Saint + Elizabeth + Ann + Seton + Parish

Paul tells us that, in Christ, those who have authority and those who have power in God’s kingdom are to be the servants and the last and least of all. They are there to meet the needs of the people, to heed their complaint, to fulfill what it is they need to thrive. So it’s inverted. In the world, it’s how many people serve me. But in the kingdom of God, it’s how many people I can serve. 

The infinite God is able to “condense” himself totally and faithfully into the person of a human being! If God, the Maker of heaven and earth, is miraculously able to become a Man in the person of Jesus Christ, then that same God-Man Jesus is miraculously able to come physically again and again into what looks to us like simple bread. Download Transcript

What are we to do when those responsible to care for us, hurt us or, worse yet, threaten to destroy us? What are we to do when those claiming to be God’s people reject—even hurt—us? Now there’s no denying that this is one of the most damaging, destructive things that can ever happen to us. Like abuse and neglect within a family, religious failure and abuse strikes at our core, our soul, our deepes...

I want to highlight some important things from the Gospel that actually extends the Amos model as our paradigm for interacting with society. First, I love the fact that Jesus uses the motif of pilgrimage, journey. He sends them out, two by two, on a journey. Our Christian life is a pilgrimage. Your life and my life—we are on a journey. 

Paul tells us that every suffering has a meaning. And what makes you overcome your suffering is to begin to locate and find the meaning in your suffering. Paul tells us that for him as Paul, the meaning in his suffering was the fact that vulnerability makes him spiritually humble. And when we are spiritually humble, we now become malleable in God’s hands. When you are spiritually humble, God can n...

Death is troubling whenever it comes. Death is never, ever, a convenience—and, on an emotional and relational level, never welcome. So it’s always troubling. And perhaps we’re not ever more troubled than when death is drawing near, and we—if we are facing death ourselves, or we are representing someone we know and love—we have to make a series of decisions. Download Transcript

The Gospel tells of the power of God and the gracious healing action of Jesus. This is the essence of the Good News . God is more powerful than the awful things in this world. Jesus has come into our world to turn what seems “natural” upside down and to give a hope that the brokenness we see and experience in the created order will be healed. Download Transcript

Among the nameless millions of people  who span history and inhabit our world right now, God chooses to manifest himself in conspicuous ways in some (actually, a very few). This is meant to open our minds and hearts to wonder…. and to hunger and thirst for God. Download Transcript

From the beginnings of nation-states, the issues of immigration and providing for refugees has been problematic. Every nation has the right to provide for the integrity of its borders. No nation has the right to protect its borders by unjust means, however. Within the past week, the United States bishops discussed and offered some critique to the current immigration practice of separating children...

In fact, the Church teaches that the family is the first cell of a civilization of love, and that the family is the first church, and the parents are the first pastors of their children —in fact, the first face, voice, and touch of God for a child. And so rightfully, as a society, we’ve chosen to honor mothers and fathers, because we have this innate knowledge of the potentiality—not only of paren...

The way to be a good father is to take the Fatherhood of God as the preeminent calling of what fatherhood is all about. The way to honor our fathers is to practice the Truth of God through love. Fathers, love your wives and children the way God loves us and all will be well. But when we dishonor the Fatherhood of God in any way, individually or on a national scale, we are sowing seeds to our own d...

Our roles and our relationships are complicated, and they switch up. They change out with each other, and it is sometimes complicated. It is most certainly complex. And those relationships certainly have a bearing on our roles and responsibilities and vice versa. And it’s true also within the members of the Godhead. And that should not be strange to us because, after all, we are created in the ima...

Here’s the astonishing thing, and Saint Paul tells us about it in our second reading: there are some people who do, in fact, spend more time nurturing seeds that grow toxic fruit than they do nurturing seeds that grow healthy fruit. Saint Paul tells us that there are two kinds of crops that can grow in the garden of our hearts: one kind is toxic, the other is healthy. You and I can grow healthy fo...

At the end of the day, the feast of Pentecost reminds you and reminds me that we are now reconciled reconcilers. The Lord has reconciled himself to you, and now he wants you to reconcile with each other. And so our prayer this morning, as we join Catholics all over the world to continue to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, is that the love of God, the true peace of Christ, will abide in our world—...

You are the redemption of humanity. Because of Pentecost, humanity can be redeemed and made holy. Again, Saint Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes, “I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want....

 Jesus wants us to have the oneness he has with the Father! And how the devil has sought to destroy the unity of God’s people! Christians are divided by ethnicity, nationality, economics, sexuality, and doctrine––just to mention some of the most significant. How can we be one? In our fractured world, what could possibly be a unifier? The simple answer is another of the desires we hear from Jesus:...

 Our belief in the Ascension is really rooted in our faith in the Resurrection. And as a matter of fact, the Incarnation and the Ascension are like corollaries—they go side by side. Just as in the Incarnation, Christ humbled himself and took our human flesh, at the Ascension, he now picks up all the glory that he poured into us at the Incarnation. That’s why this feast reminds that our faith in Ch...

The Ascension of Jesus from the realms of earth to the realm of heaven tells us more about him. As well, it tells us about ourselves, our own lives and prospects. 

Early Christians went back and took this word out of mothballs, and they dusted it off and they reintroduced it to describe God’s love. Because really, how can you “love God” the same way you “love chocolate”? You just can’t do it. You need a bigger, better word for love. And so they introduced this word agapeo . Some linguists have described this as “love which seeks the best for the other, even...

People need to know who Jesus is and what God has done in the death and resurrection of his Son. The Church needs faithful preachers. Parishes need faithful teachers. But beyond the roles that are rooted so visibly in the Church, every person who owns the name of Christ needs to be showing (and when possible, telling) the wonder of belonging to God through Jesus Christ. Download Transcript

The ‘new’ Thomas is really where we want to be as believers in the risen Christ. Yes, as humans, sometimes we will have anxieties, we will have worries, we will have concerns, we will have fears, but like Thomas, we should be able to say, ‘My Lord and my God.’ That is faith in the risen Christ—the ability to totally surrender, even when reason cannot capture it.

Although there’s much in our world to cause us fear and anxiety, we know Jesus walks into our Upper Room, where we have locked away our hopes, our fears ,and our anxieties, he walks into that Upper Room and boldly, quietly proclaims, ‘Peace be with you.’ So that you and I, together with Thomas, can look confidently to the Lord and say, ‘My Lord and my God, show me the way.' 

The message of Easter is that the very Life of God breaks into our world–– this world where there is little escape from fear and sadness. It seems there is no escape…. unless there is something bigger and stronger and longer lasting. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is God shouting into our wolrd that death itself is not greater than the Life available to us in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Do...

We encounter Martha only twice in the New Testament, and both times she’s complaining. We recall Martha from just those two encounters; we honor her as being one with an authentic heart. For although it can be said, ‘All you did was complain, my dear,’ it was in that complaint that she opened her truest self, her most authentic self—opened her heart to the Lord.

[In Psalm 51], David believes he’s finished. His career with God is finished. His reputation with the public is finished. And he’s even finished with himself. Now let’s face it—faith is tough, isn’t it? And there is a lot in our faith as Catholics, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, that is just tough for us to swallow . . . If you’ve had a tough time believing, then join Martha, David—oh, and...