Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

Discipline is the Key to the Narrow Gate We tend not to like discipline. It brings up unhappy memories of being punished for breaking the rules. Yet, our 2nd reading today tells us not to begrudge the discipline of God. Rather we should be thankful that we have a loving father that corrects our mistakes. God knows that the only way we can grow in holiness is for him to discipline us when we do thi...

The Goodness of the Body The dogma of the Assumption teaches that, at the end or her earthly life, the Blessed Virgin Mary was taken body and soul to heaven. Just as no corruption of sin touched her body in life, so no corruption was allowed to touch her body in death. Christians have always believed this, but it is interesting to note that the dogma was not formally proclaimed by the Church until...

Trusting the Person of Jesus The 2nd reading this weekend holds up our father Abraham as the great model of faith. Yet what is faith really? We tend to equate faith today with some irrational belief in things that otherwise just don't make sense. This is not faith at all. The Church has always maintained that faith and reason go together. The things we believe can and should make sense to us. Yet,...

The One Thing Necessary As a Boy Scout, I like to go camping and particularly I like backpacking. Backpacking provides an interesting challenge in that you simply can't take all the "stuff" you might want to. You have to leave a lot of stuff behind that might be useful, but ultimately too heavy or just not necessary. Jesus is saying something similar in the Gospel today. Martha seems to get critic...

Mary and the Problem of Evil The first reading today describes several cases of injustice that would seem to cry out for God to "do something about it." Yet, God's ways are not our ways. He does indeed care about our problems and injustices, but his way of dealing with it may not be exactly what we would want. It can seem like he doesn't hear our prayers. As we celebrate Mary today, we are reminde...

Knowing is Only Half the Battle We are all familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan in today's gospel. Yet, what do we do with the knowledge gleaned from this parable? Today's homily gives the unfortunate results of several studies demonstrating that a lot of us are like the priest and Levite in the story...we ignore those in need. There are lots of reasons why this is and not all of them are...

A Warning from Fatima We often tend to ignore the reality of hell. We talk and act as if it didn't exist. Yet, today's gospel clearly says that it does, and that people go there. In 1917 our Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. On July 13th of that year she gave them a special warning about hell. She showed them a vision of hell and all the souls suffering there....

Independence Day Today we rightfully give thanks for the blessings of freedom we enjoy in this country. Our scripture readings today also call us to give thanks for an even greater freedom, the freedom that only God can give. What is the source of this freedom? Isaiah reminds the Israelites that as bad as things might seem in exile, they have cause for hope. One day they will return to Jerusalem....

Freedom, Commitment, Fidelity 50th Wedding Anniversary of Joe and Pat McGreevy St. Paul speaks today in the second reading about freedom. Perhaps no other value expresses better the core element of what it means to be American. But what do we really mean by freedom? Today, we tend to think that freedom means being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and no one can stop you. We also va...

Why We Believe in the Eucharist The following homily was given at the monastery of Santa Maria Real in Spain while on pilgrimage. A Eucharistic miracle took place here in which the appearances of the the consecrated bread and wine in the Mass were changed along with the substance into true flesh and blood.

Mary went in haste to help her cousin Elizabeth when she was in need. Many soldiers have done the same throughout history.

A Communion of Love The Trinity is a complicated thing. Today's homily tells how even the great St. Augustine was reminded that he would never be able to fully understand this mystery. How can God be 3 persons in 1 God? The things we can say about each person of the Trinity we learn from sacred scripture. Perhaps the most obvious thing about the Trinity...and the easiest to understand...is often t...

Being a Good Priest We are all familiar with the ordained priesthood, but did you know that everyone who is baptized is a priest? The job of a priest is to offer sacrifice and we see the ordained priest offering the sacrifice of Jesus at the altar. However, all of the baptizied should come to Mass with something to offer. We "offer up" all the struggles and difficutlies of our day in union with th...

Come Follow Me The story of the "rich young man" in today's Gospel is a challenge to all of us. This young man received the great call of Jesus to come and follow Jesus but was unable to answer the call. He had been living a good life and following the commandments, but he is ultimately not able to follow Jesus. His material possessions get in the way and he goes away sad. What gets in the way of...

Preparing for a Birthday Today's feast of Pentecost is often called the "birthday" of the Church. It was on this day that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the Apostles gathered in the upper room and the Church was then made very visible as they spilled out into the streets proclaiming the good news. Although we can rightfully see this as a sort of "birthday," it would be incorrect to think that...

Peace Amidst the Troubles of the World Perhaps our natural response to opposition and setbacks is to assume that we have done something wrong. In today's gospel, Jesus says quite the opposite. Jesus tells us to expect trouble from the world when we follow after him. Indeed, we can even see trouble and opposition as a sign that we are fact doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing. Jesus promi...

Hope for Those Just Passing Through Today's homily tells the story of a man who came to realize that we really don't have a lasting home in this world; in truth we are all "just passing through." The Solemnity of the Ascension which we celebrate today also reminds of us this fact. We should live our lives with our eyes fixed on heaven as the apostles eyes were fixed on Jesus as he ascended. As we...

Roses for Our Mother May is the month in which we traditionally honor Mary and often crown her statues with wreaths of flowers. While this is a special event for May, we can actually "crown" Mary with our prayers any time. The tradition of praying the rosary developed from this idea. The prayers we say on each bead of the rosary are meant be like beautiful roses that we offer to Mary. The rosary i...

Following the Spirit In today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see how Paul changes his plans several times because, as he says, "The Spirit prevented me." Can we say in our own lives that we are listening well enough to the voice of the Spirit that we recognize Him directing us? If not, perhaps we need to spend more time in quiet prayer and learn to listen. Another reason why we may no...

Feast of Sts. Philip and James One of my favorite verses in Scripture is spoken in today's Gospel by St. Philip. He asks Jesus, "Show us the Father." While Jesus has to rebuke him slightly for his lack of trinitarian theological understanding, the desire is exactly right. We should all have this great desire to see God, to know God. Philip learned from Jesus about the love of the Father. He wanted...

Finding the Perfect Church How do you find the Church? Can you find the Church? Many Christians who say they believe in the Church and even claim to be members of it, also claim that the Church is "invisible." They think of the Church as an idea or an intangible body made up of all those who "accept Jesus into their hearts." The Scripture gives us a very different image of the Church. It's clear f...