Pilgrim Priest

Lent, 3rd Sunday (A) Our annual parish Lenten retreat talked about discipleship, stewardship, and evangelization. Let's watch Jesus as he shows us how to evangelize.  Jews and Samaritans don't get along, so Jesus starts with something they have in common. Jesus knows that she is thirsty. All this time as she has been searching and thirsting, Jesus has been the one she has been looking for.  The Sa...

Lent, 2nd Sunday (A) Lent does not exist for itself. It exists to prepare us for Easter and new life in Christ. On the way into the desert, the nation of Israel stops for a mountain-top experience. The Israelites have been brought out of Egypt but they still have Egypt in their hearts. Are we the sort of people that have to wander in the desert because we don't trust God, or are we the new generat...

Lent, 1st Sunday (A) Adam is given the job to "keep" the garden (the Hebrew word is shamar ). Adam fails to guard both the garden and his wife. Jesus feels abandoned by God. He falls back on the lessons God taught the Israelites in their 40 years in the desert. Jesus is guarding and protecting his true identity, and God's true identity as his loving Father. We do not conquer sin and death by figur...

Ash Wednesday • Would you want a boyfriend or girlfriend who loved you half-heartedly? How many of you would want to play on a team with half-hearted teammates? Do you want to live in a family who loves each other half-heartedly? Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta were half-hearted Catholics. Then an angel appeared to them to prepare them for Mary's visit. That following spring, on May 13, 1917, Mary a...

Ordinary Time, 6th Sunday (A) Campus ministry is thriving at UW-Oshkosh thanks to your donations to the Bishop's Appeal and the Raising Vocations collection. Missionaries are reaching college students with the love of Jesus, and those students are themselves becoming missionaries on college campuses around the U.S.. You might have heard this sermon: "You're not holy enough; try harder!" That's not...

Ordinary Time, 3rd Sunday (A) Jesus is the light. By the light of his love, we can see our own lives more clearly. We know that we were made by love and for love. Love moves us into communion and community. From the very beginning of creation, Adam and Eve were able to receive one another as a gift. But after sin happens, they fall into the trap of using and being used. This leads to rivalries, je...

Ordinary Time, 2nd Sunday (A) Last Sunday we celebrated the feast of our Lord's Baptism. This week, the readings speak to us of the Holy Spirit. Confirmation is the sacrament most closely connected to the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was Baptized by John in the River Jordan, me came out of the water and the Holy Spirit landed on him like a dove. The Holy Spirit remained with him. The Catechism of the C...

Baptism of the Lord (A) We naturally love that which is good. Therefore, you should love yourself . Rightly-ordered self-love is the fruit of seeing your own goodness and loving that which is good. You should desire your own continued existence and your own flourishing. You are not the source of your own goodness. We love our Creator as the source of our goodness. And when we look around at others...

The Epiphany of the Lord • Marco Polo claims to have seen the incorrupt bodies of the three magi. God is directing a great drama and each of us has a special role. Everyone else is fighting to be the star of the show. But we recognize that the true star is Jesus, with Mary as Best Supporting Actress. Herod needs to be the star, and he will eliminate any competition. The Wise Men show us who is the...

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (The Octave Day of the Nativity of the Lord) • God is three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is one person with two natures - human and divine. So can we call Mary the Mother of God? Yes, because she is the mother of a person, not a nature. God sets a father in honor over his children;     a mother's authority he confirms over her sons....

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (A) We are each special, hand-made, and unique. When God creates children, he wants them to be welcomed into the world by a family.  Right from the beginning, the family is under attack. Adam doesn't protect the garden. He and Eve disobey God. They begin living lives of isolation, self-protection, and self-reliance. How does Joseph manage to best...

Christmas Eve • I decorated my tree on Christmas Eve. It was a journey through my life history. As we listen to the genealogy of Jesus, we get a brief summary of the history of the entire Bible. Only one name is repeated. Each person is a unique link on the chain that leads to Jesus. You are precious and unique. God delights in you and rejoices in you. Not all of us are faithful. In fact, most of...

Advent, 4th Sunday (A) A young King Ahaz faces a complicated and difficult political situation. He doesn't need a plan, a strategy, or powerful allies because God will be with him. God wants to give him a sign, but he doesn't want a sign. Does he feel ashamed? Is he trying to be the one in control? Is he afraid to trust? Or maybe me thinks he doesn't matter. Whatever difficult situation, challenge...

Advent, 3rd Sunday (C) For twenty years, Franciscan missionaries labored in Mexico with very little success. Finally, God acted through Mary, and in 10 years, over 8 million Aztecs and Chichimecas became Catholic.  Zachary Feldker served as a missionary to teens through the Spiritus program. He often prayed at Champion Shrine and complained that God wasn't revealing his vocation to him. Finally, M...

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary • Which Catholic teaching is the most difficult to accept? It's not the Immaculate Conception, the Incarnation, or Transubstantiation. Most people seem to have a really hard time with the idea that every child is a gift from God. Thanks to original sin, every child is perfect and precious and also rather annoying. And we make things...

Advent, 1st Sunday (A) Winter was coming, but were you prepared? Advent was coming, were you ready? Jesus is coming; are you prepared to meet him? Some of our Protestant brothers and sisters use today's Gospel to justify "the rapture." But in the days of Noah, the evil people were taken and the good people were left. The rapture is the opposite: the good people are taken and the evil ones are left...

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (C) Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, a relatively new feast in the church year. It was added to the church calendar in 1925. It is not a celebration of the idea that it would be really nice if Jesus were our king. Nor does it celebrate the fact that Jesus will be a future king. Rather, this feast day acknowledges that all...

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome • The consecration or dedication of a church building sets it apart for the worship of God. Every Christian is consecrated to the Lord. We were Baptized and Confirmed and received Holy Communion. The church is holy so we can be holy. We should be no less holy than our local Catholic Church! Some of us are called to dedicate ourselves particul...

All Souls Day • The dead are not so very far away. They have a message for you: "What you are, I once was. What I am, you will be." I want to start my homily by talking about funerals. Funerals and Baptisms have more in common than you might realize. We greet the body at the door, we sprinkle the casket with Holy Water, and we unfold a white pall over the casket. Jesus receives all of our concerns...

Solemnity of All Saints • What are we celebrating today? The Preface for All Saints explains: For for today, by your gift, we celebrate the festival of your city, the heavenly Jerusalem, our mother, where the great array of our brothers and sisters already gives you eternal praise. Towards her we eagerly hasten, as pilgrims advancing by faith, rejoicing in the glory bestowed upon those exalted mem...

Ordinary Time, 29th Sunday (C) Welcome to our Stewardship Commitment Sunday. When it comes to stewardship, I feel like the little old lady who is constantly badgering the judge. "Turn in your card!" When God doesn't answer our prayers, we need to step back and notice our underlying need. The Lord wants to grow deeper in a relationship with us. We are often not open to receive the gift of Jesus him...

Ordinary Time, 28th Sunday (C) Naaman the Syrian is powerful, wealthy, and successful. But his strength and wealth are not enough to make him healthy. He encounters love and truth through his obedience to God's will, and experiences wholeness and communion. When we started our stewardship program, I thought everyone else needed to learn stewardship. The program is helping me learn to trust in God,...

Ordinary Time, 27th Sunday (C) "I cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord." Was the prophet Habakkuk looking over my shoulder as I watched the evening news? We come to Sunday Mass to get a new vision, a vision that is different from the evening news o...

Ordinary Time, 26th Sunday (C) I saw a lot of amazing things on my pilgrimage to Italy: medieval towns, Pope Leo, three Eucharistic miracles, the four major basilicas... but the most amazing thing was our Italian bus driver, Pino. I used to think that Italian driving was highly competitive. But I watched Pino and the other drivers cooperating with one another. Do we see the world through a lens of...

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross • Anti-venom comes from animals who were poisoned but survived. Jesus drank the poison of our sins and it killed him. But he rose from the dead and now his body is the antidote to sin and death. Grumbling is a kind of poison. If left unchecked, it will kill our spirits. When you suffer, look at the cross. Know that Jesus suffers with you and he suffers for...