This is our last Sunday before we begin Lent. Ash Wednesday is just a few days away. Today we come to the end of Christ’s ‘Sermon on the Plain’ in the Gospel of Luke, which is a collection of Our Lord’s core teachings on the moral life. And today he kind of sums things up.

There a basically three main topics addressed in this Gospel: the importance of a teacher as a model; the danger of hypocrisy; and the mark of a good person.

So, here’s a question I think Jesus is posing to us: Is the person to whom you’ve entrusted your soul…a blind guide or a visionary? Does he or she know where to take you? Or could your spiritual teacher be as lost as you are? Let's explore this a little more...

Lectionary Readings:

Sir 27:4-7

Ps 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16

1 Cor 15:54-58

Lk 6:39-45

Brothers and sisters, what do you think is the hardest teaching of Jesus? The toughest commandant he tells us to follow? For many of us, including myself, it might just be what we heard in today’s Gospel. This is toward the end of Christ’s 'Sermon on the Plain', his teaching on forgiveness and love of enemies.

Listen again to the first sentence our Lord tells us: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

That last one really struck me. Jesus wants us to "pray for those who abuse you." My friends, this commandment from our Lord has been weighing on me this week because of what has been happening in our Church the past 8 months, and especially in the new developments in the just the past 2 weeks. Let's have a conversation about that...

Lectionary Readings:

1 Sm 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23

Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13

1 Cor 15:45-49

Lk 6:27-38

Jesus tells Peter, “go out into the deep water.” An encounter with God always leads us into the deep. Most of us spend our lives fussing around on the shore. Living in the shallows. Even the most accomplished people in the eyes of the world can be spending their spiritual lives like little kids playing with their buckets in the sand and barely putting their feet into the water. God doesn’t want that for us. God wants to bring us into the depths. Why? Because he wants us fully alive! He doesn’t want us like little children only going ankle deep into the water. He wants us out into the great adventure of the spiritual life.

My friends, every one of you has a calling. Every one of you is called to live life to the fullest, which means to go out into the deep! The fact that we are all sinners does not mean that we are not called. It’s just means that we are human. What we should do is recognize our sinfulness, ask God to help us and forgive us, and then ask him to give us the grace to be his prophets in the world.

Like Peter, Jesus performed a miracle in my life, an invasion of grace, which caused me to drop everything and follow him into the deep. It all began in 2011 upon the death of my beloved mother. Here is a brief account of my vocation story...

Lectionary Readings:

Is 6:1-2a, 3-8

Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8

1 Cor 15:1-11

Lk 5:1-11

Have you ever made someone feel uncomfortable? There is a good way and a bad way of doing that. If you have done it in a good way…then that is good! And I tell you what, you are in good company, because Jesus did that all the time! Everything Jesus said and did was with love. But he never sacrificed truth in his love for someone when he spoke to them. Truth cannot be separated from love…because Jesus himself is Truth and Love. Love without Truth is not love at all. And Jesus always spoke truth with love. And you know what, that made many people uncomfortable. And there’s no better example than what happened in today’s Gospel.

So, brothers and sisters, here is my basic and maybe shocking message to you today: You should make people uncomfortable. Your presence should make the world uncomfortable. But in the right way and for the right reasons. What do I mean? Take a listen...

Lectionary Readings:

Jer 1:4-5, 17-19

Ps 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17

1 Cor 12:31—13:13

Lk 4:21-30

Brothers and sisters, my heart has been really heavy this week. Maybe yours has been too? Being a newly ordained priest and trying to settle into my first assignment as a parochial vicar here in the Vail Valley, I sometimes wonder if I should avoid any political and hot-button topics from the pulpit for now. Perhaps I should get a couple years under my stole first before making that step. But I just can’t be silent today. I really feel the Lord wants me to speak up. Especially when I read this verse from 1st Kings (2:3) in my daily prayers yesterday from the breviary: “Take courage and be a man. Keep the mandate of the Lord, your God, following his ways and observing his statutes, commands, ordinances, and decrees, that you may succeed in whatever you do.” I took that message as an affirmation from the Lord to have this conversation today.

There are a lot of things wrong in our country that need to be fixed. But I tell you this...if we don't get LIFE right...we will get nothing right! So let's have a conversation about what has happened in the past week...

Lectionary Readings:

Neh 8:2-4A, 5-6, 8-10

Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 15

1 Cor 12:12-30

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Following the prologue, the first half of the Gospel of John is often called "The Book of Signs", because he chronicles 7 great miracles of Jesus. And it begins with the miracle Christ performed at the Wedding Feast of Cana. So this raises a very good question; Why does Jesus perform this particular miracle as the first of his signs? In theory, Jesus could have done a whole host of things to inaugurate his public ministry. He could have performed an exorcism and cast a demon out of someone. He could have healed a paralytic or a leper. He could have even raised someone from the dead, like he did to Lazarus! But he didn't do any of these things as his first miracle. Instead he simply changes water into wine at a Jewish wedding at the request of his mother Mary. What's the significance of that? Well, here's why...Jesus is revealing himself as the Bridegroom of Israel. How many of you think of Christ in that way? It's important to understand why this is significant. Take a listen to find out...

Lectionary Readings:

Is 62:1-5

Ps 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10

1 Cor 12:4-11

Jn 2:1-11

Newsflash: The Catholic Church teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation (Catechism paragraph #1257). Baptism is the door to the other sacraments and the spiritual life. It is the way in, the foundation, the condition for the possibility of an authentically spiritual life. Without baptism, we don’t…get…in.

But here’s the connection I want to make. Here’s the message I hope you remember: Your main mission in life, what God has called you to do, flows from your identity. It flows from who you are. What does that mean and how does it relate to our baptism? Take a listen to find out...with a little help from the "Lion King" movie!

Lectionary Readings:

Is 40:1-5, 9-11

Ps 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10

Ti 2:11-14; 3:4-7

Lk 3:15-16, 21-22

The Magi were seekers, and Jesus has a magnetic draw. The Magi were drawn to him, to follow the testimony of a star, to find for themselves the new King who would also be their eternal savior. Brothers and sisters…we must be seekers!

The world around us today is seeking, people are looking for an answer, they are looking for the meaning of life. But we cannot give someone an answer to a question they don’t have. We can throw answers at people all day, but it won’t mean a thing to them if they are not asking the questions. Seekers ask questions. And only seekers find real joy. What happens when we stop seeking, is we satisfy ourselves with lesser things of this world, because it’s too hard to seek. Only those who seek truly find joy...an eternal joy that never fades away. Seek out Christ like the Magi...be that seeker!

Lectionary Readings:

Is 60:1-6

Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13

Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6

Mt 2:1-12

Sisters and brothers, Happy New Year! Today we honor the Blessed Virgin on this great Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or "Theotokos", which in Greek means “God-bearer”. This is the oldest feast in honor of Mary in the Western Church. But there is something very important I want to emphasize about this feast day. This is not simply a feast day in exaltation of Mary. As Catholics, we can be misunderstood as overly exalting Mary, of even worshiping her...which of course is not true. So, it's important to realize; whenever the Church declares something important about Mary, it is always for the purpose of helping us to better understand Jesus. And today’s feast day is no different. This Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, is entirely about the identity of Jesus Christ. How so? Take a listen...