Fr. Kirby Longo's Homilies

We speak of women making the heroic choice to keep their child. It is heroic because they are moving forward into an unknown world- most likely poor and alone. Having a child is terrifying when you have a spouse, a stable home and a job.  If we are going to win the battle for the protection of the unborn, this most important and fundamental of issues, we have to step forward heroically, we have to...

What does Jesus say today? “Whose image is this on the inscription? (Ceaser’s) Then render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” What belongs to the state? The things of the world. If we put our hopes in worldly things, we will put our hopes in the state and every new failure- the state always fails- will bring bitterness, rage, and resentment. 

Jesus appears when the storm is peaking, casually walking upon the waves, and when they cry out in terror, he calls to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” When he steps into the boat, the storm dies. There is no battle, and Erasmo points out that this story is “restructured to deploy only one truth, the unquestionable and eternal supremacy of the incarnate Word.” The only battle left...

Power is a fact of life, it’s a part of nature and will always be acquired by the capable and the ambitious. How we employ it will change the world. Do we employ the power we possess as Christ shows us? Do you wield it with charity, with mercy, and always with an eye to the poor? Or do you let your passions dictate your actions? Do we use the power we’ve been given to preserve our reputation, rais...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do the Butte 100 mountain bike race. I decided to give it a shot when quarantine hit and everything else had been cancelled. Still, until yesterday I had never ridden more than 57 miles. It was fascinating to see how my body handled the prolonged grind, because with experiences like that you are just running an equation. You burn more calories than you can take i...

The Parable of the Sower hits us anew each time we approch it. God works in our soul no matter our state. Let's dig in to see where we stand, and where we ought to go from here.

What a perfect first reading for my inaugural weekend at Christ the King parish. I think we need to hear those lines again: “Rejoice heartily, O Daughter Zion, shout for joy oh daughter Jerusalem! See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek and riding on an ass, on a colt the foul of an ass.” What a prophetic passage, planted on the 14th sunday in ordinary time awaiting my arrival...

Fr Kirby says goodbye to the parish and town he served for his first three years. Looking to the next generation, and looking back to martyrs from the past generation, he wraps up his time in Butte, America.

There is exactly one road to perfection for each of you from the BC class of 2020. It’s narrow, rocky, and difficult, but it’s possible. That road involves simply following Christ. Jesus tells us in the gospel, “I will not leave you orphans, I will send you the advocate, the spirit of truth to be with you always.” It’s your choice, you’re free. You can go off to college and party, go hard, follow...

Death. It’s not a pleasant word. I remember when I first began to understand the idea and I would try to imagine it. There I was, 7-year-old Kirby standing there with my eyes closed, imagining what it meant to cease to exist. It was physically disorienting, so much that I would occasionally get vertigo and just fall over. Then my mom taught me about heaven, about eternal life with God, and hell in...

It's been a while but I'm back posting my homilies! I love preaching on Holy Thursday. A priest once gave me a penance to pray for a particular family and he told me, “Kirby, I believe I was called to the priesthood- more than that- I believe I was born in order that this family could know God loves them. They have suffered a tremendous amount, so God created me and sent me to tell them they don’t...

As it turns out, when we get the exact thing we want, it doesn’t make us as happy as we think it will. When we are denied our deepest desire, it’s not as disastrous as we assume it will be. You finally get your dream truck, that beautiful F350 Platinum, and a month later when the newness wears off, it’s just a truck with a lot of chrome and a substantial monthly payment. You get your dream promoti...

What a role Joseph played! To care for and protect the crowned jewel of the human race- Mary, Queen of heaven, Seat of Wisdom, New Ark of the Covenant- and to foster the Incarnate God himself. My great love for Joseph comes not only from his faithful acts, but his willingness to be faithful in obscurity. To be faithful, then gladly forgotten. 

Praised be Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe! Our last address to an earthly king was a collection of 27 grievances against his majesty, George III (which were promptly ignored), followed by Declaration of Independence which changed the course of history. Yet here we stand as Catholics declaring ourselves subservient to another king. Not just any king, but the King of the Universe! There...

Can Christians reconcile the story of creation with evolutionary theory without compromising an authentic reading of scripture or Christian anthropology?  Is it necessary to see evolutionary theory with an openness to God in order if we are to explain the process reasonably?  I assert the answer to both of those questions is: Yes. Listen in and let me know what you think! Note: I purposely avoid t...

Whenever Jesus talks about the end times, final judgment, heaven, hell, or anything in the field we refer to as eschatological, his advice to the disciples is to be vigilant, to watch, to be ready at all times. We must focus our lives on the Lord in a focused and vigilant way, listening to Paul’s two crucial commands to “pray unceasingly” and “Never grow weary in going good.” 

Since the dawn of time, humans have yearned for immortality. Even Friedrich Neitzsche, certainly no Christian thinker, said “All joy wills eternity, wills deep, deep, eternity.” Today’s reading ends with the proclamation, “I choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!” 

 If we pray without growing weary, and do so with an openness to whatever God has in store, we will know Him. That is, in the end, the only thing that matters. If I have Christ as my friend, a cancer diagnosis does not destroy my life, rather it becomes as beautiful opportunity to show those I know and love how to suffer joyfully. We look to Blessed Chiara Badano who, upon hearing her cancer diagn...

St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his beautiful hymn Adoro Te Devote: Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived: How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed; What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true. The beautiful Hopkins translation speaks to the beautiful mystery of the mass.

This is the 1st of four lectures given to the Catholic Youth Coalition on Fundamental Theology.  This lecture was on the existence of God. Can we discard the idea of God without losing the ability to explain the world as it is? I don't think so, here are the reasons why: 1. We cannot explain the origin of the universe. 2. We cannot explain human consciousness. 3. We cannot claim there is any meani...

C.S. Lewis says it’s precisely the greatest moments of our life which make it clear that nothing in this world will ever make us happy. Looking back to the image in the gospel, we calculate the cost of the building and realize it’s beyond our means, we look at the battle of 10k v 20k and realize we can’t win. What are we to do? Sue for peace? Settle for mediocrity? That’s not the Christian way. C....

There is a certain relish in bitterness, cynicism and a feeling of helplessness that gives us an escape from culpability for our actions- or lack of action- and wins a certain amount of sympathy from our peers. If there is one thing this attitude toward life does not accomplish (there are more than 1), it is any real meaning or happiness.    But how can it be that striking out to find my personal...

“I have come to cast a fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Jesus doesn’t come to preach bland tolerance, but love, and love is an all-consuming fire. There are two fascinating and terrifying things I want to point out concerning fire: First, is its ability to annihilate everything in its wake. Second is its ability to transform what it consumes into itself. Both are at wo...

Is this gospel a threat? In a sense, yes, but not one based in fear. Jesus speaks strongly on this subject because the consequences are so great when we fail. When the gospel is not preached, young people’s lives have no meaning and it naturally follows that they will want others to feel the profound suffering and emptiness they feel, so we end up with this absurd violence.

Is Machiavelli in step with today’s scriptures? Yes and No. Ecclesiastes does, in the beginning, point to the inherent volatility of life, but it takes the problem much further and makes a much deeper and more profound claim than The Prince. For Qoheleth, the author of Ecclesiates, takes into account the possibility that someone could live as Machiavelli suggests and “labor with wisdom and knowled...