Homily for Ordinary Time 17 - A Deep Dive Into the Our Father

 

Homily for Ordinary Time 17

July 27, 2025

The Most Powerful Prayer

 

            Of all the prayers we have in our Catholic Tradition, the Our Father takes pride of place. Every other prayer was written by human beings, but this prayer was written by God Himself – which means that God is telling us how to pray to Him! Church Father Tertullian said that the Our Father is the summary of all the New Testament. This prayer alone is enough to make us a saint: one time a young nun asked St. Theresa of Avila, “Dear Mother, what is the quickest way to reach union with God?” And the saint replied, “Say one Our Father…but take an hour to say it.” So let’s dive into the richness of this beautiful prayer that Our Lord taught us.

            The first word: “our”. St. Paul writes that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” – we are never alone as we approach the Father. We call it the “Communion of Saints” – that we are united to the Church Triumphant (those who are seeing the Father’s Face in Heaven), the Church Suffering (souls in Purgatory who are longing for Heaven) and the Church Militant (souls on earth who are still fighting the good fight). We belong to a Church that not only spans the globe but spans human history – so we are never alone when we call God “our” Father. When we pray, we are praying for others and in union with others, even if we’re alone.

            “Our Father” – how amazing that God is not a distant, unreachable deity, but one who invites us to call Him by that most intimate name: Father! If you’ve had a good earthly father, realize that he reflected the Heavenly Father’s love to you. But many of us have had absent or weak or cruel fathers. If that is the case, realize that all the fatherly love you lacked can be found in God the Father.

            “Our Father who art in Heaven.” Sometimes children will play that game of, “My dad is stronger than your dad.” Or “My dad has a better job or a cooler car than your dad.” But Jesus makes clear that our Father is the Lord of Heaven and earth – with complete power and perfect love. At some point in our lives we realize that our parents are human – my father is now suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and it saddens me to watch how this once-strong man has grown weak under the burden of years…but it is consoling to know that both he and I have a strong, perfect, majestic Father Who rules Heaven and earth.

            “Hallowed be thy name.” To hallow means to make holy. But isn’t God already holy? How can we pray that God’s Name be holy? We are praying that God may be praised in us. That others may see our lives and praise God because of us. There was a certain clocktower on a courthouse in America which had no hands on the clock. The clock worked perfectly well, but nobody knew it because there were no hands. Likewise, if we are only a Christian in our minds but not in our deeds, then God’s Name would not be praised. Although we don’t do good deeds just to perform, still we want people to see our lives and say, “How good God is, that He is doing such great things through Sam! Through Lucy! Through John!”

            “Thy Kingdom Come.” God’s Kingdom will come whether we like it or not, but we choose to welcome His Kingdom when we allow Christ to reign over every aspect of our lives. That means Christ is king of our workplace, our car rides, our bedrooms; that He is the King of how we spend our free time and what jokes we laugh at; King of the music we listen to, the internet sites we visit, the plans we make for the future.

            Closely connected is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” In Heaven, the angels and saints fulfill God’s will perfectly. We are asking to do the same – to be a docile instrument in the Hand of the Lord. Which one would be a better tool: a pen that looks nice but constantly runs out of ink, or one that looks plain but writes whenever we need it to? We, too, are pens in the hands of God, and He loves those whom He can count on to say “yes” to Him, no matter what He asks.

            “Give us this day our daily bread.” This can mean two things: first, we are asking God to give us the material things we need for that day. Notice we are not asking for Him to make us rich and to give us what we want, but to give us what we need. But there is a spiritual sense, too – we are asking for the Eucharist. During the Covid lockdown when churches were closed, I would spend my Sundays driving around to parishioners’ houses bringing them Holy Communion if they felt comfortable having visitors. It was amazing to see tears streaming down the faces of those who had been deprived of Jesus for six weeks, two months. There was such a hunger for Him – this prayer asks that our spiritual hunger be nourished by the Eucharist, as well as asking God to take care of our physical needs.

            But notice that we are told to pray for daily bread. We can’t eat enough on Monday to last through the whole week; nor can we pray enough on Sunday to last until the following one. As a seminarian, I was once assigned to a cranky older priest. One night I asked if he would lead grace as we sat down to dinner, and he responded, “I blessed all the food I will ever eat in 1983, I don’t need to say grace today!” He meant it humorously, but perhaps Christians need to remember that we need Jesus daily, hourly – hence, we pray for our daily bread.

            “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are only forgiven in the measure we forgive others. We grow angry with others because we think we are not at fault; but if we realized the magnitude of our own sins, we would find it quick and easy to forgive the sins of others, because of the amount of mercy we have received!

            St. Joseph Vaz was a Portuguese missionary to Sri Lanka in the 1700s who was effective at converting many of the natives to the Catholic Faith. Some of the Sri Lankan King’s advisors, jealous of his success, told the King that the priest must be a Portuguese spy, so the King unjustly imprisoned him for quite some time. St. Joseph willingly accepted the imprisonment, seeing God’s hand in it since it gave him time to learn the language of Sri Lanka. Finally, the King realized that St. Joseph was innocent, and had him released, but on one condition. The island had been stuck in a devastating drought, and the King said, “Prove to me that your God is the true God by praying for rain.” St. Joseph must’ve been tempted to shake the dust from his feet and get out of there – after all the King had just put him in jail for years, so why is the King’s problem, his problem now? But, moved with compassion, Fr. Joseph Vaz agreed to pray for rain. Upon making his prayer, a torrential downpour ensued, but miraculously Fr. Vaz stayed completely dry – not a drop of rain fell on him. In gratitude, the King allowed him to preach the Faith anywhere he wanted in his kingdom, and thousands more souls became Christian, all because St. Joseph Vaz was able to forgive his captor – knowing the mercy of God!

            “Lead us not into temptation.” Pope Francis made headlines back in 2017 when he asked the Italian Bishops to change the words of the Our Father into “Do not abandon us in temptation.” That actually makes more sense – God does not “lead us” into temptation, but He allows it so that we can choose Him. Denying ourself one temptation is worth more than hundreds of prayers, because it usually costs us a great deal to say “no” to our flesh or the suggestions of the Evil One. So we ask God to remain by our side as we fight the spiritual battle!

            “Deliver us from evil.” In this fallen world, there are so many evils we face: death and disease, strife in families, anxiety about work or school. We conclude by asking that God may bring us through the fires and trials, so that we may be stronger and more faithful to Him.

            This prayer, first learned as young children, is still the most powerful prayer of all, clearly articulating how we should turn to God. Pray it well – with attention and love – and it has the power to grant you a peaceful life, and to make you a saint!

Homily for Ordinary Time 14 - The Souls We're Responsible For

 

Ordinary Time 14

July 6, 2025

The Souls We’re Responsible For

 

            Maria Simma is a recent German mystic (died in 2004) who allegedly had visions of some souls in Purgatory. One time she was in bed, waiting to fall asleep, when she saw a vision of a soul walking into her room. By this time she had been having these mystical apparitions regularly, so it did not bother her – rather, she simply asked, “Who are you?”

            He replied, “Do you not remember me? We met one time on a train. I have returned to thank you.”

            She looked closely at his face and all of a sudden remembered. Decades earlier, she had been riding the train, praying her Rosary, when this man sat down across from her. Noticing the Rosary, the man began to make fun of her. “Who believes in that stuff any more? The Rosary – just hogwash! Don’t waste your time!” She defended her faith as best as she could, but he was adamant that it was stupid to believe in God. Finally, the man reached his station, and as he left, Maria whispered a small prayer: “Lord, don’t let that man be lost for eternity.”

            The soul of that man said to her, in that apparition many years later, “That prayer you prayed for me was the only thing that kept me from Hell. So I came to thank you.” The power of prayer – and the responsibility we can have over another person’s soul!

            What a blessing that the Lord uses us to save souls! Jesus does not need to use 72 disciples to prepare His way; neither does He need to use you and me. He could save souls and give grace directly, by Himself. But He chooses to allow us to help Him save souls because God receives more glory using weak, frail instruments like us. Back in the Medieval days, a King showed how glorious he was by how many people were in his court. King Henry of England had about 700 people in his court; the Palace of Versailles in France housed 10,000 servants at one time. It belongs to the glory of the King to have many servants surrounding him – so it belongs to the glory of God to share His work of saving souls with each and every baptized Christian.

            And it is not an exaggeration to say that eternity hangs in the balance. Of all the things we do in this world, the only thing that will remain in eternity are souls. Winning championships, building skyscrapers, making millions – all of this will be gone in a thousand years. But bringing a soul to Heaven will be a triumph that never disappears for eternity. Eternal souls are literally depending upon our faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

            The first way to cooperate with Christ in saving souls is through our vocation. The primary souls for us to impact are our spouse and kids and family. We have to be intentional about it – seeing our vocation, whether to marriage or the single life or priesthood and religious life – as primarily about forming souls for Heaven. You may be familiar with the life of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint. At first, her life was easy – she was married to a wealthy merchant, a happy New York socialite. But soon tragedy struck – her brother-in-law died, and she had to adopt his six kids, along with her own five children. Then her husband died and they were thrown into poverty. Through the influence of friends, she converted to Catholicism – and her parents and siblings refused to speak to her, because of the anti-Catholicism rife in America at the time. To add to this tragedy, two of her daughters died of illness.

            In all of this, her son William began to rebel in his teen years. He questioned his faith, wondering how a good God could allow them to go through such suffering. He was in danger of losing his faith entirely, but his saintly mother spent many long hours patiently discussing the faith and praying with him. Still conflicted, William joined the Navy, and his mother kept writing to him to encourage him in faith – up to three letters per week, many of which went unanswered. But after years of prayer and years of encouraging letters, William again returned to his faith with great devotion – much to his mother’s delight – and William had one daughter become a nun and a son become an Archbishop. The faith of his mother helped William Seton return to his own faith and become a fervent disciple! We, too, are called first and foremost through our vocation to help our spouse, kids, grandkids, and family members to Heaven.

            We also cooperate through evangelization. St. Francis Xavier was a missionary in India and the Philippines, and he wrote back to his friends in Europe, “There is now in these parts a very large number of persons who have only one reason for not becoming Christian, and that is that there is no one to make them Christians.” He found fields ripe for the harvest – and my goodness, we have that here too! I have never seen such an absolute openness to Christ than I see right now. We have over 10 people who are interested in exploring converting to Catholicism this coming Fall, with more coming – if you invite. Look around in your school, your work, your neighborhood to see if there’s someone who’s looking for more out of life…and invite them to come to church with you. See what doors the Holy Spirit will open!

            Finally, we cooperate with Christ through intercession. Our Lady at Fatima said, “Pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.” We pray for all sorts of material blessings for our family and friends, but why not pray for their conversion and sanctification? You may be familiar with St. Augustine, who was quite a wayward youth – he was a thief, got involved in a cult, had a child out of wedlock. His mother St. Monica was always hounding him to go to Church and get right with the Lord, but Augustine couldn’t stand her pious nagging. So one day Monica visited the holy bishop St. Ambrose, who told her, “Talk less to Augustine about the Lord, and talk more to the Lord about Augustine.” In other words, stop nagging and start praying! She did, and soon thereafter Augustine was converted. Sometimes I’ll be driving down the road and see someone walking on the sidewalk, and I will feel the Holy Spirit say, “This person needs a prayer.” So I’ll bless them and offer them to God – who knows what good that will do!

            But in all this, we must never forget that we don’t save a single soul. St. Paul was clear when he said, “I planted, another watered, but God gave the growth.” It is only grace that brings a soul closer to Christ, not our efforts alone. This is why Jesus tells these 72 disciples, upon returning, not to rejoice in the good works they did (works so amazing like healing the sick and casting out demons), but rather rejoice only that God loves them and that they are sanctified by their labors. Even St. Paul says that the only thing we should boast in is Jesus Christ – it is His work, already accomplished on the Cross, that saves souls. We are only messengers of the King, beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.

            But we find, though, that when we cooperate with his grace in saving souls – through our vocation, through evangelization, through intercession – we become holy. I had a sixth-grade student at my school ask me last year, “Fr. Joseph, how do I become a saint? What must I do?” We spoke about prayer and virtue, avoiding temptation and practicing acts of kindness and sacrifice – but I came away from that conversation thinking, “In helping him become a saint, I have a deeper desire to become a saint!” So in helping others find Christ, we find Christ more.

            The mission of Jesus Christ on this earth is literally the most daring, important mission in history – that of saving souls for eternal life. He does not possess this mission alone, for we belong to Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church – which means that all of us must also seek to save souls through our vocation, evangelization, and intercession. Only in Heaven will we meet those souls we have brought there, through our faithfulness!