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

When we think about it, the most precious gift that we have is life itself and the time we have left. Time is our most precious gift because it is all limited. We know that we all have only so much time. At the very end of life, there is nothing we can take with us.

We have to ask the question specifically for our own life. Who is the neighbor in my life? Who is the one who is on the furthest extremity of my life? Who do I not notice? Who might be really in need of help? And that might be a loved one whom we know; who we have not been loving as well as we know we should.

As we come to the Eucharist, it is not enough that we just come; we have to go from here, converted and changed, and the conversion of the Lord asks us to make is to be disciples; to be men and women for Christ in the world. We move from the “I” to the “we”.

The challenge has been that we understand that suffering and dying brings about metamorphosis, brings about change, but often times we always believe that it should be somebody else who should be suffering and dying. That is where the problem lies in that it needs to be somebody else who dies. 

We want to be able to pay our dues so that we can get God’s love. We want to feel like we earned it. We want to feel we deserve it. If we do this then God loves us more; we believe in completely human terms. Jesus tells us that it is just not the way God works. If the glass is already full, it’s full no matter how much more you put into the glass, it is still completely full. 

Our Catholic teaching says we do not get saved individually; we get saved communally together. And so, we do this together. And what is it that we do together? We keep our hands open to receive God’s love just like a child; we accept it completely unearned, unmerited, showered upon us. Here is the my homily from this past weekend. During the homily, I invited the children in the community to come...

The most powerful transformation takes place when we are suffering. And that is very hard for us to hear but in fact, we know it to be true; not only in our own lives but in the lives of those around us. When we go through the most painful period in our life, the best thing we can do is to allow God’s Spirit, God’s grace to operate and then to allow the transformation to happen. 

The first among you will be the one who is the most humble. The first among you is the one who is the servant of all.”That is very hard for us to hear because we are all about getting on top. We are the best at this, the best at that. Not that that is bad in itself but if we really believe that about ourselves then we are fooling ourselves because Christian discipleship, according to Christ, is ab...

First responders go into burning buildings that people run away from; they go into moments of danger and put their lives at risk to save our lives. I think it is very clear who they are; and what they stand for. Is it as clear who we are as Catholic Christians? Who do people say that we are? What is our first response to anything? Are our values and our actions so clearly defined? 

Think of it as two plants inside our heart. One is the good plant, which produces the good fruit of gentleness, kindness, forgiveness and all that. And then there is another plant that is the evil plant, that produces selfishness, bitterness, lies and sort of egocentric behavior. You might ask “Well which plant grows best in our heart?” Whichever one we water. Whichever one we water will grow. Her...

Today, we claim what Peter does; those beautiful words, the testimony of faith: “To whom else will we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.” We have come to believe that you are the holy one of God. And we do not just choose to believe in you. We choose to follow you with everything we do and everything we say. Let that river of life flow through the reservoir of our hearts and to give fre...

The beautiful prayer that we hear quoted in today’s Gospel of Luke as we celebrate the Assumption is called the “Magnificat” or the “Canticle of Mary.” In this prayer an invitation was given and then repeated. Then Mary gives a beautiful response of acceptance. Bear in mind all that was happening. Her whole life was turned upside down and yet her response was, “Let it be done to me according to yo...

In today’s gospel, we continue to read from this long passage in John’s Gospel called “The Discourse of the Bread of Life.” It is one of the largest discourses in John’s Gospel.

The Catholic Imaginarium is something which we all live inside whether we realize it or not. It’s the very language we use: the symbols; the sacraments; the signs. Everything about who we are as Catholics is inside this Catholic Imaginarium.

The power of touch is real. And we need it especially the elderly and especially the young. The young children, teenagers even, they need to be loved; they need to feel that power of love. Indeed, all of us need it. I will be away for the month of July for a much-needed vacation. I will spend some time with my brother, Paul who has pancreatic cancer and then take some time alone hiking in the moun...

We want to believe in a God who would make things a lot easier by having only good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It would make it much simpler that way.

Last week, we entered into ordinary time and it is not ordinary as in “not extraordinary.” It is ordinary as it is ordered time. We now move back to the non-feast days of summertime and in a sense, we go back to the ordinary day-to-day loving of one another in the ordinary way; or what I call the muck of everyday life...That the little ordinary things are what matter and what builds up and constit...

It is not enough to love those who love us, to mirror back; that part is important and good. We need to do that but we also must love those who are not capable of love; those who are toxic, have bitterness, have jealousy, hatred, violence and even death in their life

The famous from Phase from St. Augustine’s encapsulates what the celebration of the Mass is all about; that when we come forward to receive the Body of Christ and we say, “Amen” we are saying that I agree that “I become what I receive. Amen. I will become the Body of Christ broken for others. I will become the Blood of Christ poured out for others.” This isn’t just bread and wine we become this li...

For centuries, theologians, priests and religious people have tried to express the meaning of the Trinity and some are more memorable than others. Of course, being from Ireland I have to mention St. Patrick’s classic of the three-leaf shamrock. Three persons on one leaf. But none of these explain what the Trinity means. There is the concept of three persons in one God. It is beyond our comprehensi...

If we look back at this last 15 or 16 months since the pandemic, it’s been like a collective cannonball experience. But the the temptation is to not listen to the Holy Spirit; it is to be distracted by the other spirits that tell us nothing is different. Whereas the Holy Spirit will always invite us to use the cannonball experience for an opportunity to change and grow and to not come back the sam...

When our loved ones suffer; when our loved ones are dying; when our loved ones leave us then we have this memory. We have a memory that our love was and is real and that love and memory will never die. You see that is the message of the Ascension; that no matter whatever else happens in our world, the love that we share never, ever dies.

In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us that we must remain part of him because we can do nothing outside of him. He uses this beautiful metaphor of the vine and the branches. If you take a branch off the vine, clearly it is not going to be able to grow or anything because it is separated from the source. But if it remains part of the vine, it will grow and it will produce much fruit.

Historically, this Sunday has been called Good Shepherd Sunday, the obvious connection to the gospel today, a reminder that Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd that draws us into his one flock as Shepherd of us all...

The Easter season offers us all the opportunity to be witnesses to these things and that begins with a beginner’s mind; to witness to God present here and now. Now there are two things to a witness: a witness sees and observes but a witness also testifies to what they see and observe.