Fr. Brendan McGuire - Podcasts that Break open the Word of God

One of the great gifts that we have as priests  is that we are invited to journey with people  in some of the most tender and vulnerable  moments of their life. In particular, when people get sick, and when they get terminally sick,  they invite us into that very vulnerable part of their life,  and they share the most powerful insights  and the most tender moments ever shared.  

Many of you know how much my own father  was a hero in my life.  He always seemed to have the right thing to say  at the right moment.  He just seemed to have that wisdom  to always guide in the midst of darkness. Read more...

Our conversation led to talking not so much about artificial intelligence, as what this means for humanity. What does it mean for humans to flourish? What does that conversation look like? It really was a mirroring of the document that Pope Leo announced.  (Read more...)

What does it mean for us as human beings to flourish?  What does it mean to have dignity as a human person?  And what is the common good for all people?  He goes through a whole hundred and thirty-five years  of the Church’s social teaching  to refocus our energies on that message. Read More  

This past week, as I said at the beginning of Mass, has been quite a week for me.  It was extraordinary.  I had the opportunity to sit in the Synod Hall  as the Holy Father gave his new encyclical, Magnificat Humanitas , to the world. I am still unpacking the magnitude  of the event in my life,  but there are some things that really stood out for me.   Read More

In our Catholic church, we typically think of the Holy Spirit in rather tame terms.  We think of the Holy Spirit as a nice peaceful dove coming, fluttering into our lives, or tongues of fire settling down on our head. But in Celtic spirituality, it is very different. In Celtic spirituality, it is a wild goose, honking and wild, untamed, fierce and furious, but free. (Read more...) 

Almost 60 years ago, on April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King walked into Riverside Church in New York City and gave a speech co-written by Dr. Vince Harding, his peer in ministry. For over a decade, he had been the voice of civil rights  throughout the land and had great success. But on this occasion, he expanded his ministry to speak for justice throughout the world. He spoke about fighting fo...

We need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is a gift, and like all gifts, it has to be received. It has to be opened. It has to be unleashed. As Catholics, we have some work to do with the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are maybe a tad shy in accepting the Holy Spirit as one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. Read More A Blessing for All Who Are Mothers By Fr. Brendan McGuire To you who have carried...

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through my phone and stopped at three news clips back-to-back. Three different people, all speaking with total confidence, all claiming to tell the truth, and all saying things that flatly contradicted what the next person had just said. Read more...

“Do you always listen?” “Oh, listening is a bit of a problem,”  they admitted. We hear the voice, but we do not always  listen. Why? Because we get distracted. There are lots of things we are doing, and we want to do what we want to do, and maybe not obey. That is the exact same challenge with God.

I know that many of you, over the years, have told me how sad you are that your children and grandchildren do not come to church. It is hard, because you wonder what you have done that has led them away, or not to stay.  It is hard, because you struggle. You want them to have what you have. But I want to say to you: you have not failed. You have been faithful. (Read more...)

This last week I read an article about a tribe called the San tribe in southern Africa. They are believed to be the oldest continuous culture of human beings in the history of humanity, some 40,000 to 50,000 years old as a tribe. What is fascinating about this tribe is that it has no kings, no armies, no crowns, not even an official leadership in any way. (Read more...)

I was talking with a colleague this week, and she said, “God, where has the year gone? It is Easter already, has Lent already passed?” I said, yeah, it has. I sympathize. Lent seemed to go faster than any forty days recently. We never seem to ever get a chance to slow down. Read More  

They had carried a grudge so long that they had forgotten. It had become like furniture in their house. It was just part of their lives.  One leaned into the other and said, "You know, I am sorry. I was wrong." And the other calmly said, "Yeah, I know. And so was I."  What struck me was not the precision of the words. It was what happened afterwards. The light in their faces. T...

One of the great gifts we have as priests is to visit people in their homes and in their areas of vulnerability, in their hospital beds, in their convalescent homes. And when we get there, yes, we bring oils, often bring communion, and we bring prayers. But what we receive is often something quite spectacular.  We see relatives, loved ones, not doing anything spectacular or heroic, but they are pr...

And in this worst place of human suffering, he came to a profound realization. Who was it among them that survived? It was not the strongest. It was not the smartest. It was the one who had meaning in their life. And the meaning had to be greater than the suffering. Read More

I have a friend taking one of those GLP-1 drugs for the last year, and he just looks fantastic. He has shed pounds he has carried for 10, 20, 30 years. He is now walking, running, he has started to do weights. It has transformed his life completely. 

Whether it is because we know what young people are like, or what old people are like, or because of the color of their skin, or their accent, or their community. LGBTQ, married, divorced, immigrant, you name the list. We put people into categories, and we prejudge them.  Now, in one sense, we are not bad people. We are just a little blind when we do that. We do not do it intentionally, but our br...

We are the only human species that has survived hundreds of thousands of years. There were many human species, but only we remain. The reason, according to him, is not muscle strength, not our tools, and  not even our brains, but because of our ability to tell a story. Storytelling. It is literally wired inside of us. It is what enables us as human beings to gather…

See, it is our choice. And when we choose to remember the hurts, the slights, we choose what will damage us and damage the relationships. It does not change that they said something silly or something hurtful. Why has that happened? Because they did say something hurtful. But instead of letting it go, we hold on to it and we dredge up that memory and shine it like gold, like some treasure. What a...

If you think about an ordinary social interaction, that you might have at a party or some sort of scene, where you are meeting people for the first time. What is typically the first question after you have greeted? What do you do? And I am always reluctant to answer because they are so disappointed! They are like, "Oh, okay," and then the conversation comes to an end. (Read more…) Here i...

What amazed me about Cirque du Soleil was how they threw each other with such grace, they seemed to swoop in and pick them up each time, at the right place and the right time. It was just magnificent. Now, if you know anything about human dynamics, a lot of strength is required to throw somebody and catch somebody of your own weight or anybody’s weight. And it requires the ability to adjust. ( Rea...

There is a great story told of a little fish in the ocean swimming around trying to figure out where the ocean is. He comes up to this older, wiser fish and says, “Where is the ocean?” The old fish says to him, “You are swimming in it.” The little fish is confused. He says, “But that is just water,” (Read more…) Here is my homily for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time. I hope you can enjoy it.

When I was growing up in Ireland, my father had an expression, just one simple phrase that summed up a person, and it was a compliment. He would see somebody that he thought well of, somebody that he thought was authentic. He would say, "Ah, that man is a salt of the earth man." It was a definitive statement. (Read more…) Here is my homily for the Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time. I hope yo...

The foundational component, what they called a pillar of humility . To be humble before God and know that they are a child of God. Happiness comes from that. We are no better than anybody else. No one else is any better than us. And because of that foundational principle, everything else is built and flows from there. (Read more…) Here is my homily for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time. I hope yo...