Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

It is a curious thing how easily we grow accustomed to the dull weight of the world, as though sorrow were the final word, as though death were the great period at the end of every sentence. We live, most of us, as if the story is already written in ink that cannot be altered. The tears of Good Friday, we think, is simply how things are.

But then… there is Easter.

The Resurrection is not merely a happy ending tacked onto a tragic tale. It is the great reversal, the divine interruption. It is, if you like, the Author Himself stepping onto the stage and insisting that the play shall not end in darkness after all. Death, which seemed so solid, so inevitable, is revealed to be a door—and not a locked one.

If Christ is risen, then everything we assumed to be ultimate is, in fact, provisional. Sin is not the final master. Suffering is not meaningless. Even death itself has been, as it were, hollowed out from the inside. The worst thing is never the last thing.

This changes not only our destination, but our present. For if death has been defeated, then fear need not govern us like before. We are freed, freed to love recklessly, to forgive extravagantly, to hope stubbornly in places where hope seems absurd. The Resurrection does not remove the wounds of the world; rather, it transforms them. The scars remain, but they shine iridescently. St. Augustine discovered this in the 4th century, when he famously exclaimed, “In my deepest wound I saw your glory and it dazzled me.” 

And here is the most astonishing part: the Resurrection is not merely something that happened to Christ; it is something that happens to us. We are invited into it. The new life is not postponed until some distant heaven; it has already begun, quietly, like dawn spreading across the Central Valley, once suffocated by dense tule fog.

So we must ask ourselves: do we still live as though the tomb is sealed? Or have we begun to live as though it is empty?

For if it is empty—and it is—then everything has changed.

We all have a price, if we're humbly honest. For Judas today, it was thirty pieces of shiny silver coins. 

We all have the same, understandable reaction to suffering – RUN! We want to flee from it, make it stop, numb it, ignore it, avoid it at all costs. Not our God. Palm Sunday forces us to confront pain in an altogether ridiculous way. 

Here is Jesus Christ, riding into Jerusalem, not as one swept along by circumstance, but as one who has already read the final chapter and chooses, nonetheless, to walk straight into it. He knows what awaits Him. Let us not soften it. Betrayal by a friend. False accusations. Public humiliation. Torture. Death of the most cruel and calculated kind. And yet He goes.

Now if this were mere ignorance, we might pity Him. If it were compulsion, we might mourn Him. But it is neither. It is, rather, laser-like intention.

The crowd, as you know, cried out in celebration. They spread their cloaks and waved branches, as though a king had come at last to banish their troubles. And indeed, a King had come but not the sort they imagined. For this King does not deal with suffering by issuing decrees against it, nor by remaining safely beyond its reach. He deals with it by entering it.

He rides, as it were, into the very razor-sharp mouth of the dragon.He does not wait for suffering to come to Him unbidden. He goes to it. He advances toward it. He places Himself in its path with full knowledge of its cost. In a world where we spend our days avoiding pain, postponing it, disguising it; He alone walks deliberately into its center.

Do you see what this means?

It means there is no sorrow you carry into which He has not already gone. No grief so deep, no darkness so thick, that He stands outside it, arms folded, offering advice. He is there—wounded, yes, but present. And more than present: active.

For by entering suffering, He begins the work of undoing it. Not by skirting its edges, but by breaking its power from within. Like a fire that consumes the rot at the heart of a tree, He takes into Himself what would otherwise destroy us and in doing so, He robs it of its final victory.

So when you think of Palm Sunday, do not think merely of celebration. Think of courage. Think of resolve. Think of a King who sees the cross at the end of the road and rides on anyway.

For that is how He deals with the suffering of humanity,not by avoiding it, not by explaining it away, but by entering it fully, confronting it utterly, and, at last, redeeming it from the inside out with compassionate love. 

It's abundantly clear now what the Jewish authorities must do to Jesus. 

Can you find your own pain on the cross? 

This homily was recorded at our 2PM Traditional Latin Mass 

A few days ago, I was called to the home of a parishioner to administer the Anointing of the Sick and bring Holy Communion—those sacred prayers we often refer to as the “Last Rites,” which prepare the soul to stand before the judgment seat of God. As I left that home, a single thought lingered in my heart: I think I may have just anointed a saint.

I rang the doorbell, and her husband greeted me warmly. “Thank you for coming,” he said, extending his hand. “She’ll be so happy to see you.” Because of her fragile immune system, we both put on our masks. He led me down the hallway, and as I walked, my eyes were drawn to the family photographs lining the walls, faces radiant with wide, joyful smiles. This was clearly a family that knew how to love, and how to rejoice.

Yet as we approached the bedroom, a familiar weight settled in my chest. I have walked this path many times as a priest, and still, it never becomes easier. Behind that door, one never knows what awaits—sorrow, anger, tears… or perhaps all three at once.

I stepped inside. The curtains were drawn, and a soft, diffused light filled the room, casting a quiet warmth over everything. On the nightstand stood a wooden statue of the Blessed Mother, watching gently over her.

She greeted me with a reverence that was both humbling and profound. “Father!” she said, her voice trembling as her teeth chattered uncontrollably. The effects of her medication left her alternating between fever and chilling cold. Her husband tenderly draped another blanket over her, layering warmth upon warmth. The cancer had weakened her, yes but it seemed the treatment itself had exacted an even harsher toll.

We spoke briefly about a pilgrimage she and her husband had made to Lourdes the year before, where they had begged the Blessed Mother for a miracle. That miracle had not come; at least, not in the way they had hoped.

She lifted her eyes heavenward and said softly, “My only hope is that I’m ready, Father. I don’t want to be separated…”

At first, I thought she meant her children. But she continued, “I don’t want to be separated from Our Lord. I cannot bear even the thought of Purgatory. I just want to see Him… at last.”

Her teeth trembled again, yet somehow she managed a smile, fragile, but radiant. “You’re always in my prayers, Father.”

I found myself in awe of souls like hers. While the world rushes on in all its noise and urgency, there are hidden lives—quiet, unseen—bearing their own Calvary. Right here, in Vacaville.

She is like Lazarus from the Gospel, a figure of suffering in the eyes of the world. To many, a life like hers seems only tragic, stripped of purpose. But they do not see what lies beneath. They do not see the mysterious power of God at work even here, even within suffering. Yes, there is a hidden power in the cross she carries.

In the end, when we stand before Jesus Christ, it will not be appearances that matter, but the life we have truly lived.

And so I ask myself—and you: which one do you wish to be?

As for me, I pray that I may be like that beautiful soul I encountered—lying in that bed, shivering beneath her blankets, her body wasting away… yet her heart wholly fixed on God.

Brothers, what defines a great man? Today's solemnity that we celebrate gives us a perfect example. 

Bored? Jesus provides an alternative answer to the "quiet desperation" that many of us feel. 

There is a peculiar mercy in the way Our Lord heals. We, in our modern cleverness, are often inclined to imagine that healing ought to be immediate, painless, and, above all, understandable. Yet in the Gospel we encounter something altogether different: a healing that begins in mystery, passes through obedience, and ends in sight. It's the restoration of not merely the eyes, but even more magnificently the soul.

Consider the man born blind whom Christ meets on the roadside. The disciples, like many of us, are preoccupied with explanations: Who sinned? Who is to blame? But Our Lord will not be trapped in that small courtroom of human reasoning. Instead, He stoops to the ground, makes clay, anoints the blind man’s eyes, and sends him to wash in the Pool of Siloam.

Now this is a strange prescription if one pauses to think about it. Mud upon the eyes does not look like medicine; it looks rather like further blindness. And yet the man obeys. He goes to the pool, washes, and returns seeing.

Here we begin to glimpse a truth that is as unsettling as it is hopeful: the true source of healing is not the pool, nor the clay, nor even the man’s obedience in itself. The source is Christ. The pool is merely the place where trust meets grace.

Many of us wander through life rather like that blind man though we seldom admit it. Our sight may be sharp enough to read the morning paper, but we stumble in darker matters: forgiveness, meaning, love, hope. We seek remedies in every direction—self-improvement, distraction, ambition—yet find that none quite reaches the deeper wound.

For the soul’s blindness is not cured by clearer information. It is cured by encounter.

Christ does not merely instruct the blind man; He touches him. And that touch begins a process. First comes the clay, then the journey, then the washing, then the sight. In much the same way, the healing of the human soul rarely arrives as a sudden bolt of lightning. More often it comes disguised as small acts of trust: a prayer whispered in uncertainty, a forgiveness offered when it is undeserved, a step taken toward God when we can hardly see the road ahead.

Indeed, the curious thing is that Christ often places clay upon our eyes before He gives us sight. He allows circumstances that confuse us, humble us, even darken our view of ourselves. Yet these moments are not evidence of His absence but of His craftsmanship. The Great Physician is preparing the eyes of the heart.

And when at last we wash, when we surrender our cleverness and come honestly before Him, we begin to see. Not perfectly, not all at once, but truly. We see that we are known and loved.
We see that grace was at work long before we recognized it. And, most astonishing of all, we begin to see Christ Himself.

The pool of Siloam was never the final destination. It was only the place where the blind man discovered that the One who sent him there was, in fact, the Light of the World. 

And so it remains. Every true healing of the soul begins and ends in Him. For Christ does not merely restore sight; He gives us a new way of seeing altogether.

It's non-negotiable. If we want God to forgive us, we must forgive those who have hurt us. But how? In today's Gospel, our Lord teaches us the secret so that true healing can begin.