Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

There is a peculiar wisdom in sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, a wisdom which cannot be hurried into us by books or lectures. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who made a daily Holy Hour for nearly sixty years, discovered that the soul must sometimes cease talking in order to learn how to listen. “The Holy Hour became a teacher for me,” he wrote, because “looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour transforms the heart in a mysterious way.”  It is rather like standing in sunlight: we do not grasp the rays, yet by remaining there we are changed by them. Sheen even said that his preaching and “every good thought” were born from that hour before Our Lord.  Perhaps this is the wisdom the modern mind finds hardest to accept: that by doing apparently nothing but keeping company with Christ, we may become capable of doing everything else with greater truth, courage, and love.
 

There are few questions more difficult, or more easily misunderstood, than the question of why God made us male and female. Our age has given us no shortage of answers. Some tell us that sex is merely a biological accident. Others tell us that it is simply a private identity to be constructed according to our feelings. But perhaps the real trouble is that we have forgotten to ask the question beneath the question. Why did God make us this way? To ask it honestly is not to begin with condemnation, but with wonder. If God is the author of creation, then the difference between man and woman cannot be an arbitrary detail. It must somehow belong to the meaning of creation itself, to the strange and beautiful truth that we were not made for ourselves alone, but for communion, gift, and love.

This is why, on October 1st, I want to invite all of you my, dear parishioners, to “The Well” with Christopher West here at St. Mary's Parish. It offers something increasingly rare: a place where difficult questions are not treated as threats, and where Christian teaching is not reduced to a list of prohibitions. Instead, we are invited to see the human person anew. The Christian claim is far more astonishing than “there are rules about sex.” The claim is that the body itself speaks. Male and female are not merely two categories imposed upon an otherwise meaningless existence. They reveal something about the Creator's intention: that love is not fundamentally about taking, possessing, or gratifying the self. Love means making a gift of oneself. And here the mystery becomes still greater.

For if we want to understand why God made us male and female, we must eventually come to the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the place where Christianity's vision of the human person ceases to be an abstract philosophy and becomes flesh before our eyes. Christ does not merely tell us that He loves us. He gives Himself to us. His Body is given; His Blood is poured out. The deepest pattern written into creation is revealed at the altar: love gives itself away. We might say that the Eucharist is the answer to the riddle written into the human body.

We were made for communion because God Himself is communion. We were made to receive love and to become a gift because Christ shows us that the fullness of life is found not in grasping oneself, but in giving oneself away. The Eucharist reveals the destiny for which the human person was created: not isolation, but union; not consumption, but communion; not self-invention, but self-gift. This is why The Well matters.

It is not merely an evening for people who already have all the answers. It is especially for those who have questions—for parents trying to understand the world their children inhabit, for young people trying to make sense of their own bodies and desires, and for anyone who senses that beneath the arguments about sexuality lies a much deeper question about what it means to be human. Christ does not meet our confusion with contempt. He meets it with truth and truth, when seen in Him, is beautiful.

So come to The Well. Come not merely to learn what the Church says about male and female, but to discover why the Church believes the human body is good, why our differences have meaning, why love demands a gift of self, and why all of these mysteries finally lead us toward the Eucharist. On the cover of the bulletin, scan the QR code, for more information on this powerful event. I want to see you and your family there at “The Well.” 

Christ has not called us merely to believe in Him within the walls of our churches, but to carry His reign into the little kingdoms entrusted to us. Within our families, we possess a spiritual authority. It's not the authority to dominate, but the sacred responsibility to pray, to bless, to teach, and to stand firm against all that would draw those we love away from God. The Christian parent is, in a sense, a watchman at the gate: not able to control every heart, but called faithfully to keep the light burning, to speak truth with love, and to make the home a place where Christ is honored. We need not fear the darkness, for the authority we exercise is not our own; it is received from the One whose kingdom cannot be overcome.

Even the best of us, if left to ourselves, have depths within us from which terrible things might emerge. The knowledge should not drive us to despair, but to dependence: we are safest not when we trust ourselves most, but when we cling most closely to Christ. Every virtue we possess is a gift, every victory a mercy, and every step forward made possible by grace. So let us never boast as though we stood by our own strength, but kneel gladly before the One who holds us—and who, apart from Him, we could never safely hold ourselves.

Consider what this means. A good earthly husband does not marry his bride and then disappear, leaving her to find her own way through every danger. He protects her. He watches over her when the night is dark. He remains faithful when circumstances are difficult. When the beauty of youth disappears and fades, when the smooth skin is replaced by the wrinkles of stress and time, does a husband forsake his wife? No! And if even imperfect human love can do such things, how much more shall Christ, whose love is perfect?

Our Lord calls the Church His Bride. He did not purchase her with silver or gold, but with His own Blood. It would be strange indeed to imagine that He would then abandon her to the storms of history. The Catholic believes that the same Christ who died for His Bride continues to care for her, just as honorable, virtuous man would, yet infinitely more . He guards her through His grace, teaches her through His truth, and guides her through the shepherds He has appointed.

This does not mean that every Pope will be a saint, or that every decision made by a Churchman will be wise. The apostles themselves were imperfect men. Peter denied his Lord before becoming the rock upon which the Church was built. The wonder is precisely that Christ can preserve His Bride through imperfect servants. The security of the Church rests ultimately not upon the holiness of popes, bishops, or laymen, but upon the faithfulness of Christ.

History may batter the Church, but it cannot become her master. Kings may rise and fall. Philosophies may become fashionable and then vanish. Nations may rage against her, and even her own children may wound her through sin and scandal. Yet the Bridegroom remains.

Jesus is the perfect husband. When Christ promised, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” He was not making a poetic suggestion. He was giving His Bride a promise. So now here we are, 2000 years later since the founding of this Church – still standing strong.

The Prophet Ezekiel saw a valley where death had stripped even hope from the bones, yet God commanded the dead to rise and receive His breath. What the prophet saw in shadow, Christ fulfills in flesh: Jesus does not merely promise life to the dead—He gives Himself as the Bread of Life. In the Eucharist, the One who conquered the grave feeds us with His own risen life, and the Spirit who once breathed upon dry bones now breathes eternal life into us. The valley is no longer the end; in Christ, even our dry bones can live, because the God who raises the dead has chosen to dwell within us.

God is not a Father who waits coldly at the door for His wandering children to find their way home. He is the Father who goes looking. His love is not a quiet affection, but a holy fire that refuses to be content while even one child remains lost. He pursues us through the dark places of our own making, calling our name beneath all the noise, not because we have earned His search, but because we belong to Him. And when at last we turn toward Him, we discover that the arms reaching for us were already open, and that the journey home was, in a profound sense, a journey into the heart of a Father who had never stopped seeking us.n, but a holy fire that refuses to be content while even one child remains lost. He pursues us through the dark places ofwn making, calling our name beneath all the noise, not because we have earned His search, but because we belong to Him. And when at last we turn toward Him, we discover that the arms reaching for us were already open, and that the journey home was, in a profound sense, a journey into the heart of a Father who had never stopped see

Since the beginning, in the garden itself, we have been tempted by the old whisper: you shall be like gods. Yet the temptation is subtler than merely wishing to possess divine power; it is the desire to sit in judgment over good and evil, to declare reality true when it pleases us and wicked when it offends our desires. We would rather make truth than receive it, and crown our own preferences as the measure of righteousness. But in doing so, we do not become gods—we become poor imitations of them, mistaking the throne of judgment for freedom while placing ourselves beneath the tyranny of our own inventions.

God has given each of us an extremely powerful weapon. We need only the discipline and trust to wield it. St. Padre Pio, the great Italian demon fighter, called it his favorite tool against evil. In the 16th century, St. Pius V called upon it when Christianity was on the brink of being conquered by the Muslim armies of the Ottoman Empire. St. John Paul II used it as a powerful spiritual weapon during the Cold War.

This weapon of which I speak, you all know well. You are probably carrying it, concealed in your pockets, at this very moment in church. I am talking about the mighty Holy Rosary. My friends, this Rosary, uttered millions of times every day throughout the world, makes the demons tremble, causes heretics to flee, and converts even the most hardened of sinners.

Traditionally attributed to a gift given to St. Dominic in the 12th century, the Rosary calls us to meditate upon the pivotal moments of Jesus' life here on earth, from His birth in Bethlehem to His death on Calvary. You see, the answer to the mountains we face in our lives is simple: more Jesus Christ.

Prayer is not a polite request made once and then abandoned if the answer does not come. God calls us to something more stubborn and more trusting: to keep asking, seeking, and knocking. When heaven seems silent, we are tempted to conclude that our prayers have failed. But perhaps the silence is itself part of the lesson. Persistence teaches us that we are not merely asking for a thing; we are learning to desire God Himself, and to remain at His door even when we cannot yet see what He is doing.

So do not cease asking simply because the answer is long delayed. Bring the same burden before God again tomorrow, and the day after that, without shame or weariness. The child who keeps returning to his father is not an annoyance but a sign of trust. We may not understand why God delays, nor should we pretend that every prayer will receive the answer we desire. But we may be certain of this: the act of turning again toward God is never wasted. Keep knocking—not because God is reluctant to hear, but because He is teaching us never to stop coming to Him.

The Assumption of Mary is a quiet but astonishing reminder that God does not mean to save us from our bodies, but to save and glorify them. In Mary, we are shown the human creature already entering, body and soul, into the life for which we were made: not absorption into God, but intimate participation in the divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The body we are tempted to regard as merely temporary is destined for glory; the flesh that seems so frail may become an instrument of eternal praise. Mary’s Assumption therefore stands like a signpost on the road to our own resurrection: God’s final purpose is not the abandonment of creation, but its transfiguration.