Fr. Brian Soliven Sermons

From Pope John Paul II first homily as he begins his pontificate in 1978:  "Do not be afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors for Christ.... Christ knows “that which is in man”. He alone knows it. So often today, man does not know that which is in him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt wh...

When the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus in this Sundays Gospel passage, He answered with words that reach into the very heart of our lives: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” The coin bore Caesar’s image, and so it belonged to Caesar. But you and I bear another image. Scripture tells us that we are created in the image and likeness of Go...

From a letter written by the French nun St. Margaret Mary:  This divine heart (Sacred Heart of Jesus) is an abyss of all blessings, and into it the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of lowliness to counteract our foolishness, an abyss of mercy for the wretched, an abyss of love to meet our every need. --- Hel...

Have you ever heard this before –All religions are really the same: different paths up the same mountain, different languages describing the same God?  It sounds tolerant, fashionable, enlightened, hip and even cool. It is also false. Religions make claims about reality, and those claims contradict one another. Christianity does not merely say that God exists or that God wants us to be good....

The rosary is a powerful tool to build the Church.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

There is something wonderfully persistent about the Bible’s picture of God’s people as a vineyard. One might have expected Scripture to choose an image more impressive: an army marching beneath its banners, perhaps, or a mighty city rising toward heaven. Instead, again and again, we are given vines, branches, fruit, soil, pruning, and harvest. Perhaps this is because a vineyard teaches us somethin...

The moment we were conceived in mother's womb, a spiritual being was assigned to watch over us.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https:/...

We are never alone. An entire spiritual realm exists around us. Watch what happens when the archangels break through.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a ti...

***Meditation hymn begins at minute 14:05 * **   There is a strange inversion at the heart of the Gospel: the One who had every right to command became the One who obeyed. Christ, “though he was in the form of God,” emptied Himself and took “the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6–7). He did not merely come near to our misery. He entered it. We speak of sin as though it were only a list of ba...

Go to confession my friends!  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

On January 15th, 2019, a horrible scene unfolded in the popular DusitD2 hotel and commercial complex in Nairobi, Kenya. Muslim terrorists detonated a suicide explosive vest in a packed cafe and began 20 hour siege, killing anyone they came across. The first one to respond to the carnage was a British special forces soldier and devout Catholic was a man named Chris Craighead. Before Craighead enter...

To produce good fruit, we must do this one thing.  --- Help Spread the Good News --- Father Brian’s homilies are shared freely thanks to generous listeners like you. If his words have blessed you, consider supporting this volunteer effort. Every gift helps us continue recording and sharing the hope of Jesus—one homily at a time. Give Here: https://frbriansoliven.org/give

Beauty is not merely an ornament placed upon religion, as one might put flowers upon a table; it can be a signpost pointing beyond itself. A beautiful thing awakens in us a longing that no earthly object quite satisfies, as though the world were whispering that its loveliness comes from somewhere deeper. This is one reason Catholicism can appear so profoundly beautiful: in its churches, its music,...

On January 15th 2019, the world saw the horrific scene as a group of heavenly armed Muslim terrorists attacked a hotel and commercial complex in Nairobi, Kenya. The sole goal -- kill as many Christians and non-muslims as possible. Unbeknownst to them, a SAS British forces solider was charging to the scene. After donning on his tactical vest, rifle and knife, he set out to engage the terrorist. But...

Last weekend, I had the great privilege of presiding over a wedding at St. Joseph’s, my old parish. The groom had once been one of my altar servers: a shy, quiet, somewhat awkward eleven-year-old boy. Now, more than a decade later, he stood before me as a young man in his mid-twenties, a competitive bodybuilder, and a bridegroom. And he had asked me to be the priest who would witness his wedding....

From the very beginning, God spoke of the Woman whose offspring would crush the serpent’s head: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers” (Genesis 3:15). In the fullness of time, that prophecy shone forth in the Blessed Virgin Mary, the humble handmaid whose “yes” opened the way for the coming of our Savior. Through Mary came Jesus Christ, the One who conqu...

(Stayed tuned at the end of the homily for a hymn from a Traditional Latin Mass wedding at St. Mary's) Have you ever wondered why relationships are so dang hard?  The answer is easy – human relationships are hard because God has placed sinners beside sinners, so that we might learn the strange art of grace. We come seeking love and find ourselves confronted with pride, impatience, selfis...

The wisdom of the world often teaches us to trust what we can measure, master, and explain; but Scripture invites us into a deeper wisdom, one that begins not with the exaltation of man, but with the revelation of Christ. The world says that wisdom is found in possessing answers; Christ shows us that true wisdom is found in knowing the One who is the Truth. What appears foolish to the world—the Cr...

Mother Teresa reminded us that poverty is not found only in places where people lack food, shelter, or material possessions. She spoke of a deeper poverty that can exist even amid wealth—the poverty of loneliness, indifference, and feeling unloved. Her message challenges us to look beyond statistics and borders and recognize the human need for compassion everywhere. True richness, she suggested, i...

There is a peculiar wisdom in sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, a wisdom which cannot be hurried into us by books or lectures. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who made a daily Holy Hour for nearly sixty years, discovered that the soul must sometimes cease talking in order to learn how to listen. “The Holy Hour became a teacher for me,” he wrote, because “looking at the Eucharistic Lord for an hour tr...

There are few questions more difficult, or more easily misunderstood, than the question of why God made us male and female. Our age has given us no shortage of answers. Some tell us that sex is merely a biological accident. Others tell us that it is simply a private identity to be constructed according to our feelings. But perhaps the real trouble is that we have forgotten to ask the question bene...

Christ has not called us merely to believe in Him within the walls of our churches, but to carry His reign into the little kingdoms entrusted to us. Within our families, we possess a spiritual authority. It's not the authority to dominate, but the sacred responsibility to pray, to bless, to teach, and to stand firm against all that would draw those we love away from God. The Christian parent is, i...

Even the best of us, if left to ourselves, have depths within us from which terrible things might emerge. The knowledge should not drive us to despair, but to dependence: we are safest not when we trust ourselves most, but when we cling most closely to Christ. Every virtue we possess is a gift, every victory a mercy, and every step forward made possible by grace. So let us never boast as though we...

Consider what this means. A good earthly husband does not marry his bride and then disappear, leaving her to find her own way through every danger. He protects her. He watches over her when the night is dark. He remains faithful when circumstances are difficult. When the beauty of youth disappears and fades, when the smooth skin is replaced by the wrinkles of stress and time, does a husband forsak...

The Prophet Ezekiel saw a valley where death had stripped even hope from the bones, yet God commanded the dead to rise and receive His breath. What the prophet saw in shadow, Christ fulfills in flesh: Jesus does not merely promise life to the dead—He gives Himself as the Bread of Life. In the Eucharist, the One who conquered the grave feeds us with His own risen life, and the Spirit who once breat...