Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - July 16, 2017

Homily for Ordinary Time 15

July 16, 2017

Ridding Our Soil of Sin

 

            One of my least favorite chores growing up was picking up rocks. My dad had a huge garden – probably twice the size of this church. Every year, during the spring time, my dad would pay us a dollar to fill up a bucket of rocks from the garden, and then dump them in the woods. Not a fun task – but an easy way to make a buck, and an important job, because it is hard to make a garden if there are too many rocks in the soil.

            The rocky ground, the hard ground, and the thorn-infested ground in today’s Gospel are symbols of three things. The rocks symbolize unrepentant sin – if our life is full of sin, we will be unable to become holy. The hard ground is a symbol of a hard heart and a bad attitude – we are convinced that we don’t need God. The thorns and weeds are a symbol of worldly desires – we want pleasure and money and comfort far more than we want Christ.

            All of us would like to believe that we are the good ground – that we are living a life of faith in God. But are we really? Let’s look at each of these types of ground more closely to see which ones we really are.

            First – the rocky ground. St. John tells us in his first letter that “if we believe we are without sin, we are deceiving ourselves”. No matter how many rocks my siblings and I took out of our garden, there were always more. It was a never-ending chore! Likewise, all of us are sinners, even if our sins are small. Thus, repentance must be daily. St. Francis wrote to his Franciscan brothers that their lives should be marked with “constant conversion”.

            So what does that look like, practically? Well, when is the last time you have been to Confession? If it is more than a couple months, then you are still living in sin. Are there sins in your life that you have made peace with? Perhaps an addiction to lust and impurity, or greed, or unforgiveness? Or even worse – living in a state of sin, such as those who are divorced and remarried outside the Church, or living with someone without marriage? If we are not making a daily effort to repent and rid our lives of sin (with God’s grace, of course), then we are not truly disciples!

            Second – the hard ground. Many of us live our lives as practical atheists! Perhaps we believe intellectually in God but He makes no real difference in our life. How do you know? Well, do you pray – really pray, seeking Him in Scripture and the Rosary and the Mass and silent prayer? Do you ask God what His will is for your life? I love what Corrie Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor and author of the famous book “The Hiding Place” says about prayer – she asks, “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” In other words, does your relationship with God direct your life? If not, then we are hard ground!

            Third – the thorns and weeds. What do you truly want in life? What is the most burning desire of your heart? Is it to be holy, or to be rich and famous? I sponsored a great kid for confirmation this past year, and at his confirmation party we were all outside playing sports. In the heat of competition, he let out a mild curse word – as mild as you can get. I didn’t think anything of it, but he immediately came up to me and apologized. I said, “Peter, it’s not a big deal.” But he responded, “It is a big deal. I don’t want to be the kind of person who has a foul mouth.” I was taken aback – wow, this kid gets it. His goal in life is to be holy, and he is willing to do what it takes to live for Christ.

            So, for us, what really is our goal in life? What do we spend our time on, our money on, our energy on? Is it soccer, or our job, or living for Christ?

            This was meant to be an honest – even brutally honest! – examination of where we are in the spiritual life. Do not be discouraged if you find your soul to be rocky ground filled with sin, hard ground without a deep relationship with God, or thorny ground distracted by the things of this world. The good news is that soil can change! To make a garden, we have to till the ground, remove the rocks, weed it, water it, and prepare the soil – in the same way, God wants to change you – if you will let Him. Ask Him to do that today. Invite Him into your soul. He will come, with His grace, and like a master gardener, produce the fruits of a holy life in your soul. Invite Him in – start praying deeply from your heart, receiving the Sacraments frequently, seek the Lord in His Word. His grace is all you need to change hard ground into a fruitful garden.

Ordinary Time 13 - July 2, 2017

Homily for Ordinary Time 13

July 2, 2017

Generosity

 

            There was once a poor man who owned an orchard, and one year his trees produced a remarkably beautiful, huge apple. He debated what to do with it – should he eat it, or make it into a pie, or what? Finally, being a generous man, he decided to give it away to a widow who was even poorer than him. So he put it into a basket and anonymously left it on her doorstep.

            She opened the door and was surprised and delighted at what she saw, but immediately thought, “This is far more than I need! I know what I shall do, I will add some of my grapes to this basket and pass it along to a family who is even poorer than me.” So that is what she did, and she went down the mountain and left the basket with the apple and grapes on the doorstep of an even poorer family.

            This poorer family opened the door and was surprised. “We cannot keep such a gift,” they thought. “Let us give it to the even poorer man who lives down the road.” So they added a quart of wild blueberries that they had been collecting, and set off to leave it at the door of the very poor man down the road.

            The poor man saw the basket and was filled with gratitude but said, “I have more than enough. I know – I will bring it to another man who needs food, and I will add some of the eggs from my chickens.” So he went up the mountain to a poor man who lived at the top.

            The man who owned the apple orchard was shocked when he saw his own basket back on his front steps – not just with the apple in it, but also with grapes and blueberries and eggs! He thanked God for the multiplication of the food, and invited all of his poor neighbors to a feast.

            There is a saying that “God is never outdone in generosity.” I have absolutely found that to be true. There have been times in my life when I have debated, “Should I make such a large donation to this organization that helps the poor?” The times that I have said yes, I have found that God – through other people – has actually allowed me to end up with MORE money than before!

            At the risk of sounding like a televangelist, I can confidently assure you that God is never outdone in generosity. He promised in today’s Gospel that anyone who practices hospitality for the sake of the Gospel will receive a reward. Consider what He says – if you give a cup of cold water, which costs nothing and only takes a little effort, you will be rewarded. And if you treat a disciple with kindness, we will receive a disciple’s reward.

            It feels like a risk to be generous sometimes. We wonder if it’s worth the effort, if we will ever get that money back, or if we can really open our homes to someone. What if they are not grateful? What if they take advantage of us? It is risky, indeed – but with risk comes great reward. Just like it’s a risk to invest in stocks, but the payoff is huge, it is a risk to be generous with your time, money, and energy, but the payoff is huge – and guaranteed – in the blessings you will receive back.

            Allow me to suggest three practical ways in which we can practice generosity.

            First, we can tithe. That’s a dirty word to some Catholics! Tithing is a biblical principle which means giving 10% to the Lord – either to the Church or to a Catholic charity. In the Old Testament, the Lord requires a tithe of all of the crops, grain, wine, oil, and livestock. The first 10% belonged to Him – as a sacrifice in the Temple, or as an offering to the priests, or as generosity to the poor. Proverbs 3:9-10 says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first-fruits of your crops, and your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” In the New Testament, St. Paul instructs his churches to practice tithing, and the early Church followed suit.

            We do not tithe because the church needs a new roof or because the poor need food. Ultimately, we tithe as an act of worship! By tithing, we are recognizing that God is the source of all blessings and that we honor Him by our generosity. Money can strengthen our union with God if we use it rightly, by giving it away to the Church and to the needy. I tithe, and I highly recommend the practice to every Christian!

            A second way to practice generosity is to be open to life in our marriage. I used to ask couples preparing for marriage, “How many kids do you want to have?” But I stopped asking that question because it’s a fundamentally stingy attitude! (And because no couple ever said more than 2 or 3!). We should rather be asking, How many kids does God want us to have? If children are a gift, why would we not want more gifts from God? Yes, it does take time and effort to raise children – and this is where the generosity part comes in. God wants us to be as generous as possible in opening our family to His gift of new life!

            Finally, one last act of generosity that we ought to practice is to give time. Think to yourself – how many of you would say that your life is “busy”? Busyness is the curse of the modern age. Often, we are too busy to take time to listen to people, to reach out to family members and friends who would benefit from a conversation or a visit. This can be a powerful form of generosity – to reach out to a neighbor, friend, or family member who could use a listening ear or a friendly visit.

            So, my challenge for you is to challenge God. I said at the beginning that God is never outdone in generosity – put that to the test! Pick one of those three ways: tithing, openness to life, and spending quality time – and practice it this week or this month. See if God does not overflow your life with joy and blessings in response to your generosity!

Homily for Ordinary Time 12 - June 25, 2017

Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

June 25, 2017

Witness to Christ

 

            There was a great meme floating around the Internet. For those who don’t know what a meme is, it’s a funny picture with a caption or quote on it. This particular meme featured a picture of Abraham Lincoln, and the caption read, “Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.’” Obviously that is not a direct quote from our fourteenth president!

            It also drives me crazy when people make up fake quotes from the saints. One of the worst ones is often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi – “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words.” A nice thought – problem is, not only did he not say that, but it is often used as a copout, when people say, “Oh, we don’t need to talk about Christ, because we live like Him already.” St. Francis would have said the opposite – he was often preaching in five villages per day. He would stand on a bale of hay or on the steps of a public building, and preach very passionately to anyone who would hear. And many people stopped to listen to this fiery, passionate preacher! We must not just live the Gospel – we must witness to Christ publicly.

            Two weeks ago, we were having a marketing meeting at Trinity High School. One of our board members said, “Maybe we should become more like Fairfield Prep or Laurelton Hall, because they don’t wear their Catholicism on their sleeve.” Luckily the rest of the room quickly disagreed with him – including myself. We should be proud to be visibly, undeniably Catholic – not just a subtle quiet Catholicism, but one that declares for all to see that we belong to Jesus Christ. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about!

            Jesus is very clear in today’s Gospel that if we are embarrassed to speak about Jesus Christ and to be known as a public Christian, then He will be embarrassed about us and deny us before His Heavenly Father. But as our first reading reveals, speaking the Name of Christ is not always popular. Jeremiah was considerably persecuted – beaten, put into stocks, and thrown into a dry cistern. It was controversial in his time, and it is controversial in ours.

            Do you all remember the former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow? He led his Denver Broncos from a 1-4 start to beat the Steelers in the playoffs. Despite his success on the football field, he was roundly criticized for being a very public Christian. One of his fellow quarterbacks one time said, “I would like Tebow a lot more if he would just shut up about his faith in Jesus Christ.” The persecution that follows a public Christian is what prompts Jesus to urge us to put our trust in God – He will take care of us if we are not afraid to speak His Name.

            So how do we witness to Christ publicly? I would give three suggestions.

            First, surround ourselves with holy things. I know a kid who wore a shirt that read, “John 3:16” on his first day at a public high school. That took courage – but as it turned out, nobody bullied him for it. Rather, they respected that he had enough faith to be public about his relationship with Christ. My dad had a small crucifix in his office at work – when people would stop by his office, they would see that he was a believer – and often they would ask him for prayers or ask questions about the Catholic faith. I still wear a scapular beneath my shirt, which is a brown cloth that symbolizes my consecration to Our Lady. When I was wearing it as a teen, it was quite the discussion starter! But what a great way to witness publicly!

            Second, find ways to bring up faith in everyday conversations. If someone is sharing with you a problem they’re going through, offer to pray for them – and then pray with them, right there. It’s powerful! When someone asks about your weekend plans, tell them about how you are looking forward to coming to Mass. Don’t be afraid to share why you are passionately in love with Jesus Christ. Bring up His Name and His Faith in everyday conversations!

            Finally, invite people to come to Mass with you. If you really love your parish, you want her to grow – and if you really love your family and friends, you would introduce them to the most important person in your life – Jesus. We so easily invite friends to try new restaurants or to see the latest movie, so why not invite them to something greater than Guardians of the Galaxy? The Mass is the greatest hour of our week, because it is an encounter with God – why not invite others here, too? The worst they could say is no, and I bet that most people would actually be quite honored by the invitation!

            So, here is my challenge for you. Choose one of these three ways of witnessing to Christ – surrounding ourselves with holy things like wearing a crucifix or having a bible on our desk at school; bringing up our faith in everyday conversation; or inviting someone to Mass – and actually go out and do it this week! Let me know how it goes! If we are not ashamed to speak the name of Jesus in public, to our family and friends, then He will not be ashamed to speak our name before His Heavenly Father!

Corpus Christi Sunday - June 18, 2017

Homily for Corpus Christi

June 18, 2017

The High Cost of the Eucharist

 

            Back in the Roman Empire a priest wanted to bring Holy Communion to the sick, but the Christian persecution was raging and he knew he might get killed if he were caught in public with the Eucharist. One of his altar boys, a young man named Tarcissius, volunteered to take the Eucharist to the sick 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 started to throw heavy rocks at him. Bleeding, aching, but knowing he needed to protect the Eucharist, Tarcissius continued to guard the Holy Sacrament. He was eventually knocked unconscious and died from his injuries. He is now called St. Tarcissius, a young martyr for the Eucharist.

            It should give us pause to consider what great lengths people will go for the Eucharist. Under the reign of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England, there was a law that taxed anyone who attended Mass. One proper gentleman was first in line every week to pay the tax, and when asked why he didn’t just convert to become an Anglican, he said, “This is but a small price to pay to receive the greatest gift of all in my Lord’s Body and Blood.”

            How much would you pay for the privilege of receiving His Body and Blood? How far would you drive – or walk – to attend Mass? How blessed we are in Stamford, where 13 Catholic Churches offer about 65 different Masses each weekend – all within the confines of our city!

            It amazes me what lengths people will go to for things of this world. So many people will drive hundreds of miles to a soccer tournament, getting up early and paying exorbitant fees, but when the God of the universe is waiting in our local parish church, not just to be worshipped but to be received…perhaps we do not fully understand or believe what we are receiving!

            I can confidently declare that there is nothing on this earth worth more than the Holy Eucharist, because the Eucharist is a foretaste of Heaven. Everything else on this earth came from dust and will return to dust, but the Eucharist is God Himself – the Creator, the Savior, the Awesome One. So, in light of this, there is nothing better we can do with our time than come to Mass – daily, if possible. Consider this – on your deathbed, which will matter more: all the times we got to sleep in, all the extra TV shows we watched, or the times we were able to be in the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist? When we are dying, we will be consoled best by knowing that we have loved and received the greatest gift of all – the Holy Eucharist.

            In a sense, one can say that the depth of our faith is directly proportional to the amount we are willing to sacrifice for it. If we are willing to sacrifice a lot for Christ, then it is clear that we have great faith in Him. If we suffer only a little for Christ, then we believe very little. Since the Eucharist is truly Him, then the Eucharist is worth sacrificing everything for!

            Just two weeks ago you may have read that 29 Coptic Christians were brutally martyred in Egypt by Muslim terrorists. Coptic Christians are Orthodox Christians – they have all valid Sacraments, including the Eucharist, though they are under the Patriarch and not the Pope. But these 29 people – several of whom were children – paid the ultimate price for their faith in Jesus Christ. They were on their way to a Divine Liturgy (an Orthodox Mass) when they were killed. Their souls now rejoice in Heaven, because they chose the Eucharist over their very life.

            I pray that we have the same faith in Jesus Christ’s true presence.

Trinity Sunday - June 11, 2017

Homily for Trinity Sunday

June 11, 2017

Attributes of God

 

            I was walking out of a particularly beautiful Mass at my college one day when a dear friend came up to me and exclaimed, “Don’t you just love God!” Of course I do – and of course we all do. But to love God, we must understand who He is. Luckily, He revealed Himself to us!

Today’s readings talk about God. You might be saying, “Of course they talk about God! It is church, after all!” But they talk about who God is – in His very nature! We need to know who God is before we can worship God.

            Yes, God is a mystery. But a mystery, in our Catholic terminology, is not like a Hardy Boys mystery. Mystery does not mean that something is unknowable – it means that something can never be fully known. It is infinitely knowable! We can say many things about God, but we can never know Him fully – even after all eternity, there will be more depths to the mystery! It’s kind of like a spring of water – we can draw water from it to drink, but it continues to flow and we can go back again and again without ever exhausting the source.

            So let’s talk about two of the aspects of God that we see in today’s readings, and how they apply to our lives.

            Our first reading reveals something important: the Name and essence of God. When the Lord passes by Moses, God calls out His name. Now we use the sanitized translation which has Him saying, “The Lord, the Lord!” But the Hebrew word is “Yahweh”. Yahweh is the name of God that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. Yahweh means, “I Am Who Am.”

            So when God reveals His Name, He reveals who He is: I Am. Sounds confusing to modern ears – but God is basically saying that He is existence itself. There is no past in God – He is not “I Was” – and there is no future in God – He is not “I Will Be”. He is always in the present; or rather, all time is in Him. This is a mind-blowing mystery – that God is outside of time and space. He is the creator of time and space, and He is present in all time and all space. That means there is never a place or a time where God is not there. He is there at the top of Mount Everest and in the depths of the sea and in your house and this church and in the brothel down the street. He is literally everywhere. Yes, His presence can be sensed by us much more in a church than elsewhere – and we as human beings need sacred spaces to set apart for worship. But there is not a place where God is not.

            In the same way, God is outside of time. Kids always ask me, “Who created God?” But creation implies that there was a time when something didn’t exist – there was a time when I didn’t exist, and when this church didn’t exist, and when this planet didn’t exist – but there was no time when God didn’t exist. This is hard for us to grasp because we have never experienced being outside of time. But God is outside of time!

            So how does all this apply to our lives? Because sometimes we think that we are too far for God to reach. That our sins and our past are too dark for God to be there. That our problems are too big for God to handle. My friends, if God is everywhere and the creator of space and time, I can promise you that He is not only “Yahweh” (I Am), He is also “Emmanuel” (God with us). He is big enough to love you for who you are, and big enough to make you into a saint! The entire universe depends upon God for its existence – we can depend upon God for our needs and troubles! At the same time, since He is the source of our existence, then we have the duty and obligation to worship Him and seek Him.

            There is a second thing that our readings teach us about God. In the Gospel we hear that famous John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world…” That should give us pause. God loves the world? Most of the time I’m pretty annoyed at the world! But it reveals that God’s nature is love. John tells us, “God is love”. We tend to think of love as a feeling, but love at its deepest core is wanting what is best for the other person. He is always “willing the good” – working for the benefit – of all creation.

            This should apply to us immediately! Sometimes when things don’t go our way in life we say, “God, what are You up to? You should have done something different!” But God is pure love – He can never do anything not loving, not for our benefit. We need to realize that in every circumstance, especially the difficult ones, we must give thanks because He is always acting for our good, even when we might not see it.

            My friends, who God is determines how we worship and love Him. Knowing that He is the Almighty, the Creator, the Source of Being, and Pure Love allows us to order our lives in the proper way. God truly is great!

Pentecost Sunday - June 4, 2017

Homily for Pentecost Sunday

June 4, 2017

Why Be Catholic?

 

            I trust Wikipedia far more than I should. I also trust my GPS, my dentist, and my local newspaper (that last one might be a big mistake). We need to trust things like that because no one can figure out absolutely everything on their own! I know nothing about dentistry or auto mechanics – thus, I trust that my dentist and my mechanic know more than I do about their respective sciences!

            As great as it is to fix a car or show me the best route from Stamford to New Haven, there are more important matters in life – namely, how to love God well, to follow Him, and to get to Heaven. So wouldn’t Jesus leave us an authority to guide us on the most important matters? He did – He left us His Word in the Scriptures, and He left us His Church to teach His Word without error.

            Three thousand people converted to Christ because of Peter’s preaching on Pentecost – but it wasn’t his preaching alone that did it. It was the authority behind that teaching – authority because it was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter (our first Pope) and the Apostles (our first Bishops) were given the authority to teach and preach in Christ’s name! The Gospel features Jesus giving the authority to forgive sins to His Apostles, through the power of the Spirit. Clearly, Jesus entrusts His Church with remarkable authority – the authority to preach and forgive in His name!

            Some of our Protestant brothers and sisters say that the only authority we need is the Bible. But the Bible itself gives witness that the Church is indispensable – for example, 1 Timothy 3:15 says that “the pillar and bulwark of the truth is…the Church!” Besides, there are over 33,000 different Protestant denominations, all claiming that the Bible is their only authority – yet the Bible is not meant to splinter us into so many different groups with diverse teachings! Thus, we need an authentic interpreter of Scripture – one who can tell us how it applies to modern day.

            It’s a lot like our government. We have our Constitution, which is the foundational document of our nation. But how does that apply to today? Lots of questions come up that need answers – so we have the Supreme Court to help us interpret the Constitution.

            But we have one major difference – we have a promise that the Holy Spirit will never desert the Church (while our government does not have the same kind of assurance!). This makes sense – imagine that someone gave you a GPS and said, “Yeah, this is probably right, but it might make some mistakes.” How likely are you to trust the GPS – or that fake friend, for that matter? Not likely. So would Jesus give us His Church if it could be wrong every now and then? What kind of church would that be? It makes sense, then, that Christ would make sure His Church would have the gift of the Holy Spirit known as infallibility to make sure we wouldn’t stray off the path.

            Infallibility means that the Church would never teach an error. Infallibility does not mean that everyone in the Church is perfect. You may have heard of “The Keepers” which is a new Netflix documentary that discusses some of the evils committed by a priest in Baltimore in the 1960s. A friend who watched it posted on social media, “The Catholic Church is a corrupt organization! I will never set foot in a Catholic Church again!” I had to respond that while yes, there are many great sinners in the Church, there are many great saints as well. And only in the Catholic Church do we find the fullness of grace – through faith, Scripture, and Sacraments – which can take a sinner and make them a saint! The Church is full of imperfect people, which is a good thing – because I am an imperfect person! As the great novelist Walker Percy said to a friend who had converted to Catholicism, “The Church is a very untidy group you are hooking up with, but it’s the one thing that will be around until the end!”

            This past week in our middle school lunchtime bible study, we were asking the kids what they liked about being Catholic. I was expecting something like, “I like our church building, or the music, or the great coffee and donuts after Mass.” But in each session, they all said, “I like being Catholic because it is true.” There are a lot of perks to being Catholic. The saints, the beauty, the tradition…but all of those are not the main reason. We are Catholic because it is true. It is only here that we receive Christ’s true Body and Blood in the Eucharist. It is only within the loving embrace of the Church that we read and interpret Scripture rightly. It is only here that we encounter Christ in His fullness. St. Ignatius of Antioch said back in the second century, “Where the bishop is, there is the Church, and where the Catholic Church is, there is Jesus Christ.”

            Why be Catholic? Because it’s true, and it was established by Jesus Christ with the authority to lead us to Heaven. That’s good enough for me!

Homily for Easter 7 - May 28, 2017

Homily for Easter 7

May 28, 2017

All Flows From Union With God

 

            The story goes that a banquet was being held in celebration of an elderly priest’s 50^th anniversary of ordination. Many famous people who were personal friends of the priest were in attendance, including one very famous Shakespearean actor. During the course of the after-dinner convocation, someone asked the actor to recite Psalm 23 – the one that begins, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” The actor agreed to do it, on the condition that the priest would recite it after him.

            The room was quieted and in a powerful, dramatic voice, the Shakespearean actor gave an unforgettable recitation of the Psalm. The room shook with thunderous applause when he had finished. After this, the priest slowly got up, and in a quiet voice, trembling with age, he recited the same Psalm – “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want…” When he had finished, there was absolute, reverential silence in the room, and tears were streaming down many people’s faces.

            The actor turned to the man beside him and said, “Why do people cheer at my performance, but are moved with emotion at his?”

            The man responded, “You know the Psalm, but the priest knows the Shepherd.”

            The priest was able to move hearts because of his union with God. Although his words were the exact same words as the actor’s, they were spoken with a hidden power – the power of God, which penetrates even into the listener’s souls.

            Union with God is precisely what our readings are all about. The first reading speaks about what the Apostles did after the Ascension. Remember – Jesus had just given them a mission, the mission to go convert the whole world! A rather daunting task, if there ever was one! But what is the first thing they did, according to our reading? They went to the upper room and prayed. They sought out union with God. They knew that all of their words and efforts to convert the world would be utterly fruitless unless their words had the backing of the Holy Spirit.

            Likewise, our Gospel is almost an eavesdrop onto one of Jesus’ most beautiful prayer. It is called the “High Priestly Prayer” because it is the prayer he prays immediately before beginning His passion and death. In His words, we hear how He has sought, and continues to seek, union with God the Father. Ultimately His Passion and Death are only fruitful because they are in union with the Father’s plan.

            Right now, outside, we see all sorts of incredible flowers. I have never seen such azaleas and irises, radiating color. Sometimes, to enjoy a beautiful flower, we pick it and we bring it inside, where it adorns our dining room table. That can be quite nice…but from the moment we pick the flower, it starts to wilt and die. We can slow down the process by putting it in a vase with water, but when it’s separated from the plant, the flower will die quickly.

            Likewise, if we are separated from God, off doing our own plans but not listening to Him and seeking Him, we wilt and die as well.

            At Trinity High School, the seniors will be graduating this Friday, so all of them are excited about going off to college and moving on with their lives. But when they tell me about their plans, I often ask them, “Did you pray about that? Did you ask God where He wanted you to go to college?” Usually they didn’t…but how much smoother would life be if we asked God for guidance when we make a choice!

            I can testify to this. When I was a senior in high school, I had my heart set on going to this college called Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland. It was close to my house, they gave me a great scholarship, and they had everything I was looking for. But when I went to Adoration and asked God where HE wanted me to go, I kept getting the sense that I was supposed to go to a different Catholic school, Franciscan University. It wasn’t as if He gave me a flashing sign like a billboard or anything, but it was a resounding sense of being led in one certain direction. I ended up going there, and had the best four years of my life!

            When we surrender to God’s will, to His plan for our life, making our decisions in union with Him, we will find a greater joy and freedom than if we tried to plan out our lives on our own. Do not be afraid to live your life in union with Him! He takes nothing away, but gives everything – love, life, meaning and purpose.