Corpus Christi Sunday - June 7, 2026

Corpus Christi Homily

June 7, 2026

The Enemies of Grace

 

           During the Roman persecution of Christians, a priest wanted to bring Holy Communion to those Christians who were in prison for their Faith, but the Christian community refused to let the priest risk his life, for without the priest there would be no Eucharist. So one of his altar boys, a young teen named Tarcissius, volunteered to take the Eucharist himself. No one would ever suspect someone so young for being a clandestine Christian!

            He was going along the road, clutching the Eucharist in a cloth bag around his neck. As he passed by a field, he saw some of his classmates who were playing a game. They invited Tarcissius to join them, but the boy declined, hurrying along. They began to insist, “Tarcissius, come play with us!” But he continued to refuse. They started to gather around him, pushing and shoving, curious as to what was in the cloth bag. But Tarcissius knew he could never allow them to see the Eucharist, because they were pagans. They began to grow angry with him, and soon their pushing and shoving became punching and kicking. They imagined that Tarcissius was keeping some huge secret from them in the bag – perhaps gold or food – and they were going to get it, one way or another. They threw him to the ground and one peer threw a heavy rock, which struck his head. He was knocked unconscious, which made the other boys run away, fearful of consequences for their violence. He was later found in that field by some Christians, who brought him home, but he died of his injuries – St. Tarcissius, a teenage martyr for the Eucharist.

            The enemies of the Lord have always had a special hatred for the Eucharist. The first thing that most of the tyrants of the twentieth century did was to abolish the Mass – from Communist Russia to the Spanish Revolution to the anti-clerical laws of Mexico in the 1920s. Pope Benedict had to make a rule that he would only distribute Holy Communion on the tongue, because people would take the Eucharist from him to keep as a souvenir, or worse, to desecrate it. We sadly had someone steal the Blessed Sacrament here on Good Friday a few years back, which broke my heart.

            But in some sideways way, this actually underscores the truth of Christ’s Real Presence here. Why would the Evil One and his army fight against something that’s just a symbol? You don’t see anyone stealing the Communion bread from a Protestant Church, since everyone knows it’s ordinary bread. But here in the tabernacle is Jesus!

            Today, however, the Evil One has a much more insidious method of attacking the Eucharist, and I bet it’s never occurred to most of us. The Evil One wants to separate us from the Eucharist, so he uses Sunday sports and activities.

            There. I said it.

            Think about it, though. There was a time when Sunday morning was sacrosanct. But now good Catholics are torn, because they want to worship God at Mass, but they spend a ton of money to get their kids into sports or dance or robotics or whatever, and they think they’re committed to this, too. I absolutely believe it’s a subtle ploy of the Evil One to try to separate people from the Eucharist. I’m not saying that these activities are evil in themselves, but the Evil One uses them to convince people that the Eucharist is a “nice extra” to squeeze into a weekend that’s already jam-packed with stuff going on. Then when people get back to Mass after missing a few weekends, the Evil One convinces them to receive Communion without Confession, as if that was fine and dandy, rather than an unworthy reception of the Lord due to the mortal sin of missing Mass. Can we not see this as a diabolical ploy to separate people from the Lord? Satan will never tempt you to worship a golden calf – he will tempt you to think that the meaningless soccer game is more important than Jesus Christ.

            So, let’s just consider the consequence of our belief that Jesus Christ is truly here, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. If we really believe that here He is, the Lover of our soul, our Creator, our Destiny, our Peace…we would make this everything! Barring sickness or other legitimate emergency, we would make sure that we were here in the presence our Eucharistic Lord every Sunday.

            There is, in Fairfield County, a Jewish baseball league. It was founded so that no games would occur on their Sabbath day. Why do we not insist on this for Catholics, who make up 45% of the population of Fairfield County? It is nothing but cowardice for Catholics to stay quiet when their sacred time is invaded with sports and activities. We don’t live for sports and robotics and gymnastics – we live for Christ, and everything else is just extra.

            There was a saint one time who structured her week around the Eucharist. She would receive Jesus on Sunday, and then spend the next three days in thanksgiving. The following three days of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday would be spent spiritually preparing for her next Eucharistic union. What a happy life!

            I close with the powerful words of St. John Bosco, who said: “Do you want our Lord to give you many graces? Visit Him [in the Eucharist] often. Do you want Him to grant you only a few? Visit Him but seldom. Do you want the devil to attack you? Rarely visit the Blessed Sacrament. Do you want him to flee from you? Visit Jesus often!”

            The Evil One knows that as soon as someone abandons the Eucharist, their soul belongs to him. The devil is much wiser these days, and does not close churches or attack the Eucharist directly. Rather, he distracts with a thousand activities that take us away from the True Presence of the Lord. It’s time we Catholics said, “I’m sorry, Coach, but we’ve got an appointment we can’t miss, and it’s with the God of the universe Who has loved us enough to give us His Body and Blood as food for everlasting life.”

Trinity Sunday - In the Name of the Father - May 31, 2026

 

Homily for Trinity Sunday

May 31, 2026

The Fatherhood of God

 

            We spend a great deal of the year speaking about Jesus Christ, and last week’s Feast of Pentecost highlighted the Holy Spirit. Today, however, I’d like to speak about God the Father, the Creator and Ancient of Days.

            First, why do we call God “Father”? God has no gender, right? Correct – God is pure spirit. But we refer to God as “Father” because in all of creation, there is a profound archetypical difference between male and female. The masculine is the giver, the feminine is the receiver. By calling God “Father”, we are recognizing that God is the source of everything there is, and that He does not need to receive anything at all.

            But how beautiful it is that we can call God by the intimate familial name “Father!” Jesus – and St. Paul – took it a step further and called Him “Abba”, which means Daddy. Every earthly father is given three fundamental tasks: to protect, to provide, and to lead. Let’s look at that in terms of God the Father’s relationship with us.

            First, a father protects. God certainly protects us. When the Israelites left Egypt to pursue a land of freedom, the Egyptians began to pursue them, all the way to the Red Sea. This so frightened the Israelites that they made plans to return to Egypt so that they wouldn’t be slaughtered in the desert. But Moses encouraged them, “Do not be afraid – you will see God fighting for you this very day!” And He did just that, in a surprising way – God appeared as a giant column of cloud and fire stood between the Israelite camp and the Egyptians. It was so terrifying that the Egyptians exclaimed, “Let us retreat! The Lord is fighting for Israel!” And they retreated, only to be thrown into the Red Sea. God would not allow His chosen people any harm as they made their way to the Promised Land!

            And we are the new Chosen People, even more beloved than Israel, since we are a people purchased by the Blood of His Son. Would God abandon us? Not at all! He protects us on our journey to the Promised Land of Heaven. Satan would literally destroy us in an instant if his malice wasn’t checked by the hand of God.

            St. John Bosco was known for having prophetic dreams. In one famous dream, he saw a giant ship on a storm-tossed ocean. This ship was being attacked by dozens of other, smaller boats, with cannonballs destroying masts and blowing holes in the big ship. On the prow of the large ship stood the Pope, and the saint realized this dream was about the Church having to fight many enemies throughout its history. The Pope was trying to guide the ship to a safe harbor, but the fighting and the storm was fierce, and it looked as if it was going to capsize. But then, out of the sea rose two giant columns – atop one was a statue of Our Lady, and on the other was the Eucharist. The ship limped between the two columns, and found that the sea grew calm and the enemy ships sank and disappeared. When St. John Bosco awoke, he wrote down this dream with the interpretation: there would be many storms from within and enemies from without trying to destroy the Church, but if it remained tethered to the Eucharist and Mary and led by the Pope, it would never be destroyed.

            Hence, our good Father in Heaven has left us many great protections – not from disease or war or high gas prices, but from sin and futility and eternal destruction in Hell, which our Enemy is working tirelessly to accomplish. The great protections of our King are things like our guardian angels, the Rosary, the Sacraments, the teachings of our Catholic Faith. These things seem ordinary, but they are immensely powerful. Fr. Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican’s top exorcist who did over 10,000 exorcisms in his lifetime, said that a good Confession is better than a hundred exorcisms – it’s that powerful. So we never need to fear any enemies, either physical enemies or spiritual threats to our soul, if we use the protections our good Father has given us.

            But a father also provides. Has God not provided everything we need for a rich life here on this earth? Listen to the great words of St. Augustine, “Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why, heaven and earth shout to you: ‘God has made me!’” Looking at the beauty, intricacy, and richness of nature convinces us that we have a good Father who loves us. He has made it so that cows produce extra milk for humans; He made such a wide variety of food and drink; He made the mountains tremendous, the lakeside relaxing, the flowers so delicate but beautiful.

            But more than providing for the needs of the body, He has provided for the needs of the soul. Who could ever have thought that God would give His own Body for food? Or that God would make it so incredibly easy to be reconciled to Him in Confession? He has tried to convince us by so many signs that He is truly in love with us. Everything we need for our spiritual well-being has been provided for by our good Father!

            Finally, a father leads. And does not God the Father lead us? As Americans we chafe at the idea of laws, but laws order human society and point us to fulfillment. And so God did not abandon us to chaos, but gave us His laws – first the Ten Commandments, and then Christ’s new Law of love – to teach us how to live a peaceful, happy life. And He continues to lead us through the Church He established. The problem is we’re often too prideful to allow ourselves to be led and taught, thinking we know better…but isn’t this the same fatal flaw as our first parents?

            In sum, God fulfills all three roles of a good father: He is a protector, a provider, and a leader. And this has two major takeaways for our own lives.

            First, many of us have not had good fathers in our lives. Maybe we painfully acknowledge how much our dads failed at protecting, providing, or leading. If this is the case, realize that our Heavenly Father is meant to be everything your earthly father wasn’t. The desire for a father runs deep within our hearts. Turn to your Heavenly Father and ask Him to fill that hole in your life. Even those with wonderful fathers must realize that our earthly fathers can’t be everything to us – they can only lead us so far, and then we must take the hand of our Heavenly Father, Who has promised to protect, provide, and lead us to Heaven.

            But the second takeaway is for men – pattern your life on the Heavenly Father! Every man is called to be a father, either a physical father who begets children or a spiritual father begetting saints. Take up that mantle and that role! Protect your family from both physical and moral evil – do not let sin into your home or your children’s minds! Provide for your family – not just by putting food on the table, but by bringing your kids to the Sacraments and leading your family in daily prayer. Lead your family – set an example as a man of integrity, and teach your children how to follow the Lord in daily life. Men, we cannot abdicate this responsibility to others – it is your responsibility to be the image of the Heavenly Father in your home!

            What a beautiful thing it is to call God “Our Father”. Can there be any more intimate name for God? And whether we’ve had good parents or lousy ones; whether we’ve had our own flaws as fathers and mothers, we look to God the Father as our model and our true Abba.

Graduation Homily 2026 - Love One Another

 

Baccalaureate Homily 2026

Love One Another

 

            It was an average Sunday morning outside of Harvest Bible Chapel, an Illinois Protestant megachurch, except one thing was awry: there was a homeless man sitting, begging on the steps leading up to the church.

            Some Church members gave him food or drink or money, some stopped to chat, and some walked right by. Many tried to avoid eye contact, unsure of his mental state or any drug problems that might launch him into bizarre behavior. He certainly looked disheveled – long scraggly beard, unkempt hair, filthy clothes, shopping cart overflowing with the detritus of his existence.

            But when the time came for the service, the congregants were surprised to see the homeless man wheeling his shopping cart down the main aisle of the church. The homeless man stepped into the sanctuary, took off his hat and filthy coat…and then took off his hair and beard. Gasps arose from the congregation as they saw that homeless man transform into their pastor, James MacDonald. He then began to preach the message: “If we are going to love like our Father in Heaven loves, we don't get to play favorites. By favorites I mean, so often we love the people when there is some benefit in it for us. It’s hardest to love when the people are least known.”

            My friends, we have taught you a great deal of things in your tenure at CKA – some of you have been here for six years. But if we have not taught you to love, then we have utterly failed in our mission. Not just to love those who are in our same political party, or who have the same skin color, or the same religion, or the same intelligence level, or the same abilities, or the same sexual orientation. I don’t recall Jesus’ command to “love one another” to have exceptions – it includes those people you don’t like, or sinners, or those who are different. Because Christ died for them too.

            Over the past couple weeks, based on events at CKA, I have been thinking a lot about love. Unfortunately our world has co-opted that word to mean “tolerance” (no, not the same thing as love) or “warm-fuzzy emotion” (also not love). We don’t have to feel anything toward our neighbor to love them. We don’t have to approve of their lifestyle, their choices, their hairstyle. We don’t have to become best friends with them. But we do have to treat them with respect, meet their needs, and even die for them. Remember, you were pretty unlovable when Christ died for you.

            Is this appropriate for a graduation homily? I think it’s most appropriate. Because I don’t give a whit whether you were accepted to Yale or UConn or Hillsdale. I don’t care if you become a CEO or win the Nobel Peace Prize or make All-American in soccer. I don’t care about any of that, and I don’t think Christ does, either. As St. John of the Cross once said, “In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone.”

            Tomorrow morning, I have the incredible blessing of helping at a retreat at the Sisters of Life in Stamford for young people with Downs’ Syndrome and their parents. I can tell you that there will be some truly great souls there – men and women who have accepted their Crosses and still radiate joy. Some of them will be far closer to sanctity than you and me. The world says hide them away, exterminate them, for they remind mankind of our fundamental weakness…and because they demand authentic, self-sacrificing love, which the world recoils from.

            But this virtue of charity is precisely what sets Christians – and hopefully CKA graduates – apart from the world. The early Church suffered three centuries of persecutions of the most gruesome kind. Thrown to the lions, crucified upside-down, skinned alive. But the Christian movement continued to grow. Why? Because Christians loved those whom everyone else rejected. They rescued abandoned and disabled babies. They gave dignity to the poor and to women. When the plague struck the city of Rome, the aristocrats left town, while the Christians remained to care for the victims. Although many of them caught the plague themselves and died, so many others were inspired by their example that they rushed to join this maligned movement. Love was rare in the world back then; it is perhaps even more rare in the world now.

            Imagine how many students our school would have if we loved one another! Imagine the force we would be for good! It’s not too late – and with God’s grace, our lives going forward can be transformed into love.

            I close with the famous story of St. John the Apostle. Exiled on the island of Patmos, he would gather the nascent Christian community every Sunday for Mass and preaching. All would draw near to hear the trembling voice of the Apostle. Sunday after Sunday, he would repeat the same words, “Little children, love one another! Love one another!”

            Finally he was asked, “Why do you repeat this phrase so much?”

            John replied, “Because the Master said it so much.”

            My friends, we cannot love the God we cannot see unless we first love the brother whom we do see. It’s not too late to become students and scholars where love is united to truth. Without love, all our life’s successes are completely empty and vapid. But even the failures and sorrows, crosses and struggles of the future will be turned into joy if they become an act of love towards God and neighbor.

Pentecost - Eager Expectation - May 24, 2026

 

Homily for Pentecost

May 24, 2026

Eager Expectation

 

            What did the Apostles do during those ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost? The Bible said that they devoted themselves to prayer – Christ promised that the Spirit would come, so they were waiting with eager expectation.

            Much of the Christian life is waiting for God with eager expectation. He’s made a ton of promises that He’s fulfilled in Christ (over 500, as a matter of fact), but there are still many that we’re waiting on. Not just abstract promises, but some that are extremely personal. I want to mention three things we need to eagerly expect in our daily walk with Christ.

            First, we should live in eager expectation that God actually hears our prayers. Can we not all look back at our life and see how God has answered prayers in surprising ways? One of our altar servers was telling me that before he served the Easter Vigil Mass this year, he was praying that he could experience God in a new way. The Easter Vigil begins in complete darkness, and at a certain point the organ blares the Gloria and the lights come on. He said that at that moment, he felt a wind – where could that come from, except the Holy Spirit? – and from that time on, there was a new passion in his heart for Christ. A beautiful answer to prayer!

            But to be clear – God only answers our prayer if it is for His glory and our salvation. If we pray for riches or worldly success or health, this may not be best for our soul. As a good Father, He gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want. He will always give us grace – He may give us earthly things if they are truly good for our soul. Back in the sixth century, a young monk named Romanos was embarrassed every time he would join his brother monks for prayer, because his terrible singing voice and lack of musical training made him the object of their ridicule and mockery. So for weeks, he prayed fervently to Our Lady for a better voice. One night, he dreamt that he saw Her, and she offered him a scroll and told him to eat it, which he did. The following day was his turn to lead the singing, and much to everyone’s surprise his voice was clear and resonant, and his pitch was perfect. He ended up writing over a thousand hymns in his lifetime, and in thanksgiving to Our Lady, he mentioned her in every one. He is now St. Romanos the Melodist – clearly God heard his prayer, and it was for His glory and the sanctification of this great saint!

            So, as we pray, we do so with eager expectation – the same fervor with which the Apostles awaited the Holy Spirit!

            Second, we should have the eager expectation that God will make us holy, in His own time. Sometimes we become frustrated by our own lack of progress in the spiritual life. We still struggle with the same sins, still fall back into the old patterns of behavior. Perhaps we want to be holy, we want to start a prayer life, we want to overcome a sin, and we feel as if we’re running in mud. It can get discouraging.

            So we must live in the firm confidence that God can and will make us holy, in His time, if we desire it, too, and take the steps to let Him in (the Sacraments, daily prayer, Scripture, avoiding temptation). We do our part – and then have the eager expectation that He will carry us the rest of the way there. Isn’t this what happened to the Apostles at Pentecost? They struggled with their faithlessness, with their cowardice – and God, in one moment, transformed them into the courageous preachers who would give their lives for Christ.

            Besides, there have been saints who really struggled. St. Augustine struggled so much with lust that one day he prayed, “Lord, give me chastity…but not yet!” And his rival St. Jerome had a wicked – and wickedly funny – temper. Once, he wrote to a rival, “Show no nose upon your face and keep your mouth shut. Maybe then you will be both handsome and eloquent.” About another person, he wrote, “It is useless to play the harp for a donkey” – in other words, you’re not worth speaking with! But he fought his temper – he would often carry around a large rock and beat his chest in repentance (one Pope, upon seeing a painting of Jerome with the rock, quipped, “Ah, without the rock, there would be no sainthood for you!”). It was precisely the struggle and the battle that made him holy. And likewise with us – our firm confidence is that God can and will help us overcome our faults and flaws, if we persevere with eager expectation.

            Finally, as Christians we are called to eagerly expect Christ’s Second Coming. The early Church always prayed, “Maranatha” which means “Come, Lord Jesus!” It was an urgent desire, a burning plea. With all the insanity in the world today, we need to resurrect that plea in the hearts of believers – “Come, Lord Jesus!” For those who love Him, His coming will be the end of the reign of sin, bringing order out of the messiness of this world, finally vindicating all those who have suffered for their Faith. When He comes again, He will wipe away every tear, destroy Satan’s oppression, and lead His people to glory. He will come, not as a baby, but as a King in glory, for all to see.

            We don’t know when He will come, but there are some hints in Scripture and in the Catechism that prepare the way. We know that there will be a great apostasy (an abandonment of the Faith) – have we, perhaps, seen that over the past fifty years? Scripture speaks of the coming of the Antichrist, a man who will set himself up as a “savior” of the human race. He will not do evil things – on the contrary, he will be a great humanitarian and man of wisdom and peace – but he will do so without Christ, saying that humanity can save itself without God. We have not yet seen him, although many Catholic and Orthodox mystics have said that he is alive today. Finally, we know from Scripture that before Christ comes again, there will appear a Cross in the sky, visible to the entire world. All of this probably won’t happen in my lifetime, but it’s quite possible that it might happen in some of yours. But again – this is something to look forward to with eager expectation, because it will be the final victory of Christ!

            My friends, much of the Christian life is lived in eager expectation. I suppose another word for that is “hope” – we hope and expect that, as God fulfilled for the Apostles the promise to send the Holy Spirit, He will accomplish those promises still yet to be fulfilled. For our part, we wait in hope, in eager expectation, confident that God isn’t finished with us yet.

Easter 7 - A Better Way To Live

 

Homily for Easter 7

May 17, 2026

A Better Way To Live

 

            It was three o’clock in the morning when I was startled awake by a high school sophomore barging into my room and crying out, “Fr. Joseph, come quickly, they’re about to call the police!”

            We were on a week-long service trip to build houses for the poor, but one of the students named Peter may have come for other motives. He had quite a reputation in the school – rule-breaker, drug user, overall troublemaker. I was quite reluctant at taking him on the trip, but figured maybe God could do something in his life.

            But here I was at three in the morning, standing in the boys’ bathroom with the camp director and Peter, after other boys had accused him of doing drugs. I was too tired to be furious – maybe only disappointed. I took him off by himself and asked if he did it. Predictably, he denied it – but I knew it was a lie. So finally, in frustration, I said, “Peter, I’m offering you a better way to live. Jesus is offering you a better way to live. Will you take it?”

            He looked at me, mystified. If this were a Disney movie, we’d see this as a life-transforming moment, cue the dramatic music. But life isn’t a Disney movie. And after that week, I never saw Peter again, as he transferred out to another school. I still pray for him.

            This world offers us one way to live – but Christ offers us a better way. Christ is warning His disciples that they live in the world, but are not to be of the world. The “world” does not mean that this physical earth is in any way bad. It was created good, and it was given to humanity to rule in the Name of God. But we believed the lies from Satan that God could not be trusted, and that we could make ourselves gods – and in doing so, we gave the dominion over to the Evil One. So the “world” is Jesus’ shorthand for all of the lies and forces that are opposed to His Kingdom.

            And let’s be honest, we find these lies everywhere. We drive behind an Amazon delivery truck and it reads, “Warning: contents may cause happiness.” Really? Material things can make me truly happy? My box of Cheerios reads: “You deserve joy.” What have I done to deserve joy? And is a bowl of Cheerios the source of it? Jesus wants to offer us a better way to live. He has chosen us Christians in the midst of the world, to live as salt and leaven and light, but living according to the truths of Heaven.

            Let’s examine a few of the lies that the world tells us.

            For example, the world says that image is more important than reality. It amazes me that people can become rich and famous for being “social media influencers”. They may have nothing actually to say, but they’re good looking and so people follow them anywhere. Can anything be more shallow? Some of the teens at my school are all into a trend called looksmaxxing, which can be a pretty extreme focus on making sure we have the perfect physique. Back in the day, we called that the sin of vanity. A man’s strength is more than big muscles – it’s having the interior self-possession to die to self so to live for Christ. A woman’s beauty is more than hair and makeup – it’s being adorned with virtues and holiness. Jesus calls us to a depth of spirit that’s more than skin-deep. Holiness may not look Instagram-worthy but the reality is far more important than the image.

            We frequently receive the message that success is more important than doing God’s will. But as Mother Teresa likes to remind us, “God has not called me to be successful, but faithful.” The world thinks that the successful person is the one who goes to the best schools, climbs the corporate ladder, pads their bank account, is a “winner”. But at our judgment, God will ask, “Did you do My Will? I made you to be a garbage collector – were you the best garbage collector you could be?”

            In the early 1990s, a young Polish girl named Beata had graduated high school but had no funds to go to college, so she prayed about where to go next. She was invited to become a nanny to a wealthy family with one little boy in Italy, so she packed up and moved to a new country. Although this family was not religious in the least, Beata brought a small image of Our Lady to the boy, and taught him some prayers, both in Polish and Italian. The boy was fascinated by these prayers, and asked for more. Beata began bringing him to church, which prompted the young boy to begin asking his parents to take him, as well. Pretty soon, even after the nanny returned to Poland, the boy kept that fervor of faith growing – and we now know him as St. Carlo Acutis. But there would be no St. Carlo if it were not for Beata. To the world, it looked as if she was just a simple, uneducated laborer – but she fulfilled God’s plan for her life, and brought a saint out of it (she’s still alive, by the way!). Have you ever asked God’s plan for your life? And are you living it out?

            We hear the world say, make your own life, your own moral code. It boggles my mind how many people tell me, “Oh, God doesn’t mind what I’m doing.” Last week someone told me that God didn’t mind the fact that they were divorced and remarried, even though Jesus said clearly in Matthew 19 that “he who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery.” Last month someone tried to tell me that God was okay with them being transgender because, as they said, “He made me this way.” No, He did not – we live in a fallen world with many disordered desires, and God has made it clear that there are only two immutable genders. It is an error called relativism to believe that we have the power to make our own ethical or moral compass. Truth is received from God; it’s not invented by man.

            Finally, the world does not believe that eternity is approaching. Driving up the Route 25 connector, you may have seen the graffiti on the rock wall that reads, “Live fast – die young.” The world lives by the motto, YOLO – You Only Live Once. If that were the case, then fill yourself up at the banquet of life! But we actually live twice – and this is just the appetizer. So don’t fill yourself up so much that you lose the hunger for eternity.

            My friends, if we are citizens of a country, we have to follow the laws of that country. As Christians, we are citizens of Heaven – just passing through this world on our way home. St. Claude di Columbiere said, “If you follow the truths of Jesus Christ, you will condemn the lies of the world, you will trample its idols underfoot; the world, henceforth, will want nothing to do with you.” True – rejecting the world’s lies will make the world reject us – but what a better way to live!

            Eight centuries ago, a teen girl named Chiara Offreduccio was living the life. Her family was one of the richest in town, with an estate that overlooked the plaza in front of the church. They were faithful, but shallow people – and Chiara already had her future picked out for her. Marriage to a fine nobleman, a wonderful life full of the riches that the world could offer. One day she was leaning out her window, overlooking the courtyard in front of the church, when she saw a poor beggar stand on the church steps and begin to preach that Jesus Christ alone was worth living for. As a crowd gathered to listen, this teen girl’s ears perked up. What a novel idea – to live for something deeper than just the shallow, vain life of parties, dresses, gossip and intrigue? Was there really a better way to live?

            That night, she went to meet with that beggar, who encouraged her to live according to the Gospel. He was dirt-poor, wearing a patched robe, but radiating joy. She wanted to join him, so she arranged to run away from home. A few days later, she executed the plan, and the humble beggar met her in the church late at night, welcomed her, and cut off her hair as a sign that she belonged to God alone.

            Her family thought she’d lost her mind, so they sent out search parties to find her. When they realized she had followed this young madman, they thought she’d fallen prey to a cult. Her uncles tried to bring her back, but miraculously her body became so heavy that they couldn’t budge her an inch. They eventually relented, and this young girl became known as St. Clare of Assisi, the first female follower of St. Francis of Assisi.

            The great St. Francis had offered her a better way to live – for God, for Heaven. That same offer is extended to you this day. Are you tired of the endless rat-race competition of the American dream? Does it all seem futile to you? If so, maybe you’re ready to reject the lies of the world and live that better life in union with Christ that He offers you now.

Ascension Thursday - May 14, 2026

 

Homily for Ascension Thursday

May 14, 2026

They Worshipped but Doubted

 

            I’ve always been intrigued with the small detail from today’s Gospel: when these Apostles saw the Risen Lord, it states that “they worshipped, but doubted.” How can you worship if you doubt? And why would they doubt after having several encounters with Resurrected Christ?

            I think they doubted because seeing a man risen from the dead was so outside of the realm of possibility that they wondered if it could even happen. Resurrection was impossible! They saw Him die; they saw the body cold, the tomb sealed. And yet He spoke with them again; He ate breakfast in their presence; He invited them to touch His wounds. Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance” – when we try to make sense of two contradictory truths. The truth is, Jesus died. And the truth is, He is alive.

            So, they worshipped, but they still couldn’t make sense of this new way of being. It was so extraordinary that they still doubted – until the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost, which so convicted them of the truth of the Resurrection that they were able to fulfill Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” – believing so deeply that they gave their lives for Him.

            I think that we also worship, but doubt – although our doubting comes from the exact opposite reason. We don’t doubt because the Catholic Faith is so extraordinary it’s hard to believe – rather, we doubt because it is seemingly so ordinary that we don’t recognize the full, powerful, earth-shattering teachings of Christ.

            For example, do you believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist – not a sign or symbol, but His true Body and Blood? I certainly hope so. But if the answer is yes, then why do we so easily skip Sunday Mass if we’ve got sports? Why do we show up at Mass in shorts and flip-flops? Why does this church turn into a social hall with loud conversations after Mass, completely ignoring the Real Presence of God Himself in the tabernacle? Why would we not make time in our busy schedule to visit the empty Church during the day and spend time with Him?

            [I’ve seen many of you sitting in the lobby or in the gym while we have our Tuesday Masses going on. What does that say about what we believe? Is it Jesus or is it not? Because if it’s just bread, we should pack this up and go home. If this is Jesus, why would we choose to do anything except be in His presence? And how many of you don’t even bother making a visit to Jesus during your school day? The God of the universe is literally down the hall and we don’t bother stopping by. Do we believe, or do we doubt like those Apostles?]

            Back in the 1960s, there was a lieutenant governor of Quebec named Paul Comtois. He was a man of great devotion, leading his wife and five kids in the Rosary daily even as he led the Province of Quebec with great wisdom. His love for the Lord was so intense that he asked his Bishop if he could turn a spare room in his house into a chapel and keep the Eucharist there. The Bishop agreed, on the condition that Paul be personally responsible for the safety and care of the Blessed Sacrament. He agreed, and would often pray before and after his visits to Parliament.

            However, on a cold day in February 1966, his house caught fire. He was able to get all of his wife and children out safely, but our Eucharistic Lord was still inside! Without a second thought, he rushed back into the burning building to rescue the Lord. But by that time it was too late – the house collapsed around him. When firefighters finally put out the fire, they found that he had died clutching the Eucharist to his chest – and the Eucharist was unharmed.

            Inspiring, right? Here was a man who didn’t doubt – he believed. And that’s how we know what we believe – what we’re willing to die for.

            Or, for example, do we really believe that we will live forever, either as an eternal triumph in Heaven, or an everlasting tragedy in Hell? Because if we really believed this, then why in the world would we care about the really silly petty stuff that occupies our days – and neglect the only thing that really matters: our eternal soul?

            St. John Vianney once said, “The lukewarm soul is that soul who would like to be worldly without ceasing to be a child of God. You will see them at one moment bowing before God, his Savior and his Master, and the next moment bowing before the world, his idol.” He goes on to tell the story of visiting one young woman who was rather careless about her spiritual life, and asking if she wanted to go to Confession. She said, “No, not to you. You would make me give up my fun in life.” (By “fun” she meant many sinful amusements). She continued, “I go to Fr. So-and-so, because he’s not as strict and just tells me to try to be good. After all, we cannot all be saints in this life.”

            Poor girl! She went to Mass weekly and didn’t commit huge sins, but gave no thought to the fact that her time here was limited, and her life was meant to prepare her for eternal glory if it was lived rightly. She believed, but she doubted.

            And this is the case for many of us. Oh, we’re Catholic all right. But we’ve become so bored with our faith that it has failed to impact our lives. We believe, but we doubt.

            So what must we do? We can’t only believe the teachings of Christ, we also have to live out their implications. If the Eucharist is truly Jesus, we must never pass up an opportunity to come to Mass or make a visit to the Lord. If this life really does prepare us for eternity, then we ought to seek to make real progress in the spiritual life. If Jesus really is God, and His teachings in the Scripture are real, then we need to forgive our enemies, love our neighbor, and take up our crosses.

            Our Catholic Faith should always remain extraordinary. God became a person. God died for you. You now get to eat God, and you have the opportunity to be with God forever. Blessed are those who worship, praise, and believe!

Easter 6 - Faith Is Our Rosetta Stone

 

Easter 6

May 10, 2026

Faith Is The Interpretive Key

 

            When Christianity came to northern Africa in the mid-300s, one effect was that people started to read and write in Greek, rather than in the old Egyptian hieroglyphics. After a while, everyone forgot how to read this ancient Egyptian language. For centuries, these pictures remained a mystery to archeologists and researchers, until a game-changing discovery in 1799: the Rosetta Stone. This stone told the same story in three languages, allowing people to place the Greek writing side-by-side with the hieroglyphs – and for the first time in the modern world, archeologists were able to interpret this mysterious language.

            Life can be mysterious, too. Why are we here? What’s the meaning of suffering? How can we find happiness? What’s the secret to a good marriage? Is there life after death? I remember coming across a book one time entitled, “Ten Best Guesses About Life” – the author said that he didn’t have any actual answers, but here were his best guesses about those deep questions that plague every human being.

            But goodness, doesn’t your heart cry out for something more solid than just a “best guess”? We need some sort of Rosetta Stone, some rock-solid interpretive key to understanding what life is all about – and thanks be to God, we have that. It’s our Catholic Faith.

            Faith is the interpretive key to making sense of the mystery of life. Pope John Paul II said, “It is only in the mystery of Christ that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.” Psychology can help us understand ourselves; therapy can give us insights into our behavior; science can shed some light upon what it means to be human; but only our faith in Jesus Christ shows us where we have come from, how we are to live, and where we are ultimately going.

            Where have we come from? Many of you who grew up with the Baltimore Catechism remember the first question: “Who made you? God made you. Why did He make you? To know, love and serve Him so that we can be eternally happy with him in Heaven.” It’s that simple!

            How are we to live? Jesus Christ, of course, is the model of our behavior. If you grew up in the ‘90s like I did, you remember the phrase WWJD – What Would Jesus Do. It was plastered on posters, tee-shirts, bracelets, every bit of Christian swag that my youth minister could find (looking back, it was quite cringe!). A nice, but incomplete, idea. We are to live, not just like Christ, but in intimate union with Christ through grace. In today’s Gospel, He speaks about giving us the Commandments…but also about giving us the Holy Spirit. We obey Him, but with the strength given by grace. We live a pure, forgiving, merciful, courageous, trusting, surrendered life – by His power in us.

            Where are we going? The Spirit puts the answer in our hearts – we were made for a better world, a place without the brokenness and sin that we wallow in here.

            And this sheds light on every aspect of our lives. What is work for? For developing our talents to the glory of God, serving others, and making it an offering to the Lord. What is the purpose of legitimate pleasure? It is meant to be a foretaste of Heaven. How do we have good friendships? By seeking people who are pursuing virtues themselves, so that we may be positively influenced by them. What’s the secret to a happy marriage? Imitating Christ’s self-sacrificing love. How can we suffer well? By offering it up to Jesus in love, and allowing it to purge us of our faults. How do we make good choices? By bringing them to prayer and seeking the Lord’s will for our lives. How can we be truly happy? By loving God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and sacrificing our life for the good of our neighbor. It is our Catholic Faith that helps us interpret the mystery of human life!

            So, I have a homework assignment for you. Consider an aspect of your life that perhaps you’re confused or unhappy or not at peace about. Maybe it’s a relationship; or your marriage; or your work; or a suffering you’re enduring; or some other stress in your life. This week, go and research what Christ has to say about this particular topic. Don’t go looking on TikTok or Youtube; go straight to the source: the Bible and the Catechism. The answers are there if we know where to look!

            And if we start to see the world through the lens of our Catholic Faith, what joy and meaning we will have! In the early 1900s, there was a young man from Poland named Jan Tyranowski. He was a quiet man in his thirties – a tailor, an introvert, a man who kept to himself due to his bad health and shy temperament. One day he was at Mass when the priest said from the pulpit, “It isn’t difficult to become a saint!” Jan realized that this was indeed his calling – to become holy in his own life – and his ordinary life began to make sense. He started imbuing his work with prayer; offering his bad health to God as a sacrifice; studying the Lives of the Saints; frequenting the Sacraments. The priest noticed that this young man became more fervent in his faith, so he asked him to help out with the parish youth group. Reluctantly – because he was still painfully shy – he agreed. But pretty soon, the Nazis invaded Poland and took the priests into the Dachau concentration camp – leaving the parish without any leadership.

            So Jan took it upon himself to keep working with the youth. He began secret weekly meetings at his apartment where young men would gather for fellowship, a spiritual talk, and praying the Rosary together. One day, a new young man named Karol showed up – and was very impressed by Jan’s spirituality. Karol had been questioning the meaning of his own life, but hearing Jan speak about everyone’s call to holiness, he realized that this was the purpose of his existence – to glorify and love God, and spend eternity in Heaven. Young Karol decided to become a priest – and later on became a Pope and a saint, St. John Paul II. For his part, Jan is now Venerable Jan Tyranowski – on the path to sainthood himself. He sought the answers to life, and found them in Jesus Christ and his Catholic Faith.

            Life is not a mystery when it is lived in the light of Christ, who reveals man to himself.