Final Homily –
TCHS & Holy Spirit
February 22, 2019
Three Points to
Ponder
The
priest who most impacted my vocation is Fr. Michael Sliney, LC. He used to lead
retreats for high school boys in Maryland, where I grew up. I was always amazed
at his love for soccer – he was so good at the sport and he played with a
zealous passion. One day, all of us boys were out in the field, playing soccer.
The competition was getting intense and we were having a great time. I saw Fr.
Michael standing on the sidelines, a hungry look in his eyes – he wanted to
join us so badly, I could tell. And he was far better than all of us!
But then
he did something surprising – he thought no one was looking, so he pulled out
his Rosary and started to walk down the path away from us, praying the Rosary.
I realized – “Here was a man who loved Jesus more than anything. I want to be
like that man.”
My
friends, I love Jesus more than anything. And I hope you do too. Because I came
here to preach Him and Him alone. I want my life to be only a signpost,
pointing to Him. Look to Jesus, and you will find everything.
I want
to leave you with three messages this morning – for me, the most important
truths that I wish for you to know.
First,
God loves you. Yes, we hear that all the time but I am confident that most of
us do not accept it or understand it. Maybe it’s better to say, God is in love with you. When you are in love
with someone, you think about them all the time, you pursue their heart, you
delight in them. And that is how God feels about you – not because you deserve
it, but because of who you are – His beloved son or daughter.
We were
talking in my office about examples of unconditional love this week, when one
of our sophomores said, “I know an example of unconditional love – me and food.”
I thought – actually, that’s quite true. Every day he walks into my office and
eats whatever food is sitting on my table. Doesn’t matter what it is – could be
weeks-old donuts or extra pizza or remains from someone’s leftover burrito from
First Lunch Period, but Ivan loves it all equally. It’s not a matter of how
great it is – it’s food, so he loves it.
Same with
God – He doesn’t love you because of how great you are, He loves you because you are. Never forget that He is
constantly trying to find ways to show you His love.
Second,
holiness is possible. One of my favorite young saints-to-be is Servant of God
Faustino Perez, who lived in Spain in the 1940s. Though he died at the age of
17, he achieved great holiness in his short years. This young man loved the
good things of life – he was passionate about soccer, loved to camp and hike
and hang out with friends, even snuck a few cigarettes (what they used to do
before vaping!). But he had a deep love for God. In fifth grade he made a
commitment to pray the Rosary daily, which he kept doing until the end of his
life. He would often go on retreats and bring his friends along with him. It
was just a natural thing to love Jesus and to be a normal kid. When he was
fifteen, he was struck with Hodgkins’ disease (a type of cancer). He suffered
tremendously but offered it all to the Lord, never complaining. When his hair
fell out because of the chemotherapy, his mother asked if he minded being bald.
He replied with a smile, “It’s not a big deal, God will give it back to me
eventually!” (Maybe that’s why I like this guy!). He didn’t do anything
tremendously extraordinary – he just sought perfection in everyday life. After
his death, his parents were reading his journal and they came across a powerful
goal he wrote down for himself: “Holiness is very difficult. But I will try,
and who knows if I might achieve it?” For Faustino, holiness was not just for
priests and nuns – it was for high school students and married people and
everyone else. Mother Teresa said, “Holiness is not the luxury of the few, but
the simple duty of you and I.” How true – all of us can become holy by yielding
our life to God!
Third, always
get to Mass. To me, the Mass is everything. In my six years of priesthood, I
have only missed two days of saying Mass (both for sickness that made it
impossible). I love the Mass more than life itself, and all the riches of the
world, all the glories, everything on this earth cannot compare to the joys of
attending Mass and receiving Christ’s true Body and Blood.
Statistics
aren’t good about Mass attendance. According to a 2015 study, only 24% of
Catholics attend Mass weekly. The news is worse for Millennials – only 14% of
that age bracket attends Mass weekly. But if we knew the value of the Mass, we
would hunger and thirst for it. As St. Padre Pio said, “The world could exist
more easily without the sun than without the Mass.” It was St. John Vianney who
said, “If we could truly understand the Mass, we would die of joy.” We look
with our physical eyes and see this Church full of a couple hundred people, but
we do not see the tens of thousands of angels who are gathered here to worship
the God of the Universe, who will be present on the altar in a few minutes! We
see only an altar, but we do not see the immense torrents of grace that are
gushing from this altar. This river, this torrent, is flowing out – it encounters
some hearts and causes a great fruitfulness, the fruit of holiness. It
encounters other hearts and finds them closed, a wall built around the grace
God wants to give you.
But this
Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our Faith. It is here that Heaven
touches earth; it is here that we become one-Flesh with God. Never miss an
opportunity to attend Mass, and certainly get there every Sunday!
My dear
friends, these are the words I wish to leave with you. God is in love with you;
holiness is possible; the Mass is the best way to be holy. I pray that we meet
again in this life, but if not, I pray that we will meet again in eternity,
when together we can gather in the presence of God and sing His praises for
eternity.
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