Sunday Sermon

God is always there. God is always around. God is always with us. And yet so often people will say that "God seems so far away." I would dare say that God speaks to us on a daily basis but so often we don't hear what He is saying to us. Why is this?

Our Lord speaks to us in the Gospel to remind us that if we would be forgiven of our sins, then we also must forgive each other. Only the forgiving heart can be forgiven.

This must be our fundamental thought: to cultivate a forgiving heart. Today as ever, the world encourages the heart to keep grudges, to remember past wrongs, to be unforgiving of anyone who would dare injure our pride.

This way leads to enslavement to wrong-doing, and is a path to spiritual and societal destruction. Let us open our hearts today to the grace of the Lord, so that we might learn the difficult but necessary lesson of how to be truly forgiving.

Our real life is not, like Ishmael's, simply owing to the work of man. Our real life is owing to the work of God in us through the Church and through Mary, fulfilling his promise to make for himself a people (Genesis 12:1–3) and to put his Spirit within them (Ezekiel 36:27) and write his law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

( Please excuse the quality of this podcast. There was some internet disruption when recording)

“When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards lie was hungry.”—Matthew: 4: 2.

To do penance, to deny one’s self, and to mortify the flesh is most necessary;

The Gospel of today reminds us of a special manner of doing penance, of which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gives us an example: “When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he was hungry.” The example of Jesus Christ is there to encourage all Christians to fast, abstain and endure hunger; and it is to that that the Catholic Church binds her children during this season under pain of sin, that they may imitate Christ to a certain extent.

Our Blessed Savior without hesitation turned down each and every one of these temptations despite His weakened condition from fasting for forty days.

How many of us are tempted by the devil? How many of us give in at the first sign of weakness?

Today the Church calls to our minds the Second Coming of our Lord and the Last Judgment. Of course, we proclaim every week our belief in the Lord Who "shall come again to judge the living and the dead." But how often do we reflect on the truths contained in those words?

What does Saint Paul mean when he says in our Epistle for today, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as most dear children”? The word “followers” means “mimic”, to be an “imitator.” The command is for God’s people to imitate Him. We are to learn all about God, and mimic His characteristics

“And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.” Luke 18: 43. Christ, the Son of God, knew well what was to happen to him, in a short time in the city of Jerusalem, amongst the wicked Jews for he had foretold it to his disciples. Why, then, did he not remain away?

I Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

St. Paul is pointing out that love needs to be the basis for why we do anything we do as a Christian. The cold reality is though, is that so much of what we do in life is done without love.

The life of grace is a life of balance. If our labors are not directed by charity and tempered by humility, they can actually cause us to stumble on our way.

Today the Lord speaks to us of a Pharisee and a Publican, both of whom went unto the Temple to pray. Hear how humility is the key to finding sanctification and justification.