Fr. Kirby Longo's Homilies

This is not the health and wealth gospel, Jesus will not take away all our suffering and give us great riches if we turn our lives over to him. But he will give us joy in the midst of our suffering and thus make us holy witnesses to a world full of meaningless suffering.

No matter where we look today, we see angry talking heads. Flip on any news channel, right or left, and there they are, stirring up passion and hate. We see whenever Jesus teaches, people are astonished. Look at the whole gospel, really dig into it, take it at face value rather than filtering it or assuming you understand it, and you will be astonished. Yet what is it about Jesus’ teaching that’s...

John Paul II told us “the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes. What she proposes, however, is the truth, and the truth does impose itself.” So be courageous in evangelizing, and don’t worry about having the perfect answers before entering into the fray. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, he makes up for what is lacking in us- his word is the truth and is compelling in itself....

Sometimes I feel redundant in my preaching, just saying over and over again how important our relationship with God is- but then I look at my own life and realize how often I need to begin again in living the Christian life. Though the goal is always the same- to give our lives completely over to Christ- the result is our diverse and beautiful Church. The Divine call is fundamentally the same, but...

So, God spoke his definitive word by coming among us himself, both in his words and in his death on the cross he gave us the definitive revelation. Yet, that was 2000 years ago. When we look at that time, the chaos, wars, corruption, and instability, not to mention the shifts in language and culture. How can we even know we have this revelation St. Paul speaks of? Because of the Church.

There is, of course, some truth to the idea that we need to make our own way, make our lives our own. But the idea that our family is not a crucial part of that process, this lone ranger mentality we have in America, is foreign to the whole history of humanity! When Jesus came as a man, he chose to live his first thirty years as a part of a family, so he knows the struggles we face there. Mundane...

Are we just animals, just another species, which happened to pack so much processing power in our cerebral cortex that we have aquired the capacity for self-examination? Or is there more to the story of humanity?

Is it not a massive injustice for God to create us such that our only happiness comes in relationship with him- our creator- and then go and promptly hide himself from us? Why does he not reveal himself in all his power? Because he respects our freedom. So, in his wisdom, God came among hidden- thus bringing about a great intimacy with us while also respecting our freedom.

THe world pulls us in so many directions. This Advent- Are you filling in the valleys of yoursoul, tearing down the mountains that stand between youand God? Are you making a highway for my God? Because if not, if everything in your life isn’t ordered toward that end- you will never be happy, you will never have rest.

What is with all these rules about worship? Why do I need to go to mass? Can I not just try and be an honest, good person? Can't I spend my Sunday in the mountains or at the lake or on the river? Is that not a way of giving fitting worship to God? True, Jesus divinized our everyday activity, everything can be a prayer, an act of worship. He also gave us very specific commands concerning our worshi...

We live in a dictatorship of relativism, yet we as Christians believe we have received not just any truth but the Truth. We choose Jesus Christ is our King not because he is our preference but because he is God. We know that he died and rose for us, that our sins have been forgiven, and that we are destined for eternal life.

The foolish virgins in this Sunday's gospel are the spiritual equivalent of my basketball life. They may have a vague desire to enter the heavenly feast, yet they stopped living in accord with that desire long ago, thus the oil- the fuel necessary to jump into action when called upon- has emptied.

We have to acknowledge our culture is tending toward post-Christian every day. And though we are called to Christian hope, we are not called to be naïve so I do not imagine we will change the trajectory anytime soon. So, we can identify ourselves as many things. Are you first- before anything else- a disciple of Christ? 

God's absence is a sort of mystical vacuum that generates a trememdous moral crisis exposing the innermost heart of the tenants, revealing it in all its perversity. It is our work as Christians to make God present in the world- Are we doing it?

Do we actually believe that the Christian life will make us happy? More precisely, can it give us a happiness the world cannot give? If we do believe this, it has real consequences for our lives- serious consequences. Let’s look to the gospel for guidance

We know that we are in some manner responsible for our brothers and sisters, that we cannot create our own moral code, or any sense of community or solidarity would crumble.

It is naturally impossible for us, as people who live in time and space, to transcend our particular culture and worldview in hopes of getting a more objective perspective on this s.hort window in which we live. So what are we do do? Is it hopeless?

Happiness is not found in autonomy, in being the master of your own domain, rather true freedom is found in that definitive yes to the one you love- which demands a NO to all the others.

How could Jesus be silent in the face of a poor woman's plea? We can ask further: how could he be silent in the face of our pleas, of our petitions?

We ought to ask why Jesus allows tribulation and suffering? He purposely subjects his disciples to hours of imminent danger on the waters, and though he knew what the outcome would be, they didn’t.