"When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem." (Matthew 2:1)

-"Caravans of camels shall cover you, dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; All from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense, and heralding the praises of the LORD." (Isaiah 60:6)

-"I was still praying, when the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in vision before, came to me in flight at the time of the evening offering. He instructed me in these words: 'Daniel, I have now come to give you understanding.'" (Daniel 9:21-22)

-Love will make you poor. When you truly love someone, love always leads us to poverty. Always. -Fr. Brian

-I don't mean, necessarily, that you will be materially poor. You might be. There's a reason why priests and religious are supposed to be at least materially simple. What I do mean is that anyone who loves, loses their life. -Fr. Brian

-"They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." (Matthew 2:10-11)

-Jesus has no need for these gifts. Jesus is a baby, what use has a baby for gold? What use has a baby for frankincense or for myrrh? Jesus has no need for these gifts. And maybe that's the point. There's a beautiful analogy here in our lives. We want to give things to God. If you love Him, you want to offer Him what you have. God doesn't need us. -Fr. Brian

-The point isn't how talented I am, or how gifted, or how smart I am. Those things don't matter, God doesn't need that. What matters is there's something in our hearts that says, 'Lord, I love you so much, I can't help but fall down and worship and open my treasures to you.' -Fr. Brian

-“Blessed are the poor in spirit." (Matthew 5:3)

-The biggest poverty isn't material poverty.... The biggest poverty is when my life is no longer mine. Everything I had, and everything I wanted before, is now laid at the feet of the child in the manger. -Fr. Brian

-If you're not in a place where you've really surrendered to Jesus, I want to encourage you to open your heart. -Fr. Brian

-"Jesus said to him, 'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions." (Matthew 19:21-22)

-"He said to them, 'Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.' At once they left their nets and followed him." (Matthew 4:19-20)

-"A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents." (Mark 12:42)

-"When he was in Bethany reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil, costly genuine spikenard. She broke the alabaster jar and poured it on his head. There were some who were indignant. 'Why has there been this waste of perfumed oil? It could have been sold for more than three hundred days’ wages and the money given to the poor.'” (Mark 14:3-5)

-It's not just that we should be generous, this is not just a moral injunction....this is the law of what it means to love. -Fr. Brian

-"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25)

kerygma - the basic Gospel message

The hardest to break through with the Gospel is not people who have big sins, it's people who are apathetic. They just don't need God. Everything is great. -Fr. Brian

Churches are meant to say to us that we can walk into the mystery of the Christian life.... If a church is built properly, we walk into it, and the mystery of Christ surrounds us. -Fr. Brian

As Christians, we don't believe Christianity starts with you. Christianity does not begin with you getting your act together. It does not start with you doing the right thing and going to serve the poor, it doesn't start there. It starts with Christ, with His love for us. Once that's happened, you and I have to respond. -Fr. Brian

Faith is a surrender where you and I hand over our lives and take a step toward God. -Fr. Brian

When I gave my life to Jesus, I didn't experience it as I have to give up all this stuff.... I experienced it as something I never even realized open up in front of me. Heaven is actually real. My life has a meaning and a purpose and a calling on it that God put on my life. And, Jesus, how could I do anything but walk through those doors. This is what faith is. -Fr. Brian

It's not a moral calling, it's a calling into joy. That's faith. -Fr. Brian

There has never been a human being who embodied the fullness of faith in the way that Mary did.... What we don't think about is the cost of Mary's faith. -Fr. Brian

"Mary said,'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.'” (Luke 1:38)

-kerygma - the basic Gospel message

-If you don't know the heart of the Gospel and the basic story, you're always going to put the emphasis in the wrong place. -Fr. Brian

-The Gospel is not good advice, it is good news. And I think part of the reason people in the culture don't want to hear from us—they are sick and tired of hearing from Christians—and I think part of the reason is because when we encounter the world, we're always kind of scolding them on how they should be living a moral life. Which we're not wrong about, they should be, but who wants to hear that all the time? -Fr. Brian

-"For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deluded, slaves to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful ourselves and hating one another."(Titus 3:3)

-There are three things that Satan does to every one of us to keep us in slavery: (1) Accuses. (2) Discourages. (3) Lies.

-Rescued: The Unexpected and Extraordinary News of the Gospel by Fr. John Riccardo

-"And even when you were dead [in] transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions; obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross; despoiling the principalities and the powers, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them away in triumph by it." (Colossians 2:13-15)

-On the cross, the moment when Jesus was so humiliated, was actually the moment when he captured our enemies. That's not good advice, it's good news. -Fr. Brian

-Today, we set aside the concerns of the week that we may honor the Lord and His resurrection. Today we put aside our labors, that we may honor the Lord and remember the eternal life to which He has called us. (Prayer from the Companions of Christ)

-God didn't just save you from the Evil One, that wasn't enough for Him. He didn't just capture your enemy, He captured your enemy, shamed him, and then He said, "By the way, you are my son, you are my daughter, and I love you." And you were brought home into the family of God the Father. -Fr. Brian

-"This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord like a brave warrior wounded in hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life." (St. Theodore the Studite)

-"God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:10)

-John Paul II talks about, in the Created Order, there were four good relationships: us with God; us with creation; us with other human beings; us with ourself. Before the Fall, these were perfect, and all of these led to a deeper intimacy with God. -Fr. Daniel

-When they looked within, when they looked in the eyes of their beloved, and when they looked at creation around all them, all they could do was praise, glorify, and love their Creator. Now if that doesn't stir your hearts, I don't know what does.... That was how it was meant to be. That was how God created it for us. -Fr. Daniel

-(Wisdom 2:23-24)

-Jesus is King of the Universe, but in many ways, Satan is still king of this world. And we long for and wait for the final coming of our king. This is one of the aspects that we celebrate in Advent. -Fr. Daniel

-For us to understand truly the gift that God has given us in His Son—what it means to be rescued—you can't understand our redemption and being rescued unless you understand what we're being rescued from. -Fr. Daniel

-"Without Jesus Christ, we wound, we kill, and we go down to hell." (paraphrasing St. Ignatius of Loyola)

-The reality is, to understand the gift of redemption, we must understand our fall. -Fr. Daniel

-In our brokenness, we see what is good, and in fear, and in selfishness, and in a lack of trust in the goodness of God, we reach out and grasp, so that we might have control. So that we might take it to ourselves without needing to be dependent upon our Creator. And Satan does this so easily. All he needs to do is enter into a little area where truth resides, and twist it. -Fr. Daniel

-Notice the conversation between the serpent, Satan, and Eve: Did God really say that? He sows a seed of doubt: Surely you will not die. Which in a way is true, but it's also not true. They won't physically die when they take of the fruit, but their relationship with God is divided. And from that severing, that division between them and God, all of the other dominoes fall down in an horrendous way. Their relationship with creation: broken. Their relationship between themselves: broken. Their relationship within their very own identity: broken. -Fr. Daniel

​-After the Fall, we turn within, we look within, and before Jesus Christ, what do you find? Emptiness. Absence. The image of God is ruptured, as a statue would be cast upon the ground. When we look at each other, we no longer see the glory of God in fulfillment, but we see an enemy, someone who can hurt me. When we look within ourselves, we see weakness, sinfulness, darkness, again and again and again. This should spurn in us, then, the longing for the return to the garden. The longing for the harmony and the peace that can be found there and only there, where we dwell with God and walk with Him side by side. And ultimately, it can only come in Jesus Christ. -Fr. Daniel​​​

-(Genesis 3:23-24)

- (Baruch 5:6-7)

-"John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah:

A voice of one crying out in the desert:

'Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

Every valley shall be filled

and every mountain and hill shall be made low.

The winding roads shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth,

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" (Luke 3:3-6)

-If we have one prayer, if we have one desire today, it's "My God, I am in need of a Savior, because I want to go back to the Garden. I want to go to the place where creation is fulfilled. Where my words flow from my heart in trust. And where, when I look within myself, I see wholeness, beauty, goodness, that I desire to share." -Fr. Daniel

​Homily #1

-Advent is a new beginning. You might not have woken up today and thought of this, but today for you as a Christian, today is New Year's Day.... Advent is a season of hope, and what Christians do during Advent is they look to the time that Christ returned to make all things as they should be, and then towards the end of Advent, we start looking back at the time that He first broke into this world. But the theme that runs throughout Advent is that God wants to make all things new. -Fr. Brian

-God wants to make you new. What if you believe that? What if this Advent, over the next four weeks, you were utterly convinced that God could make you new? What would that look like? -Fr. Brian

Homily #2

-kerygma (Greek) - the basic Gospel message

-The good news of Christianity is not that you got your act together and so God decided to love you. That is not what Christianity is. That's not good news. -Fr. Brian

-Simply Good News by N.T. Wright

-John Muir (b. 1838 - d. 1914), Scottish-born American naturalist

-Tonight, at the beginning of the kerygma, we've got to start with a sense of awe. -Fr. Brian

-I'm convinced that the number one cause of atheism in the world is artificial light. Because we're so wrapped up in the things down here that no one looks up into the heavens any more and realizes that they are small. And that there's something mysterious going on in this magical, amazing universe we live in. -Fr. Brian

-Sir Fred Hoyle (b. 1915- d. 2001), British mathematician and astronomer

-Your life is an absolute miracle. The wonder of what happens in this universe, and the fact that you and I are here tonight, brothers and sisters, it is an unbelievable mystery. And sometimes when we think about this, it frees us to ask more important questions and it gets us outside of our day-to-day anxieties. But it gets better. As Christians we believe something far greater than that. -Fr. Brian

-"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1-5)

-logos (Greek) - rationality or wisdom

-You and I live in a universe that was created by Truth Himself. At the primordial moment of time, God spoke meaningfulness into the world. You live in a world that is not devoid of meaning, a world that is not devoid of truth, and ultimately....He created a world where every one of us was made for love. And that's written into the very fiber of your existence. -Fr. Brian

-"Jesus answered, 'My kingdom does not belong to this world.'" (John 18:36)

-kerygma (Greek) - the basic Gospel message

-"If I had a $1,000,000" (1992 song) - Or rather $10,000,000, adjusted for inflation and the cost of living in Denver.

-Money has everything to do with your relationship with God. -Fr. Brian

-"For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." (Matthew 6:21)

-What we do with our money says something about where our heart is. Even small things. A lot of sins in our life, Jesus doesn't tell us to really be watchful. Money is tricky, because none of us thinks that we are a greedy person. But if I'm honest, I'm a greedy person. There's a piece of my heart, I just like nice things. -Fr. Brian

-"That which someone cherishes above all else, admires and loves above all, this is that person's God." (Origen)

-Our money is not about paying the bills at the church. Your money has everything to do with what you worship. -Fr. Brian

-"Come, Lord Jesus, take away scandals from your kingdom, which is my soul, and reign there, you who alone have the right. For avarice comes to claim a throne within me; haughtiness and self-assertion would rule over me; pride would be my king; luxury says, 'I will reign'; ambition, detraction, envy, and anger struggle within me for mastery. I resist as far as I am able; I struggle according as help is given me; I call on my Lord Jesus; for his sake I defend myself, since I acknowledge myself as wholly his possession. He is my God; him I proclaim my Lord; I have no other king than my Lord Jesus Christ!" (St. Bernard)

-The first danger is idolatry, is that something is our god other than Jesus. There's something else that's going to make us happy. If I had $10,000,000.... The other danger is fear. It's that, God, there's not enough. Jesus, I don't really trust you, because tomorrow is a little scary. -Fr. Brian

-"For Christ, in being beaten and nailed to the cross, revealed the fountains of the new covenant." (Origen)

-"The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?' (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'" (John 4:9-10)

-"Jesus answered and said to her, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" (John 4:13-14)

-In all the world out there, everyone lives from scarcity. There's not enough. And if I just had that house. Or, Lord, I'm just scared of the future, what if I could just pay my bills? The world lives from scarcity. You and I don't. You and I live from the abundance of the fountain of the new covenant. -Fr. Brian

-"Two evils my people have done:

they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;

They have dug themselves cisterns,

broken cisterns that cannot hold water." (Jeremiah 2:13)

-"Jesus said to his disciples: 'In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.'" (Mark 13:24-25)

-It's yours. This is your house. You paid to the church to help to renovate the sanctuary. But we do this to build up the Church. Money as you know is not good, it's not bad. Money is neutral. It depends how you use it. —Fr. Witold

-Jesus spends 25 percent of preaching on money in the New Testament. He never said that you're supposed to give ten percent or five percent to the Church. No He has never said something like this, never ever. He said that we are supposed to support the poor, help the sick, this is needed. Money, as you know, doesn't bring happiness. But it can help someone, so we can bring happiness by using money. -Fr. Witold

-The way you give money, for example to the Catholic Church, is to help you to not be attached to the money. -Fr. Witold

-The Fifth Precept of the Church: "You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2043)

-We need to let go of money, because then there is space in our hearts so that God can come with His love. And then when we have love, we can spread the good news. -Fr. Witold

Fr. Brian Larkin preaches about the readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time on November 7, 2021.

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-lepta (Greek) — coin (two lepta = 1 quadrans)

-quadrans (Latin) — Roman coin (one quadrans = 1/64th of a denarius)

-denarius (Latin) — one day's wage for average person in ancient world

-"For, remember, you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God, redeemed you from there; that is why I command you to do this. When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; let it be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD, your God, may bless you in all your undertakings. When you knock down the fruit of your olive trees, you shall not go over the branches a second time; let what remains be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. When you pick your grapes, you shall not go over the vineyard a second time; let what remains be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. For remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt; that is why I command you to do this." (Deuteronomy 24:18-22)

-"A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents." (Mark 12:42)

-paroikia (Greek)— parish

-As Christians, brothers and sisters, we've got to be dedicated to this idea that character is what God sees. -Fr. Brian

-Jesus is someone who is condemned as a criminal, an imposter, a blasphemer against God Himself. But that's not who He was. -Fr. Brian

-shofar (Hebrew) — a ram's horn

-"He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums." (Mark 12:41)

-We are all tempted to vanity. Brothers and sisters: What a tragedy the day you die if everyone thought you were amazing but you knew it was a lie. That everyone thought that you were the holiest person, that you were so wise and so good, but it was all a front. What tonight's Gospel inspires us to, what it should inspire us to, is to say, "Jesus, I don't have much. Lord, whatever talents that you have given me, they're yours. You gave them to me in the first place. And Jesus, help me not just to want to look good, Lord, help me to be good. Lord, help me to risk it. The short time of this life, the few years that I have, Lord, may I not be so worried about my reputation or my vanity. But, Lord, may my life actually matter. Jesus, I've only got two lepta, that's all I've got. But they're yours." -Fr. Brian

-The Way by St. Josemaria Escriva (book)

-"Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love. With your apostolic life, wipe out the slimy and filthy mark left by the impure sowers of hatred. And light up all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you carry in your heart." -St. Josemaria Escriva

Fr. Brian Larkin preaches about the readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time on November 7, 2021.

--

-lepta (Greek) — coin (two lepta = 1 quadrans)

-quadrans (Latin) — Roman coin (one quadrans = 1/64th of a denarius)

-denarius (Latin) — one day's wage for average person in ancient world

-"For, remember, you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God, redeemed you from there; that is why I command you to do this. When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; let it be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the LORD, your God, may bless you in all your undertakings. When you knock down the fruit of your olive trees, you shall not go over the branches a second time; let what remains be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. When you pick your grapes, you shall not go over the vineyard a second time; let what remains be for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. For remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt; that is why I command you to do this." (Deuteronomy 24:18-22)

-"A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents." (Mark 12:42)

-paroikia (Greek)— parish

-As Christians, brothers and sisters, we've got to be dedicated to this idea that character is what God sees. -Fr. Brian

-Jesus is someone who is condemned as a criminal, an imposter, a blasphemer against God Himself. But that's not who He was. -Fr. Brian

-shofar (Hebrew) — a ram's horn

-"He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums." (Mark 12:41)

-We are all tempted to vanity. Brothers and sisters: What a tragedy the day you die if everyone thought you were amazing but you knew it was a lie. That everyone thought that you were the holiest person, that you were so wise and so good, but it was all a front. What tonight's Gospel inspires us to, what it should inspire us to, is to say, "Jesus, I don't have much. Lord, whatever talents that you have given me, they're yours. You gave them to me in the first place. And Jesus, help me not just to want to look good, Lord, help me to be good. Lord, help me to risk it. The short time of this life, the few years that I have, Lord, may I not be so worried about my reputation or my vanity. But, Lord, may my life actually matter. Jesus, I've only got two lepta, that's all I've got. But they're yours." -Fr. Brian

-The Way by St. Josemaria Escriva (book)

-"Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love. With your apostolic life, wipe out the slimy and filthy mark left by the impure sowers of hatred. And light up all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you carry in your heart." -St. Josemaria Escriva

-You can't love God if you don't fill your mind with thoughts of Him; if you're not attentive to Him. You can't do it. -Fr. Brian

-shema (Hebrew) — hear

-(Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

-The load-bearing wall of your life, is the love of God.... If you don't have that, if you take that wall out, it might stand for a little bit, but nothing else in the end will make sense. This is the centerpiece of everything—not just for Christians. The way that God created humanity, brothers and sisters, He made us so that this is the center of our existence. -Fr. Brian

-He did not create you for a life of comfort, or a life of success, or a life of power, or a life where you did some great things. God created you to participate in this mysterious, beautiful, mystical word. This word we call love. And that's the reason you exist. -Fr. Brian

-Real love means that I know how to sacrifice for you, it means that I choose you, even when it's difficult. Love is not just that feeling, it is something much more beautiful and something much deeper, it is something that lays claim to all of our existence. It is a love that is conformed to Jesus Christ. This is what our religion is about. Do you love God? -Fr. Brian

-"But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days—oracle of the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jeremiah 31:33)

-The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17)

-"You are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, shown to be a letter of Christ administered by us, written not in ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are hearts of flesh." (2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

-In the Old Covenant, He taught us to love Him and to love our neighbor and He wrote it on tablets of stone. But what happened on Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, and Pentecost—Jesus, the love of God, is not something that is outside of me. It's not something that I have to look up in a book. It's not that I have to read the Catechism. Jesus, the day you gave your life to me, you wrote the law of love on my heart. You engraved it into my very flesh. And that's why you made me. -Fr. Brian

-What it means to be a Christian is not to follow a moral code. It's not to know certain truths about God. It's to encounter a miracle. And the miracle of Christianity is that the God who created the heavens and the earth, is Him (Jesus). And that He loves you enough to do that (be crucified). -Fr. Brian

-kardia (Greek) - heart