Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

Jesus draws near to us as a gentle healer, bearing wounds of His own. He enters not by force, but with the quiet grace of one who knows the burden of grief and the chill of despair. Into the very heart of our affliction He steps, not to scorn it, but to sanctify it.  By His touch, the bitter is made sweet, and what was broken begins to mend. For such is His purpose: not to shield us from pain, but to dwell within it with us, and from within, to transform us into creatures of light, made new as sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. 

In his letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul urges, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). In these words, we’re reminded that the Christian journey is not one we walk alone. God has placed us in community so that we may strengthen one another in faith, hope, and love. To build each other up in Christ is to speak truth with grace, to lift the weary, and to celebrate the work of God in each life. When we encourage one another, we reflect the heart of Christ—who never leaves, never forsakes, and always restores.

There is something oddly invigorating about discovering that one is not the center of the universe. It is rather like opening a window and discovering, to your astonishment, that the world goes on quite well without your personal supervision. This, I believe, is the beginning of wisdom – and the birthplace of humility.

Now, humility is not what the modern man imagines it to be. He thinks it a sort of sad apology for existing, a miserable muttering of “I’m not good enough”. But true humility is not thinking less of oneself – it is thinking of oneself less, because one is too busy being stunned by the glory of God. It is precisely in the Catholic spiritual life, that narrow path which twists like a mountain road where humility is not merely a virtue but a necessity. We are attempting the unthinkable: union with God. And in this adventure towards Him, self-importance and our “machismo” ego  is not only ludicrous; it is lethal.

Saint John of the Cross, that severe and splendid mystic, understood this with mathematical precision. In his Ascent of Mount Carmel, he teaches us that the soul must be stripped of every attachment. One must walk, he says, nada, nada, nada – nothing, nothing, nothing. A man cannot be filled with God if he is already full of himself.

St. Teresa of Avila, for all her heavenly visions, was hilariously human. She once complained to God, when thrown from her donkey, “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.” And yet, in her Interior Castle, she tells us that humility is the mortar that holds the whole soul together. It is not in the ecstasies or raptures that the soul grows, but in the quiet, daily acceptance of its littleness. In knowing, quite simply, that we are creatures and that God is not.

It is the great paradox of Christianity that as a man shrinks, he grows. The ladder to heaven begins with a step down. The saints are not giants of will, they are beggars of grace. They have ceased to build Babels and have instead begun to whisper in prayer. The devil fell by pride; the angels rose by obedience. We do not ascend to God by building towers, but by descending into ourselves and finding there – not thrones – but dust.

The modern world is filled with slogans urging us to believe in ourselves. But the saints urge us to believe in something far greater: in Him who believed in us first, while we were yet sinners. They urge us to laugh at our own egos and to bend our knees, not as slaves, but as lovers.

In a world overwhelmed by noise, haste, and the shadows of anxiety, we are called to stay awake. Not merely with open eyes, but with hearts attuned to the presence of Christ. The world tempts us to distraction, to forgetfulness of the eternal, yet Jesus stands quietly at the door of our soul, waiting to be received. To stay awake means to live in vigilant faith, to guard the light within, and not allow the cares of the day to extinguish the flame of hope. Let us not be lulled to sleep by fear or consumed by the fleeting, but rather be anchored in the peace that only Christ can give.

When we encounter the mercy of Jesus firsthand, when we truly grasp how deeply we are loved and forgiven despite our flaws, it changes us. His grace softens the edges of our judgment and replaces pride with compassion. We begin to see others not as problems to fix, but as people to love. The faults in others no longer provoke frustration, but invite empathy, because we remember our own need for mercy. And in that remembering, we learn to extend the same gentle kindness that was so freely given to us.

***At the end, the last five minutes is a bonus hymn from our 10AM Holy Mass***

We moderns have so arranged our religious instincts that we think the divine voice must always sound like a lullaby, when in fact it often sounds like a trumpet. We wish to hear of lilies and sparrows, forgetting that even lilies toil and sparrows fall. So when Christ, with the thunder of truth behind His quiet Galilean voice, declares: “Strive to enter by the narrow gate”, we are brought to a sudden and sobering attention. It is the call not of consolation, but of combat.

It is the strange and startling reality of Christianity that it begins with a paradox and ends with a challenge. The paradox is that the gate to life is narrow, while destruction’s road is spacious and easy. The challenge is that we must strive—not drift, not dawdle, not meander—but strive, as one who sweats in the effort to reach something worth attaining. The narrow gate does not admit the flabby soul or couch potato. It is a door carved not in comfort, but in courage.

The narrow gate is hard because it is honest. It makes no allowance for pretension. One cannot swagger through it, carrying the weight of vanity or the baggage of pride. It allows no masks, for it was carved by Him who sees the inner hidden heart. We must stoop to enter it. The tall towers of self-importance will not pass through. The narrow gate is entered singly, like birth and death.

And yet, what joy is hidden in this austere invitation! For though it is narrow, it is not closed. Though it is small, it is open to all. The child can pass through as well as the philosopher. The thief on the cross passed through it in the final hour. It is not guarded by angels with flaming swords, but by truth and repentance. That is why the striving is not the striving of the proud, but of the penitent.

There are those who say the world has grown too wide for such a narrow gate. But I say it is precisely because the world is so wide and wild that we need that slender doorway more than ever. The soul must have a compass. The heart must have a harbor. In an age that flings itself into every appetite, it is the narrow gate that preserves “God's image and likeness” in each of us. 

So then, let us strive—not with clenched fists, but with open hands. Let us strive to surrender, which is the most paradoxical of all efforts. For in striving to enter the narrow gate, we are not striving to become less, but more truly ourselves—less stuffed with shadows, and more filled with light. We are not constricted, but released.

Christ’s words are not the locked door of a vault, but the narrow entrance to a kingdom beyond all imagining. And if it is hard to enter, it is only because Heaven is too large to fit through the doorway of the ego.  Let us bow low. And then, let us walk through.

Humility is the heartbeat of every Christ-centered relationship, reflecting the very nature of Jesus, who though He was God chose to serve rather than be served. In light of His example, humility allows us to love without pride, listen without judgment, and forgive without hesitation. It softens our hearts, making space for grace to flourish between us. When we approach others with humility, we mirror the gentleness of Christ, building relationships not on ego or control, but on compassion, patience, and mutual respect. True strength in relationships is found not in being right, but in being Christlike.

God longs to throw a wedding feast for humanity—a celebration of love, joy, and eternal union. In His heart burns a divine desire to gather us, not as strangers or servants, but as beloved guests at His table. Like a bridegroom preparing for his bride, He adorns heaven with beauty and grace, waiting for each soul to accept His invitation. This feast is not just a promise of the future—it’s a reflection of His relentless pursuit of our hearts, a reminder that we were created not for fear or distance, but for communion, celebration, and everlasting love.

In the unspeakable darkness of the Nazi concentration camps of World War II, Viktor Frankl famously said, “What is to give light must endure burning.” It is a line that glows with quiet terror—and truth. For there is no true light in this world that has not come through some flame. Even stars must burn to shine. In order for something to be luminous or radiant warmth, it must die to itself. It is written in the very laws of thermodynamics. The price to enjoy life on earth, for example, our sun must spend itself: in 5 billion years it will phase into a Red Giant as it exhausts its hydrogen, then into a Planetary Nebula, and finally into a White Dwarf, slowly cooling off into oblivion. 

And so it is with souls.

Christ Himself declares today in this Sunday’s Gospel passage, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Not the fire of destruction, but the fire of love—fierce, purifying, and sacrificial. It is the fire of a heart ablaze, the fire of the Cross, where God gave not just light, but Himself. There is a truth so beautifully strange and yet so profoundly simple that it might be mistaken for folly by the wisdom of the world. It is the great Christian paradox: that we find our true selves not by grasping tighter, but by dying entirely; that the road to life is paved by the death of our egotistical desires.

In an age that celebrates the self as king, the notion of dying to one’s own needs and ambitions seems almost absurd. Yet this is precisely the wisdom that Christianity proclaims with a joyful boldness. We are invited to a paradoxical journey where losing our life in the service of others is the very means by which we gain it. “He who loses his life for my sake,” said Christ, “will find it.” Think of it: the ego, that restless tyrant demanding attention, acclaim, and self-preservation, must be dethroned. It is only when we say “No” to our selfish cravings that we open the door to a fuller, richer life. This is not a diminishment but a liberation—a liberation from the chains of the self that bind us to loneliness, fear, and despair.

Like a candle that burns itself to give light, or a seed that falls into the earth to rise in newness, the Christian life calls us to die to self so that we may truly live. This death is not a bleak end but a joyful transformation. The gift of ourselves—freely given, without calculation—is the very thing that reveals the depth and dignity of our souls. And here lies the great wonder: in the giving of ourselves, we are given to ourselves in return. The self that seemed so fragile and fleeting is made eternal in the embrace of grace. It is a truth that will bring this fire upon the earth. 

The Catholic teaching of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven reminds us of the sacred dignity and eternal destiny of the human body. Mary, taken body and soul into heavenly glory, reveals the fullness of God's promise to humanity—that our bodies, not just our souls, are destined for resurrection and glory. Her Assumption is a sign of hope for all believers, showing that through God's grace, our earthly lives and bodies are not meaningless or discarded, but will one day be transformed. It calls us to honor the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and to live in joyful expectation of our own share in the resurrection.