April 30, 2010, Homily, Tuesday, May 4, 2010

John 14:27-31a

Jesus said to His disciple: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me tell you, 'I am going away and I will come back to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father; for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me, but the world must know that I love the Father and that I do just as the Father has commanded me."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Sean Hannity starts his daily 3-hour radio program, "Do not let your hearts be troubled."

The Jews of old (and still today) say, “Shalom!” – which means, “Peace!” This fine greeting too can become superficial unless we see some depth of God in it. It was not just a vague wish for the other person, “Don’t worry, be happy!” It was a prayer for full harmony with God – for salvation. Here is the original text in which Jews were told to greet and bless one another with ‘Peace’: “Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them, ‘The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace” (Numbers 6:22-26). This is a wonderful blessing, worth learning by heart, and using bravely on special occasions (instead of “Good luck!”). It is a prayer for “the peace that the world cannot give.”

‘The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you,

and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,

and give you peace”

(Numbers 6:22-26).

A greeting must have God in it.

Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. * * * for the ruler of the world is coming * * * Who is "the ruler of the world"? The "ruler of the world" is Satan. The "ruler of the world" is Lucifer.

John Paul II: I would have liked to stay with you longer, but I find consolation in the words of Jesus. He tells us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my Name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. The Father sends His Spirit of trust and love into the world and the Spirit guides us in the way of peace. Therefore, Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid, dear brothers.

April 25, 2010. Homily Tuesday, April 27, 2010.

John 10:22-30

The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple areas on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us so." Jesus answered them, "I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Winter's Feast of Dedication is Hanukkah (also called the Feast of Lights); it commemorates the rededication of the Temple in 165 B.C. by Judas Maccabee.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. He was in the beginning with God and He was God. Everything came into being through Him and what came into being was life. The life was the light of the world. And the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

God is eternal. Our souls are the creation of God; His Spirit has been breathed into us. Our souls, and hence we, are eternal. In the words of Jesus today, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish." In the server's words as he mingles the water and wine in the chalice: By the mingling of this water and wine we share in your divinity as you share in our humanity.

April 20, 2010. Homily, Saturday, April 24, 2010.

John 6:60-69.

Many of the disciples of Jesus who were listening said, "This saying is hard [unless you eat my Body and drink my Blood, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of God]; who can accept it?" Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, "Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoke to you are Spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." Jesus knew from the beginning the one who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."

As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him. Jesus then said to the Twelve. "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

The Gospel of the Lord.

On Archbishop Dolan's ordination as Bishop, he took as his motto: "Master, to whom shall we go?"

Pope Saint Pius X appears on the stained glass window in the back of this Church; Pius X was the Pope who pressed for the frequent acceptance of the Eucharist; he said "Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven."

Pope Pius X took as his motto as Pope, "to renew all things in Christ." He was the first pope beatified as a saint since the 15th century. As Pope, he compiled the first book of Canon Law and wrote the first catechism of the Church.

He was humble: "I was born poor. I have lived poor. I expect to die poor." He did not use his power as Pope to advance his family: His brother remained a postal clerk; his favorite nephew remained a parish priest; his three sisters lived close by in near poverty.

When he was made a saint, he was the first pope to be declared a saint since the 15th century (500 years).

April 14, 2010. Homily, April 20, 2010.

John 6:30-35

The crowd said to Jesus: "What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:

He gave them bread from heaven to eat."

So Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

So they said to Jesus, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst."

The Gospel of the Lord.

The crowd asked Jesus for a sign (What sign can you do) and Jesus had just given them the sign, the feeding of the thousands from the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes and in response to that sign the people wanted to make Jesus king.

Jesus uses the phrase "I am" as in "I am the bread of life", an echo of God’s ‘I am’ in Exodus 3:14. Jesus himself is God’s present tense, God’s ‘I am’.

Pope Saint Pius X, who appears on the stained glass window in the back of this Church; Pius X was the Pope who pressed for the frequent acceptance of the Eucharist because Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven.

Pope Pius X took as his motto as Pope, "to renew all things in Christ." He was the first pope beatified as a saint sine the 15th century. As Pope, he compiled the first book of Canon Law and wrote the first catechism of the Church.

He was humble: "I was born poor. I have lived poor. I expect to die poor." He did not use his power as Pope to advance his family: His brother remained a postal clerk; his favorite nephew remained a parish priest; his three sisters lived close by in near poverty.

April 11, 2010. Homily, April 13, 2010

John 3:7b-15

Jesus said to Nicodemus: "You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered, and said to him, "How can this happen?" Jesus answered and said to him, "You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone that believes in him may have eternal life."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ. These readings of Eastertide tell of the risen Christ and of the Holy Spirit. The word "Hebrew" derives from the Hebrew word "aspiru" which was the word for the Hebrew people and meant, people of the desert, of the wastes, and of the wind, so that the desert people, the Hebrews, were people of the wind. And they were people of the Holy Spirit. Thus, this Gospel passage from John, tells of the Hebrew people being born from above, being born of the wind, being born of the Holy Spirit. That is our baptism.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent so that the people might be saved, so Jesus must be lifted up on the cross, must die, and then rise again so that all who believe in him might have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but may have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. " Besides providing the most comprehensive summary of the Gospel, these two verses also offer the proper perspective on salvation history.

Alan Watts once remarked that “a certain type of mind is frightened by the mutability, the elusiveness, and the mystery of life, and thinks of salvation as a state of everlasting fixity and certainty from which the disconcerting elements of spontaneity, surprise and mystery are largely removed.” We call ‘fundamentalist’ those people who fix their faith in some text as in concrete, casting aside every other consideration. They think that by fixing on a text they have grasped God. It is a waste of a good word; they are not fundamentalists; they are superficialists, like the Pharisees. Neither are they traditionalists: they cast tradition aside and fix on their own simplistic literal interpretation of a text. We have to throw open the shutters and let the Spirit enter the narrow caves in which we bury ourselves.

April 6, 2010. Homily, April 10, 2010.

Mark 16:9-15.

When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions, who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on the way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either.

But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature."

The Gospel of the Lord.

One of the prophecies of the Book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel 36:26 reads, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

"I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

"[H]e appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. He said to them, "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature."

April 2, 2010; Homily, April 6, 2010

John 20:11-18

Mary Magdalene, stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb, and saw two angels in white siting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She thought it was the gardener and said to him, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni," Which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, "Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Mary went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and then reported what he had told her.

The Gospel of the Lord.

John deals with gradual recognition: one comes to recognize as Mary Magdalene at the tomb came to recognize Jesus Christ alive standing before her.

But with the death of Jesus there was to be no 'closure': the past was not to be closed up and sealed with nostalgia. The past had flooded into the present through the open tomb: the past is no longer past, it is timeless. This is the destruction of time. “Christ yesterday and today and the same forever” (Heb. 13:8).

Pope John Paul II was a model of untiring love for God and for all men and women, Pope Benedict XVI said as he celebrated a memorial Mass for his predecessor.

"The entire life of the venerable John Paul II unfolded under the sign of this love, this ability to give himself generously without reserve, without measure and without calculation," Pope Benedict said March 29 during his homily at the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

Using the Mass readings for March 29, Pope Benedict said Pope John Paul had many of the same traits as the "suffering servant" described in the reading from the Book of Isaiah.

"The servant acts with indestructible firmness, with an energy that does not lessen until he has realized the task he was assigned," the pope said. "He presents himself with the strength of his convictions and it will be the Holy Spirit that God places in him who gives him the ability to act with meekness and strength, assuring his success in the end."

"That which the inspired prophet says can be applied to our beloved John Paul II: the Lord called him to his service and, entrusting him with increasingly greater responsibility, accompanied him with his grace and his constant assistance."

"During his long pontificate, he did all he could to proclaim justice with firmness, without weakness or hesitation, especially when he faced resistance, hostility and refusal," the pope said.

Pope Benedict said his predecessor knew he was being led by God "and this allowed him to exercise a very fruitful ministry, for which, once again, we give fervid thanks to God."

"Love does not calculate, does not measure, does not count the cost and does not erect barriers, but knows how to give with joy, seeks only the good of the other and overcomes pettiness, stinginess, grudges and the closure that men sometimes carry in their hearts," the pope said.

"He let himself be used up for Christ, for the church and for the whole world; his was a suffering lived for love and with love until the very end," Pope Benedict said.