January 20, 2013. Homily, January 23, 2013

 Optional memorial of St. Vincent, deacon, martyred early 4th century in Valencia, Spain with his bishop Valerius after undergoing torture.

Mark 3:1-6
Jesus entered the synagogue. There was a man there who had a withered hand. They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him. He said to the man with the withered hand, "Come up here before us." Then he said to the Pharisees, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?"   But they remained silent. Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.
The Gospel of the Lord.

Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil.
to save life rather than to destroy it.

to do good          to restore the withered hand, to cure him
to save life          to restore the withered hand, to cure him

to do evil            to watch Jesus closely so that they might accuse him, when questioned by Jesus to          remain silent, to take counsel with the Herodians against Jesus to put him to death
to destroy [life]   to prevent the cure from occurring on God's day, when questioned by Jesus to          remain silent, to take counsel with the Herodians against Jesus to put him to death

January 20, 2013. Homily, Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children.


Mark 2:23-28

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?" He said to them, "Have you ever read what David did when he was in need and he and his comp;anions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering which only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?" THen he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath."

Luke 6:1-5
Mark 2:23-38
Matthew 12:1


His disciples were picking the heads of grain [reaping/harvesting], rubbing them in their hands [threshing; removing the chaff from the grain {winnowing}], and eating them [preparing food]. reaping [harvesting], gleaning [to collect the leavings from a field], winnowing [to blow away the chaff], threshing [rubbing the grain in one's hands, to crush the wheat head thus separating the grain from the chaff/husks]

Under the Old Testament, one could go through one's neighbor's fields and take grain by hand but could not use a sickle, but this was the sabbath where no work was permitted.

The Pharisees were spying on Jesus and the disciples and made this charge. Jesus did not deny it; instead he defended it; in the end by saying that He, Son of Man, was Lord of the sabbath. And 1 Samuel 21, David received showbread from the high priest of the Temple, Ahimelech the priest of Nob.

Jesus also restored to the people the true meaning of the Sabbath. Look at verse 27. “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’” In the clutter of detailed rules derived by the Pharisees, the original purpose and meaning of the Sabbath had been lost. With this one word, Jesus restored to them God’s purpose for the Sabbath (Gen 2:3; Ex 20:8-11). God did not give the Sabbath to burden man. God gave the Sabbath to bless man. The Sabbath is a gift from God, a day of rest to restore man's body, mind and spirit after a week of hard work. It was not given to oppress man, but to edify and heal and encourage man. The Sabbath was made for man.

January 20, 2013. Homily, January 21, 2013

Mark 2:18-22   The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to Jesus and objected, "Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast but your  disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away m them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.  If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined.  Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."
The Gospel of the Lord.


Obligatory Memorial of Saint Agnes: I have with me an angel of the Lord as a guardian of my body.  According to legend, threat, torture and confinement in a house of prostitution could not break this young girl's commitment to Christ. Saint Agnes went to her death as to her wedding banquet, trusting that Christ, the bridegroom with whom she kept faith in this life would keep faith with her in the life to come.  Saint Agnes, a beautiful girl and the object of the desires of the governor's son,  at 13, died a martyr in Rome during either the second half of the third century or, more probably, at the beginning of the fourth century.  Pope Damasus adorned her tomb with sacred poetry, and many of the Fathers of the Church, following Saint Ambrose, have honored her in their writings.  
She is the patroness of Christian virtue  (the saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape victims, and virgins).

Also the birthday of Martin Luther King - we should pray for the end of racial discrimination.



In this confrontation with the Pharisees, Jesus is saying there is no mixing of the old ways of legalism with the coming of the Kingdom, for salvation by grace through faith is a brand new garment, a new wineskin that cannot be mixed with a man centered works righteousness. The works oriented religion cannot contain God’s grace that He is now pouring out. Grace requires new wineskins.
            We see this principle even in the old testament book of Ezekiel 36:26,27
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Notice that our keeping the law comes after we receive the gift of God’s Spirit, after we have been born again we keep the laws of God as a thank offering, a love offering back to God, not in order to earn our salvation or keep our salvation. Obedience follows faith and repentance. Obedience is an act of faith not the flesh. This is the new wine that bursts the old wineskins of the Pharisees.
            Have you repented of sin and placed your faith in Christ? Have you trusted in Jesus alone for your salvation? Or are you trusting in church membership, good morals, and religion?

January 18, 2013. Homily, Saturday, January 19, 2013.

Mark 2:13-17

Jesus went out along the sea.  All the crowd came to him and he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. Jesus said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed Jesus.  While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him. Some scribes who werePharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax collectors and said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus heard this and said to them, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

The Gospel of the Lord.


As Jesus went about preaching and healing, he called people to follow him.  All he said to Levi, now known as Matthew the evangelist, was "Follow me." and Matthew got up from his customs post, left his things behind and went and followed Jesus.  Jesus wants us to call people to follow him, to become his disciples, to enjoy his salvation.

Who are suitable prospects?  Are they those religiously inclined?  This Gospel asks us to think differently, to think outside of the box, asks that we not limit the ones we call.

Every time I read the Gospel, I finish and say to myself, as all priests and deacons do, "By the reading of this Gospel my my sins be washed away."  We each recognize ourselves to be sinners in the eyes of the Lord.

Ask why are each of us here for this Mass?  It is not a Sunday or a holy day of obligation. We do not have to be here.  Why then? We are here because internally, in our soul, with our spirit, we need to be here.  Each of us for our unique individual reasons need to be here, and we are here.

There was an American priest who became a bishop and then a cardinal. Each cardinal receives Church in Rome for which he is to act as a pastor.  This priest was visiting his church and was accosted by a beggar.  He recognized the beggar as a class-mate at the North American College in Rome and as a fellow priest. The cardinal had supper that evening with the Pope and told His Eminence about his contact with his class-mate. The Pope asked that he return to the Church and ask his class mate to join him for dinner with the Pope. The cardinal went back, extended the invitation and the three had dinner. At the dinner, the Pope asked the priest to hear his confession. The priest agreed but only if the Pope would first hear his own confession. The Pope heard the failed priest's confession and then the priest heard the confession of the Pope. The Pope then assigned the priest to serve as a curate in the Church where he had been a beggar.

Jesus did not come to call the righteous but sinners.  And we are all sinners.

Matthew 2:1-12, three kings

What are the names of the Three Kings and what did each one bring? Melchior brought Gold Balthazar brought Frankincense Caspar brought Myrrh. Balthazar from Arabia, Melchior from Persia and Caspar from India.

January 13, 2013. Homily, January 15, 2013

Mark 1:21-28

Jesus came to Capernaum with his followers, and on the sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are- the Holy One of God!" Jesus rebuked him and said, "Quiet! Come out of him!" The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, "What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
The Gospel of the Lord.

center - the Holy One of God
1 cried out with a loud cry
2 astonished amazed
3 taught as one having authority teaching with authority
4 entered the synagogue and taught fame spread throughout

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark 1:14-20

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel."
As he passed by the Sea of Galilee, he saw SImon and his brother Andrew casting their nets into the sea; they ere fishermen. Jesus said to them, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. "Then they left their nets and followed h im. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They too were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they let their father Zebedee in the boat along with the hired men and followed him.
The Gospel of the Lord.

Here, Jesus calls his first disciples, Peter, James, and John, and they leave everything to follow him. For them (as it should be for all Christians and churches), it was all about evangelism-people meeting Jesus.

It is exciting to sacrifice for something bigger than yourself, bigger than money, bigger than electronic gadgets, budgets, mortgages—maybe even bigger than life itself. It is exhilarating to follow Jesus and be caught up in his Kingdom.
During the dark days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln from time to time used to visit the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church for a mid-day service. This had become a respite for him during the difficult years of the War. Lincoln would slip in by a side door, and leave early without being noticed. One day, when he and his aide visited the church, the President lingered in his private corner after the other worshippers had left. His aide asked, “Mr. President, what did you think of the sermon today?” Mr. Lincoln slowly replied, “I thought it was eloquent, well thought out, and powerfully delivered.” “Then you liked it?” the aide continued, trying to fill the silence. “No,” the president said. “The sermon failed. For it did not ask of us something great.”
Let me again pose the fundamental question of this series: Are you a disciple or do you aspire to become a better one? We must start by dropping much of the superficial stuff that fills our lives and drives our calendars. We must release what holds us back. We need to immerse ourselves in his teachings, become part of his church, and give ourselves to his call. In this appeal I make to you, it is not just about you or me or the person next to you. It is about our church, the whole congregation—the system. How are we doing at calling and making disciples? That is our primary mission and our calling from Jesus.

January 10, 2013. Homily, January 12, 2013

John 3, 22-30.

Jesus and His disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned. Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew bout ceremonial washings. So they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him." John answered and said, "No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said that I am not the Christ, but that I was sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease."
The Gospel of the Lord.
John’s gospel makes the ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist overlap, while Mark says (1:14) that it was only after John had been put in prison that Jesus began his own ministry. John’s gospel may have wanted to put them together in order to contrast them.

“No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven” (v. 27). In another translation it says: “One can lay claim only to what is given by God.” This is something you could spend days thinking about – or perhaps a lifetime. We generally lay claim only to things we believe we have achieved by our own effort. Everything else we call luck, or chance...or ‘providence’. But this reading suggests that the things most distinctively my own are the purest gift of God; the more they are mine the more they are God's, the more they are God's the more they are mine.

If a person’s work is to live, it must come from the depths of him – not from alien sources outside himself – but from within.”

"[T]he best man who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete." Elizabeth to Mary at the Visitation, "When the infant in my womb heard your voice, he leaped for joy."

When the priest, or the deacon, mixes the water and the wine, he says, "By the mixing of this water and wine, may we join in your divinity as you have joined in our humanity."

January 3, 2013. Homily, January 8, 2013/

Mark 6:34-44

When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, "This is a deserted place and it is already very late. Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat." He said to them in reply, "Give them some food yourselves." But they said to him, "Are we to buy two hundred days' wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?" He said to them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." And when they had found out they said, "Five loaves and two fish." So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. Then taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men.
The Gospel of the Lord.

Mk 8:1-9 the feeding of the four thousand.

All four gospels include the story of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. Mark's Gospel has two versions of which this (Mk. 6:34-44) is the first [five thousand men, five laves, two fish, fragments filled seven baskets]; the second is at Mark 8:1-9 [the feeding of the four thousand; seven loaves, fragments filled seven baskets, four thousand people]. John's gospel, fourth and last chronologically, includes it as one of the seven miracles in his Book of Signs (water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana, the curing at a distance of the son of the royal official, the curing on the sabbath of the man ill for 38 years at the pool at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, the feeding of the multitude with five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus walks on the sea, the curing of the man blind from birth, the raising of Lazarus from the dead). John's gospel does not include the breaking of the bread and the consecration of the wine at the Last Supper but does have Jesus give thanks for the bread before he feeds the multitude. Matthew 14:19 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. Mark 6:17 two hundred denarii [a denarius was a day's wages]. Luke 10:12-17. John has the barley loaves. All agree to the deserted place, to the teaching of Jesus before the miracle, to the 5,000 men, to the 12 baskets of fragments, the synoptic gospels that he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples to distribute. And the synoptic gospels each have Jesus consecrating and distributing the bread and wine at the Last Supper.

obligatory memorial of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American born saint (1774-1821), md. five children, widowed in Italy, 1805 converted, first Catholic school in Baltimore 1808, founded Sisters of Charity 1812.
Mother Frances Cabrini
Katherine Drexel

January 3, 2013. Homily, Thursday, January 3, 2013

Holy Name of Jesus

John 1:29-34

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, 'A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.' I did not know him, but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known in Israel." John testified further, saying "I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me. 'On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God."

The Gospel of the Lord.

The story of the kite, the kite's jealousy of the high-flying eagle the eagle and the hunter. The kite gave the hunter the kite's own good feathers to use to shoot the eagle until the kite could no longer fly and the hunter shot the kite.

There is a difference between envy and jealousy. Envy is dissatisfaction with what belongs to us and coveting what belongs to another. We can envy people for their looks, their possessions or their relationships, wishing we could take their place. Jealousy, on the other hand, is the fear that what is ours may be lost to another. Both envy and jealousy rob people of their inner peace as they devise ways to eliminate the person they perceive as standing in the way to their personal fulfillment.   Looking at the way things are in our world today, it would seem that envy and jealousy are normal human traits. But the example of John the Baptist shows us that true personal fulfilment and greatness lies not in how we may compare with others but in how faithful we are to our God-given roles in life.

How many people like to hear that the person who succeeded them is doing better than they did? Nobody. Here John is a rare example. John started the Kingdom of God movement. Jesus succeeded him as leader of the movement after Herod imprisoned John and had him executed. Yet whenever John speaks of Jesus he speaks of Jesus as better than him. He describes Jesus as the bridegroom and himself as only his best man (John 3:29). Notice how he introduces Jesus to his own disciples in today’s gospel:

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me” (John 1:29-30).
As a result of this endorsement, two of his disciples left him and followed Jesus (verse 37). These were the first disciples of Jesus according to John’s Gospel. John summarised his whole attitude to Jesus in one statement: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Why is John so content and satisfied with playing the second fiddle rather than vying with Jesus for the limelight? It is because he knows exactly the reason for him being in the world. He knows why he came into this life: “I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:30). Because he knows why he is here, John can tell when he has done his bit. He can tell when it is time to hand the baton to another. Why did you come into the world? What is God’s plan for your life? If you do not have a personal answer to this question, chances are that you will spend your life chasing after everything and nothing, in a rat-race of envy and jealousy with those you perceive as better than you. Instead of living and working in harmony and cooperation with others, people who do not know the reason for their being are often driven by rivalry and competition.

But look at the flowers in the field. Some are shrubs and some are herbs, some are red and some are white, some are yellow and some are blue; yet all of them are beautiful. The poinsettia, the daffodil, the rose, all are beautiful because they have their different purposes. As we come to the long period of Sundays in ordinary time marked by the liturgical colour green, let us have John the Baptist before us as a great example of what it means to be ordinary. Fact is, there is much greatness in being ordinary. Even though John felt he was not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals, Jesus did turn round to say of him, “Among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).