Pilgrim Priest

By Fr. Joel SemberSociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Christianity Spirituality Relationships

Pilgrim Priest episodes

May 06, 2024 We Love Mary Because She First Loved Us | #1426
Easter, 6th Sunday (B) Twelve of the last 14 years I have made a walking pilgrimage to Champion Shrine, the only approved Marian apparition site in Canada and the USA. This year I was hoping to join the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage for a few miles, but they are doing very few miles. I got my walking fix by completing my first ever Walk to Mary, a 22 mile hike.
Is devotion to Mary idolatry? No one was bowing down to the statue of Mary. Mary walks with us on our journey of faith. Mary was the first one to hear the Good News. She incarnated God's love into her daily life. With the gift of the Holy Spirit, we too can incarnate God's love in our life. Mary will help you learn to love like Jesus.
(5 May 2024)
Going Deeper: Pray a rosary as a family, or even just a decade, each day during the month of May. See what Mary will do with your prayers.
Photo from WalktoMary.com | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
16 min
April 28, 2024 Grafted and Pruned (First Communion Homily) | #1425
Easter, 5th Sunday (B) Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We were grafted onto Jesus at our Baptism. We must remain in Him and draw much life from Jesus.
The branches need pruning. The gardener must get rid of overgrowth so the energy from the vine can go to making good fruits. Fathers need to be good pruners of their family. They need so start by pruning themselves. Prune your words, your actions, and your activities, and you will bear much fruit and become Jesus' disciples.
(28 Apr 2024)
Going Deeper: The priests recently attended a seminar on time management. We were told the time management is really priority management: you figure out what matters most and you put your time into that. Does the way you spend your time match up with your priorities? Ponder this question is you look over your schedule for the upcoming week.
Photo by Steve Matthiasson | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
7 min
April 22, 2024The Good Shepherd Calls Turkeys Like Us | #1424
Easter, 4th Sunday (B) Turkey hunting in the state of Wisconsin opened this week. A turkey hunter is pretty much the opposite of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd knows us personally and loves us so much that he lays down his life for us.
The Good Shepherd calls his sheep. The first call or "vocation" that every Christian receives is the call of Baptism. I had the privilege of Baptizing a woman in the nursing home last week.
Some of the Baptized are called into religious life as monks or nuns; this call is considered a perfection of the call of Baptism.
Others are called to married love, to follow the Good Shepherd by laying down their lives for their spouses and children.
Others are called to Holy Orders, to be servants of the people as deacons and images of the Good Shepherd as priests.
Finally, we live for Jesus through our avocation, that is, our job or career path.
We can be confident that the Good Shepherd who called us will keep walking with us. Listen for his voice and follow him!
(21 Apr 2024)
Going Deeper: Do you see yourself as a gift? What are ways that your vocation(s) can more fully resemble the self-giving love of our Good Shepherd?
Photo by Jonathan Borba | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
16 min
April 14, 2024 Five Places Jesus Wants to Give You Peace | #1423
Easter, 3rd Sunday (B) "Peace be with you," says the Risen Jesus! Here are five places Jesus wants to give peace: 1) Your past. The gift of new life means we no longer have to worry about our past. 2) Our future. The Risen Jesus will meet us at the end of our time and lead us to eternal life. 3) Our sufferings. We will have the strength to endure whatever God wills, and it will be fruitful. 4) Within us. When our spirits are obedient to God, our bodies are obedient to our spirits. 5) The community. Serving God enables us to serve one another. Peace with God enables us to have peace with one another and to bring peace to our neighborhoods.
How can we experience God's peace in our daily life? Mass is the perfect place to experience the peace of the Risen Jesus. The Rosary, particularly prayed while walking. And finally, some spring cleaning or de-cluttering of your home or car. When you make a space more peaceful, that space gives peace back to you every time you enter it.
The Risen Jesus is with you everywhere you go. There is nothing you have to face alone!

(14 Apr 2024)
Going Deeper: How do you experience peace when you come to Mass? Have you tried praying the Rosary and talking a walk? Do some spring cleaning/decluttering and experience a little peace.
*Correction: The word peace in Urdu is "Salam" (same vowel twice)
Image Source | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
13 min
April 07, 2024 The Wounds that Heal | #1422
Easter, 2nd (Divine Mercy) Sunday • At the resurrection of the dead on the last day, our wounds will all be healed. So why does the Risen Jesus still have wounds?
He is the healer, the medicine for all of us. The seal must be broken so his life can flow into us. Jesus lives his whole life without wounds. But in his passion he experiences all our woundedness and he takes it into himself, into his very body. His body heals our wounds, but the physical wounds are a visible sign that he has carried, and cured, our emotional and spiritual woundedness. We are meant to come to Jesus often and to keep drawing life from him. The Healer who was wounded so that you could be made whole. Show him your wounds.

(7 Apr 2024)
Going Deeper: Listen to the song by, Casting Crowns "Scars in Heaven."
Image Source | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
13 min
March 31, 2024 Easter Pancakes | #1421
Easter Sunday Morning • Little children need lots of help and support. As we grow up, we become more independent. We move from needing our mom and dad for everything to needing them almost never. We seem to think the spiritual world works the same way: we "grow up" from praying all the time to only calling God when we are really, really desperate.
But we were never built to be independent in the spiritual world. Trying to be independent makes us feel like a little boy who wants to "do it himself," but can't seem to figure out how. We cope with our feelings of inadequacy by pretending to have it together and secretly using a lot of childish behaviors to manage our feelings.
The church's answer is we need to stop pretending to be grown-ups. Deep down we are still children. The world is big and scary and God never expected us to face it alone. We still need our Daddy, and he's right here for us. We also have a Mommy and a whole spiritual family. It was never God who kept his distance from us. It was us who told God, "I've got this. Go away. Stop ruining my life!"
Jesus shows us how to be a faithful Son of our heavenly father. He isn't even afraid of death because he trusts his Father to take care of him. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is an historic fact that gives us hope and new life. It also points us to the future reality when God will raise us from the dead. But the secret of Easter is the present reality that Jesus is Risen: He is with us here and now. Learn to see the Risen Jesus in our everyday life. Look back on your day and say, "Jesus, where were you in my daily life?" You will discover that not only is he with us, but he is also within us. Happy Easter!

(31 Mar 2024)
Going Deeper: What does it mean to say that you can be the best possible grown-up by letting yourself be a Child of God? Do you know someone who did this well?
Image©AdobeStock_618720243 | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
15 min
March 30, 2024 What Is Jesus Worth to You? | #1420
Good Friday of the Lord's Passion • An item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Something that is rare, unique, or has special value might fetch more than you would imagine.
What am I worth? If we let the world set our value, we will always find ourselves being cheated. Imagining bringing yourself into the Antiques Roadshow. Jesus looks you over and says, "Now this one is a special piece, a one-of-a-kind with a unique history. Yes, I would pay everything for this one, too." Jesus is willing to not only trade his life for yours, but to offer his life as a painful and bloody sacrifice.
What is Jesus worth to you? Do we find ourselves asking, "What's the minimum amount I need to fast? Is it OK to just commit venial sins? Is this Holy Day required?"
When the Bishops decided in 1966 that meatless Fridays would no longer bind under pain of sin, they intended for Catholics to continue to mark Friday as a special day of prayer, fasting, and works of charity. Every Friday should be a little Good Friday, just like every Sunday should be a little Easter. Jesus was willing to pay everything for you. How much are you willing to give to Him?
(29 Mar 2024)
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Going Deeper: Read the church's laws on fasting. Consider resuming the practice of meatless Fridays throughout the year as a small sacrifice for love of Christ. What are other ways Friday can be lived as a kind of weekly Lenten day?
Fast & Abstinence Page from the USCCB Website
Image from Wikimedia Commons | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
9 min
March 29, 2024 You Should Wash Her Feet | #1419
Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord's Supper • We often think of the past and the future as a straight line. Jesus is seen as an historic figure. Easter is a re-enactment of Jesus' death and resurrection. We might also conceptualize Jesus as a future event, his second coming in judgement. Meanwhile, we try to follow his example of a sin-free life until our judgement day.
However, it's much more accurate to think of time as a spiral, moving back over the same ground again and again but in new ways. The day and the week repeat themselves. The year is like a big spiral made up smaller spirals. While the earth spins on itself and around the sun, the sun remains a present reality, anchoring the earth and staying steady.
With this concept of time, we can begin to realize that Jesus is not just a past reality and a future reality. Jesus is a present reality, the one constant in our changing world. It's not just that once Jesus WAS Emmanuel, but rather that Jesus revealed that he IS "God-with-us". Our lives may be going around in circles, but Jesus is the ever-present and grounding reality. If we focus on the things spinning around us, we get really dizzy. Faith is about recognizing the stable patterns and relationships that underpin the instability.
Where is Jesus now? He's right here, working through my hands to bless, heal, wash and forgive you. Jesus also uses your hands to bless, feed, wash and serve. The Risen Lord lives within us and he gives his love to the world through us. Jesus washed my feet last year, and it's my turn to wash your feet. I have particularly invited men from our parish to have their feet washed. Those who have received washing should go home and wash their wives' feet, their mom's feet, or serve their elderly neighbors. During these three holy days, allow Jesus to love you, and let Jesus love others through you.
(28 Mar 2024)
Going Deeper: Consider starting a family tradition of feet washing to commemorate Holy Thursday. How can you allow yourself to be served by Jesus at Easter time? How can you serve others joyfully in the name of Jesus?
Image: AdobeStock 57887011 | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter| Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platform.
15 min
March 24, 2024 The Passion Reveals Our True Colors | #1418
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (B) The people of Jerusalem are rolling out the red carpet for Jesus. By laying down their cloaks, they show their willingness to lay down their lives for Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemane, a young man leaves his linen cloth behind and runs off naked into the night. How many of us willing follow Jesus when Christianity is popular, but as soon as we see the cross coming, we run away into the night? The High Priest tears his garments. The veil in the Temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Joseph of Arimathea buys a linen cloth and clothes Jesus in it. The Passion exposes our true colors, and not only us, but also the whole world. Everything we try to keep for ourselves, we will lose. We can only keep that which we have given to God? Are you willing to lay down your life for the One who laid down his life for you?
(24 Mar 2024)
Going Deeper: Make this a quiet week. Turn off the TV; put down the phone. Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, do the Stations of the Cross, or read one of the four Passion readings from the Gospels.
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10 min
March 18, 2024The Real Mission of a Catholic Priest | #1417
Lent, 5th Sunday (B) Being a priest in the modern world is very challenging. You need to live celibacy in a culture soaked in sex, convince Catholics to come back to Mass, teach the next generation not to abandon the faith like their parents did, save all the marriages, win the culture war, keep the buildings open, convince young men that this is a great career choice.... Did I miss anything?
But what if all that is just the mission I gave myself. What if God is calling me to basically four things:
Love God, and love His people.
Be an obedient son of the Father.
Be a wise steward of my Father's gifts.
Offer my life as a sacrifice for the salvation of the world.
I am not the Savior, but that I am called to join my sacrifices to those of the Savior. Today's Mass readings make more sense from this perspective. The covenant written on our hearts refers to the call to love God, and the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes it possible. Jesus learned obedience as he offered his life for the salvation of the world.
You cannot join Jesus in Easter Sunday if you haven't walked with him on Good Friday. Perhaps the struggles you are experiencing while trying to live your faith are actually indications that you are right where God wants you to be.
(17 Mar 2024)
Going Deeper: Prayerfully reflect on this quote from Gaudium et Spes:
37. Sacred Scripture teaches
the human family what the experience of the ages confirms: that while
human progress is a great advantage to man, it brings with it a strong
temptation. For when the order of values is jumbled and bad is mixed
with the good, individuals and groups pay heed solely to their own
interests, and not to those of others. Thus it happens that the world
ceases to be a place of true brotherhood. In our own day, the magnified
power of humanity threatens to destroy the race itself.
For a
monumental struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole
history of man. The battle was joined from the very origins of the world
and will continue until the last day, as the Lord has attested.(8)
Caught in this conflict, man is obliged to wrestle constantly if he is
to cling to what is good, nor can he achieve his own integrity without
great efforts and the help of God's grace.
That is why Christ's
Church, trusting in the design of the Creator, acknowledges that human
progress can serve man's true happiness, yet she cannot help echoing the
Apostle's warning: "Be not conformed to this world" (Rom. 12:2). Here
by the world is meant that spirit of vanity and malice which transforms
into an instrument of sin those human energies intended for the service
of God and man.
Hence if anyone wants to know how this unhappy
situation can be overcome, Christians will tell him that all human
activity, constantly imperiled by man's pride and deranged self-love,
must be purified and perfected by the power of Christ's cross and
resurrection. For redeemed by Christ and made a new creature in the Holy
Spirit, man is able to love the things themselves created by God, and
ought to do so. He can receive them from God and respect and reverence
them as flowing constantly from the hand of God. Grateful to his
Benefactor for these creatures, using and enjoying them in detachment
and liberty of spirit, man is led forward into a true possession of
them, as having nothing, yet possessing all things.(9) "All are yours,
and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's" (1 Cor. 3:22-23).
38.
For God's Word, through Whom all things were made, was Himself made
flesh and dwelt on the earth of men.(10) Thus He entered the world's
history as a perfect man, taking that history up into Himself and
summarizing it.(11) He Himself revealed to us that "God is love" (1 John
4:8) and at the same time taught us that the new command of love was
the basic law of human perfection and hence of the worlds
transformation.
To those, therefore, who believe in divine love,
He gives assurance that the way of love lies open to men and that the
effort to establish a universal brotherhood is not a hopeless one. He
cautions them at the same time that this charity is not something to be
reserved for important matters, but must be pursued chiefly in the
ordinary circumstances of life. Undergoing death itself for all of us
sinners,(12) He taught us by example that we too must shoulder that
cross which the world and the flesh inflict upon those who search after
peace and justice. Appointed Lord by His resurrection and given plenary
power in heaven and on earth,(13) Christ is now at work in the hearts of
men through the energy of His Holy Spirit, arousing not only a desire
for the age to come, but by that very fact animating, purifying and
strengthening those noble longings too by which the human family makes
its life more human and strives to render the whole earth submissive to
this goal.
Now, the gifts of the Spirit are diverse: while He
calls some to give clear witness to the desire for a heavenly home and
to keep that desire green among the human family, He summons others to
dedicate themselves to the earthly service of men and to make ready the
material of the celestial realm by this ministry of theirs. Yet He frees
all of them so that by putting aside love of self and bringing all
earthly resources into the service of human life they can devote
themselves to that future when humanity itself will become an offering
accepted by God.(14)
The Lord left behind a pledge of this hope
and strength for life's journey in that sacrament of faith where natural
elements refined by man are gloriously changed into His Body and Blood,
providing a meal of brotherly solidarity and a foretaste of the
heavenly banquet.
Image Source | Over 13 years of homily episodes available at PilgrimPriest.us/podcast | Like, subscribe, and share us with your enemies. | Find me on Facebook and Twitter | Powered by Patrons | give through PayPal or leave a nice review.
13 min

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Have you thought sermons were boring? Think again as Fr. Joel unpacks the word of God for today’s audience. Fresh, local, and live takes on the Gospel for our world. A new homily every Sunday.