Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

Courage to Fight Today's is the 238th anniversary of the birth of the United States Marine Corps. Tomorrow is also Veterans' Day. While neither those who serve in uniform nor the Church glorify war, we are rightly inspired by the selfless sacrifice of those who serve in our country's armed forces. Today's homily explores some of the important lessons we can learn from our men and women in uniform...

The second reading today reminds all of us about the noble confession of faith that was begun at our baptism and which we must renew often.

Evidence for Faith Often times people of faith are made to believe that scientific knowledge is more believable than the knowledge faith provides. Sometimes, even those who are believers can make the mistake of thinking that faith means accepting things that are irrational or that seem impossible. Today's second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews assures us that opposite is true. "Faith is the...

Numbering Our Days Aright In today's psalm the author prays "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart." There is a certain wisdom that comes from remembering that our days are numbered. None of us lives forever. Moreover, since we know not when our last day will come, we should live each day with at least some thought about our last day. The world might go on for centur...

Prayer Conforms Our Hearts to God In our first reading today, Abraham shows us the power of intercessory prayer. Specifically, his nephew Lot has gotten himself into trouble living in the Las Vegas of the biblical world, the city of Sodom. Through the prayer of Abraham, Lot and his family are saved. That's good news for all of us who know some family members that could using a little saving. God r...

Choosing the Better Part Jesus chastises Martha in the gospel today for being "anxious and worried about many things" while there is "need of only one thing." We too often get swept up in doing so many good things that wind up worn out and not fulfilled. Normally it's not that we're doing bad things, just like serving was not a bad thing for Martha to be doing. However, when we get too busy with w...

Farewell to Curé of Ars Today's homily is the last one given by me as the Associate Pastor at Curé of Ars. It's been an amazing two years here and I want to thank everyone. My recent car accident has made it difficult to do some of the normal physical tasks of life, but has made it much easier for me to see what is really important. Nothing matters more than our relationship with God. After that,...

Big Rewards from Small Commitments Today's homily was delivered to over 500 scouts present for Mass at the Chapel of the Twelve Apostles on the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri. I love playing my trumpet. With all the activities that I did in school growing up, playing trumpet is one that I have continued to enjoy. People often wonder how I got started. The truth is, I just wan...

What Does God Think About Sinners? Today's readings all consider the important question of sin and what to do with sinners. We get several examples of people who know they are sinners...David and the woman in the Gospel. We even get one example of a guy who thinks he's not a sinner but everyone else is...Simon. Most importantly we get the example of Jesus and how to deal with all these people. Fro...

Expanded Expectations Both in the first reading and the gospel today we see God do the unexpected...he raises someone from the dead. Just when people though they had Jesus figured out, he goes and does something so unexpected that people are left in fear. Perhaps we don't expect much from God. We can get so used to God acting in certain ways in our life that we really don't think that anything all...

A Matter of Life and Death Why a feast in honor of the Eucharist? Isn't every Mass a celebration of the Eucharist? Sometimes we can allow ourselves to take the Eucharist for granted and not give Jesus the reverence and love that we should. That's why we need a special feast like this. St. Paul reminds us that the Eucharist is serious business, life and death business, as we also hear in the sequen...

We tend to not like affliction and often run away from it. On this Memorial Day weekend we are especially thankful for those wo didn't run.

Explode with the Spirit The Scriptures use the image of wind and fire to describe the power of the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for this power is dynamis, from where we get the more familiar word dynamite. Like the Apostles we might wish to stay comfortable in the relatively safe environment of the upper room or our church buildings. However, this is not the plan of the Spirit. The Spirit doesn't l...

A Pilot's Perspective There are lots of theological ways to look at the meaning of today's Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord. However, in today's homily I give a perspective that few priests will probably preach on today. Today's homily is the Ascension from a pilot's perspective. Fasten your seat belts please.

The following homily was given to the 2013 graduating class of Bishop Miege High school on the occasion of their Baccalaureate Mass. Don't forget to notice the things around you and never forget: Nova et Vetera - New Things and Old Things Duc in Altum - Put out into the deep Sacrifices - Made for you

Mary's Month The month of May is one in which we give special honor to our Blessed Mother Mary. Today's homily if full of some good tips in how we can entrust ourselves more to Mary and so become more like Jesus her son. Like little children, we never have to be worried or afraid in the arms of our mother.

The Church Visible I was once surprised to learn that many non-Catholics use the same creed that we do and actually profess to believe in "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church" just like we do. How can that be? For most of them, they understand the word "catholic" very generically and believe that this "universal" church is in fact more of an idea or even invisible. Today's first reading clea...

Faithful to Hope It seems everyone wants to be successful, but when it comes to faith this can be a dangerous goal. You see, we always tend to measure success on the world's terms. Do people like us? Are we getting ahead? Yet, in the Scriptures we see that sometimes the heroes are the ones that seem to be most defeated. The martyrs are killed, the apostles are put in prison and then killed and on...

Peace Is Flowing Like an Ocean When Jesus reveals himself to the apostles after his resurrection the Scriptures tell us that his wounds were still visible. Why would a glorified body have wounds? The wounds of Jesus reveal how much he loves us, what he endured to save us. They are part of his perfect body because they perfectly reveal his mercy. Rather than condemn the apostles for their failure a...

Peter and John both saw the same evidence at the tomb. The tomb it empty. Yet faith was necessary to correctly interpret what happened.

The Gospel tells us today that "the hour" has come. It is time for the celebration of the most important events in our Christian lives.

Today's homily relives my experience of this week and considers what the election of Pope Francis might mean for the future of the Church.

Today's homily gives an overview of the history of electing the Pope and the process that will be followed this week.

Moses serves as a great example this weekend. We've got to pay attention and focus on God. Don't wait. Now is the time to bear fruit.

Explore what it means to have citizenship in heaven and how it offers peace and security in our lives today.