response. Let me offer it to you because it is about what happens today. This is the response: it says first of all that not only God recognizes the suffering and the pain, and he does not remain at a distance. He enters into the suffering and the pain. He becomes one of us, and he accompanies us. He becomes one of us to the point of death on a cross. (Read more…)

My friends, tonight is about service. Can we find a way to serve some other person in our community who feel completely left out? Some neighbor who feels estranged, maybe have lost a spouse, there is nowhere else to go. Can we love them where they are and get down low and serve them and realize that this is a new perspective for us. (Read more…)

Here is my homily for Holy Thursday - Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper. Please feel free to share this with others.

Join us tonight at 7:00pm here at St. Simon for the Living Stations of the Cross and Communion Service.