Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

A World Full of Weeds With all the violence, difficulties, and scandals in our world, this place can really seem less than ideal. Well, it is. The good news is that we don't have to make everything right in this world. We don't have to fight to the death to avenge wrongs done to us. There is another world where all will be made right. As we go through this world, our task then is patience, like th...

Sink Your Roots Deep Today’s homily was given in the Chapel of the Twelve Apostles on the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri. Our young people today have so many options before them. Particularly alluring is the world of sports. It is not uncommon for kids to be playing multiple sports and giving great amounts of time to this. On top of sports there is a multitude of other activi...

The Gift of Freedom This weekend we celebrate our freedom, our Independence Day. What could be more American than freedom? Yet, have you ever stopped to think about what that freedom really means or where it comes from? Ultimately, our freedom cannot simply be about doing whatever we want and no one stops us. True freedom is the freedom not to do what we want, but to do what we ought. We are most...

Help for Failing Senses At first it might seem strange to celebrate a day in honor of the Eucharist. Don't we do that at every Mass? Of course, but today is a special day to recommit ourselves to our faith in the Eucharist. Sometimes we can let our faith grow weak, not really stopping to think who it is we receive in Holy Communion. It's easy for our senses to be deceived since the Jesus comes to...

Fearful Yet Overjoyed After encountering Jesus after the resurrection, the gospels describe the apostles as being "fearful, yet overjoyed." Perhaps that's the best description we can hope for to describe how we should feel in the presence of God. On today's Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity we try to put into technical language what is ultimately a mystery. How do we properly describe God? Is God...

Do Not Be Afraid Today is not any ordinary day. Today is Pentecost. It is a day filled with the power of the Spirit. Today the apostles went from being locked in a room in fear to spilling out onto the streets to boldly proclaim the Gospel. The Spirit was present on another fateful Pentecost in Warsaw Poland in 1979. John Paul II returned to Poland for the 1st time as Pope and told the millions ga...

I Am With You Always There is more to reality than what we experience in the material world. Many things are very real that are beyond our senses. Today we celebrate the day when Jesus Ascended into heaven and left this material world. Yet, as he was leaving, he promised that "I am with you always." As the Church fathers put it, the Christ of history is now present in mystery. Sometimes we think t...

Reason for Our Hope St. Peter reminds us in the 2nd reading today to always be ready to give an explanation for the "reason for your hope." Perhaps we don't know the faith as well as we should. Maybe we are afraid when others question or challenge us about teachings of the Church. St. Peter reminds us that the faith is reasonable. Our faith "makes sense" and can be defended. However, our faith is...

This homily was given at the annual "Sending Forth Mass" to end the school year at Hayden High School. This was also my last Mass there as chaplain as I will be moving to a new assignment over the summer.

To God We Plight Our Troth In today's gospel Jesus says that he goes to prepare a place for us and will then return to take us to be with him forever. It sounds like the end of the world...and it is. But, the language also tells us something about our relationship with God right now. In the time of Jesus, when a couple became engaged it was known as betrothal. The formal period of betrothal began...

Good Shepherd Sunday We often think of sheep as being cute and fuzzy little creatures that you just want to hug when you see them. However, I was reminded of a different side of sheep recently when I saw a book written by a Protestant pastor entitled, "When Sheep Attack." We often like to think of ourselves as cute little sheep, but the truth is that sometimes we attack. We often find ourselves fr...

This homily was given to the graduating class of Hayden High School at their Baccalaureate Mass.

We Are the Blessed "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Like a time capsule left for us in scripture, these words are addressed to us living today. We never saw Jesus during his public ministry. We did not see him die on Good Friday. Except for a few mystics, we have never seen him alive after his resurrection. Yet, billions of Christians all over the world gather today and...

An atheist admitted in a debate that, although he did not believe in the resurrection, the only logical conclusion was that the apostles did.

Today is the strangest of days. On this day we recall the inexplicable truth that God died for us, his own mere creatures.

Tonight we end Mass with a procession whereby we spiritually follow Jesus as he leaves the upper room and goes to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Learn about the powerful surrender on Palm Sunday, where General Grant displayed mercy towards General Lee at Appomattox.

Jesus promises the best for us, ultimately eternal life. The question for us is the same he asked Martha, “Do you believe this?”

In today’s gospel we hear of the cure of a man born blind. Yet there are things more serious than physical blindness that affect all of us.

Like the Samaritan woman, when we find Jesus we can joyfully leave our bucket behind at the well and live in the new freedom of Christ.

Discover how mountains symbolize spiritual clarity. Learn about the journey and the effort behind faith-filled experiences.

We shouldn't get discouraged by temptation, even when we fail. Each time we are tested, it is an opportunity to tell God that we love him.

Why do so many people seem to really enjoy Ash Wednesday and even look forward to Lent? Everyone wants a chance to start over. Why not today?

Riding the Walls St. Ignatius teaches that the devil is like the leader of an opposing army that rides around the walls of a city looking for a weak point at which to attack. When the weakness is found it is there that the attack begins. Ignatius proposes that instead of allowing ourselves to be continually attacked we should instead go out and round around our own walls. Upon finding a weakness w...

Finding Peace We live in a very busy world. It seems that everywhere we look we find stress and anxiety. Today's gospel is meant to provide us some time to calm down. Jesus asks us to consider the "Lilies of the Field" and how the flowers and other plants and animals don't worry about anything that we normally do, and yet they are provided for by God. Our peace comes from knowing that God loves us...