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Homily The Deacon Joe

You shall love! – 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Deut. 6:2-6; Ps. 18:2-4, 47, 51; Heb. 7:23-28; Mk. 12:28b-34

You shall love!  “You shall love with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” the Lord our God.  How does God recognize true love?  When we keep his word, live by his commandments, and love our neighbor as ourself. His word is love.

You shall love the Lord our God.  Our love for the Lord is through the love of his son, Jesus Christ “who has been made perfect forever”, “when he offered himself” for our sins.  Love of God is love of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Love of God is not to love an idea or an ideology but the love of a person.   You shall love the person of God who we encounter and grow with in a relationship of mutual love. 

You shall love with all your heart is the love of his passion, the love of the cross seen in the giving of ourselves taking our own cross and uniting it to him for his sacrifice for us.  A love from the heart is a merciful love that recognizes this is the day our love can save us.  The love of the heart groans for the one we love in its agony to be with our loved one.  Imagine where does a beautiful voice that can sing come from?  It does not come from the throat but from deep inside the lungs that groan to give out the sound of love in word and harmony with the one we love. 

You shall love with all your soul is the love of understanding to see the hand of God in our lives.  People hear not what you said but what they understand you said, the perceived intent from how you express your understanding of them.  If we don’t express our understanding of others then they never hear what we say.  Will God hear us if we have no understanding of him or will he say I never heard your heart speak? 

You shall love with all your strength is the love coming from the will to love in our weakness, in good times and in bad.  It is great to hear “I love you”, to make the sign of the heart with your hands, or sign language the letters of “I”, “L”, and “Y” with one hand but is our love strong enough to endure in our weakness when we are criticized, held accountable, offended or treated unfairly?  This is where we dig deep in search of humility to remain faithful to our love of other.   

You shall love your neighbor as yourself is to see God in every child, adult, and stranger.  King David in one occasion came into a town and was being cursed by Shimeia of the house of Saul.  His soldier said to the King, “why should this dead dog curse my lord the King?  Let me go over and take off his head.”  But the King replied, “What business is it of mine or yours…that he curses?  Suppose the Lord has told him to curse David”.  (2 Sam. 16:5-14) If we were in King David’s position, would we take the position of the soldier or of King David and accept the cursing?  Would it even occur to us that God could be calling us out for something or someone we have wronged? 

In today’s “cancel culture” we would be justified to cancel them as the current culture dictates.  If the criticism came from a subordinate employee, would we take it into consideration or respond “Your fired” and justify ourselves?  Our pride does not take criticism well and we often react with “who do you think you are?”  This is where our love is put to the test not only for who we see but for the God we don’t see calling us out to become what we were created to be in his love which is to manifest his love. This takes even more courage to remain humble in the midst of the offense we are faced with. 

If every person is made in the image of God, then why is there so much evil in this world? 
Evil is from the evil one who enters the heart and soul with temptation to sin and weaken the will to commit the wrong we desire not rather than the good we were created for.  What are we to do when we are faced with evil?  We are to pray always for the will of God in the midst of the darkness to send us the comforter and give us the courage not only to persevere but to pray God’s will be done.  God’s will be done for the soul of the one who allowed the evil to take possession of them.  God’s will be done for the good of salvation. 

When our Blessed Mother was at the foot of the cross in the midst of the evil she was witnessing the agony and death of a son. It would have been expected for a mother’s love to call out to God the Father to “save him” from this hour.  Where would salvation be if God had heard and answered that prayer.  That is not the prayer of faith or of perfect love.  Perfect love and faith is to prayer for the will of the Father.  We are reminded in Romans 8:26 “the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought”.  Too often we pray that our will be done. We pray for the miracle we want not for the miracle God is seeking in our lives.  This type of prayer I heard a priest on Relevant radio, a Catholic station describe it as the “pagan prayer”. 

He called it the “pagan prayer” because we want to have our will be the answer and not God’s will.  We pray, “God save me from this hour”, “God heal my loved one from this sickness”, “God take this cross away”.  In other words, “God do as I want and not as you desire.”  Yet Romans 8:27 tells us “And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will”, not according to our will. 

Then what is the purpose of intercessory prayer if we are to pray for the sick and suffering or even for our hopes and dreams?  Intercessory prayer is to unite our will to God’s will and “the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings”.  God wills in some cases to give someone a near death experience, sometimes already clinically dead and bring them back to serve his will.  In other times, God wills that the soul pass from this life into eternity even when that soul is but a child for their mission is in heaven and not earth. God wills our salvation and the Spirit will intercede to bring our prayer in line with our salvation and that of others.  God wills that we desire his will for he cannot save us without us.  This is the fulfillment of love to love our neighbor as ourselves that all may be saved. 

This Sunday we begin what can be considered the “Tridium of the dead”.    We can look to Halloween as the beginning of the celebration of the death to death. Oh, death where is your sting?  “Hallow” mean “to honor as holy” and so it is the eve of All Saints Day, the holy souls in heaven.  Jesus came to bring an end to death that all may rise again and live.  November 1st then is the rise of all saints already having obtained the glory of God in heaven putting to death their own death by their love, faith and works of their lives.  You shall love your neighbors the saints in heaven united to us in the one body of Jesus Christ. Pray for their intercession for us to assist us in loving our God with all our hearts, souls and strength for by the grace of God they’re there. 

The last who are awaiting to put to death all suffering are the souls in purgatory who we are to pray for and visit their graves on November 2nd, All Souls Day.  This week was the showing of the movie “Purgatory” at the Cinema.  It is based on the Church teachings on purgatory created in a documentary style.  It includes stories of people who have been given visions of purgatory and apparitions of souls in purgatory seeking prayer.  The mercy of God’s love was to allow for justice for sinners to enter heaven by their cleansing in purgatory. The souls in purgatory are cleansing their baptismal robes from the stain of sin assured of heaven but not yet there.  You shall love your neighbors the souls in purgatory as yourself who we may one day be joining them on our way to heaven.

Often as Catholics we misinterpret the forgiveness of sins in confession as the “get out jail pass” straight to heaven.  What the movie highlighted for me was the message that heaven is for the souls made perfect and we should get on about the business of our perfection in this life in order shorten our time in purgatory.  There is much we can do for atonement of our sins and for the souls in purgatory from minor mortifications to offering our suffering up but what the souls in purgatory seek most is prayer and the greatest prayer to offer is the Mass.

Let us pray that when our time comes to put an end to our death and pass into eternity we shall be loved and remembered by the prayers of the Church and those we can call “friends” as Jesus calls us “friends”. 

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Homily The Deacon Joe

God save us! – 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Jer. 31:7-9; Ps. 126:1-6; Heb. 5:1-6; Mk. 10:46-52

“God save us!”  We call out to God to save us but the salvation we seek is of the flesh.  God comes to save us from the greater sin of our flesh.  Like the blind man who says “Master, I want to see” he desires to recover his sight.  Jesus’ response is “Your faith has saved you” saved his soul and given him the vision to see with his eyes so that to “go your way” was to “follow him on the way”.  Yes, the blind man wanted to see with the eyes of the flesh but he also was given the eyes of faith to call out to Jesus.  Faith opens the spiritual eyes for salvation.

The blind man had a spiritual vision of Jesus when called out to him, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”  He could have looked with only the eyes of the flesh and called out to Jesus, “Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph” or “Jesus of Nazareth” claiming only what others believed that Jesus was only this human prophet.  His blindness gave him the vision of faith to see someone greater than a prophet. God save us from the eyes of the flesh and give us the spiritual vision to seek what is above and to pray “God save us and grant us your salvation”.

What we seek is to meet the needs of the flesh.  The blind man wants to see, the leper to be healed, the people in the desert seek water to drink.  Humanity seeks the needs of the flesh.  It is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describing a “Theory of Human Motivation”.  We are motivated by the flesh beginning from the bottom up seeking our physiological needs first for food, water, and shelter, then followed by safety, a sense of belonging, our esteem from others, our aesthetic pleasure in our own creation, our self-actualization by our work, in other words it is all about ourselves before we look to the transcendence to become what we were made to be outside of ourselves. 

We were made to be someone beyond ourselves with meaning and purpose for God’s greater good.  We were made to be in the image of God, revealed in Jesus, and guided by the Holy Spirit to seek first what is above, the greater need and he will provide for humanity the essential needs.  Our God provides for all of his creation not only the essential needs but the essential purpose for salvation. We find our freedom not in the flesh that keeps us captive but in the transcendent that unites us to God and saves us. 

We call out “God save us” from our sickness, from danger, our fears, even from ourselves our thoughts, emotions, and impulses.  God’s answers us as he did the blind man with a salvation that is greater than the flesh that perishes.  God saves us for himself for all eternity.  God comes to “save us” from the temptation of sin, from the evil one, from the fire of hell but he cannot save us without us.  We are to call out to God to save us and defend us from our weaknesses, from falling into mortal sin, and from eternal death. 

God the Father sends us Jesus the Son to teach us the most essential need is “the way” of salvation.  Motivated for salvation is the transcendent need and the other needs become less demanding upon the flesh.  You hear how many saints lived a very ascetic lifestyle requiring very little food while maintaining a very rigorous life.  Padre Pio was one of those saints who ate little but did enjoy a little wine with supper. 

While our lives don’t live a priestly vocation, our vocation becomes less about the needs of the flesh and more about the need for God in our lives.  Our vocation does not come from the world, from what the market is seeking to feed itself with workers, or from the passions of the flesh.  Our vocation comes from God and we serve God with our vocation in the world with the works of salvation.  Our works begin at home building up the kingdom of God by increasing our faith in all we do as a blessing coming from God.  We are to be the channels of grace he desires to pour into us. 

We are to pray to see with the eyes of faith the work of God in our lives.  When our Protestant friends ask “have you been saved?”.  Our response can be “every day I am saved”.  The battle for our souls is not a “one and done” but a constant struggle of life to fight the good fight.  Adam and Eve fell from grace that is going from a state of obedience to God to one of disobedience thus so can we and we do.  Who can say they are 100% obedient to the will of God?  This is the call to “be perfect” and we are not there yet.  Yet every day we are saved from the accident of sin when we call out to God to save us. 

Our sin is a separation from the grace of God and our faith will help restore our favor with God.  The blind man called to Jesus with faith and Jesus not only restored his sight but he recognized his salvation.  We are to work on our faith daily to receive the graces and virtues to live holy lives.  We are also to know and be prepared for God’s way is not our way.  Just because we pray for healing of the flesh and that healing does not happen “our way” does not mean that we lack faith or that God did not hear our prayer.  God hears every word that is spoken and unspoken from the heart.  Thus, even in death it may be God’s way on answering a prayer for something greater than the flesh.  Did not our Lord have to suffer and die to bring about the resurrection of the body the greater good for the soul of humanity. 

Do we have faith?  We all have faith but our faith can be misplaced trusting only in ourselves, trusting only in science, trusting only on the eyes of the flesh.  Do we have a brain?  Has anyone ever seen their brain?  Unlikely, yet, we all believe it is there even when we have never opened our cranium to see our brain.  That is faith but there is a greater faith than the eyes of the flesh can see.  There is a faith that comes from grace given freely by God to lift us up from the sorrow, pain, or agony of the flesh, or from the stain of sin, or from the despair of the soul.  This faith we must seek and once we find it, we must not separate from it, become complacent with it, or fail to exercise our faith for even greater faith. 

We separate from our faith in God through sin.  Sin is the greatest enemy of faith because it denies us the grace to stand for what we believe.  Sin not only weakens our faith but it invites death to the flesh, death to the soul, and death to faith beyond what our eyes can see.  Sin will always undermine faith like a house built on sand.  No sooner that the test comes to survive the storm and it collapses and is ruined. 

We become complacent with faith when we only call upon it when the going gets tough and we find ourselves unable to have the control over life that we want.  We believe we have faith in good times expecting it to remain ready for us.  However, without the exercise of faith daily when the time comes for the “test” we are like Peter on the water, “Lord save me!”.  Complacency is the slow death of faith. 

We fail to exercise our faith when our prayer life becomes a ritual for compliance, or we end any prayer life in our day.  An exercise of faith comes when we “go forth” with the armor of God to overcome the test of life through acts of faith.  It is in the encounter with life that we discover the strength of our faith and help it grow.  The exercise of faith is the connection of what we believe with what we practice.  If we believe in God as we say we do then there is a practice of prayer to receive him in our daily encounter with life. 

We refer to a mystery of faith to believe in God in three persons however, the evidence for God has been proven by science such as the need for a prime mover for creation to exist.  The probabilities that creation is simply an “accident” is debunked.  It has been proven by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus more than any of the miracles he performed.  It has also been proven in our experience of faith through prayer when our faith brings about a conversion from within.  We have been touched by God’s grace and we know that we know it was not us but something greater than us that we received. 

We are to pray “Lord increase my faith for your salvation”.  God save us from a culture of death seeking to deny God, suppress the freedom of religion, and cancel the voice of faith in the public square.  God save us from the sin of the flesh when “I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” says Romans 7:19.  God save us from the blindness of our own sin when we fail to recognize evil and call it good in abortion, euthanasia, and gender neutrality.  God save us from the fires of hell for our mortal sin through his mercy and love coming from our confession of faith.  God save us, but he cannot save us without us.  This is the day of salvation when we accept to be followers of the way he left us.  This is the day to transcend ourselves and become what we were made to be, the children of God.  This is the day that our faith can save us. 

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Homily The Deacon Joe

We can with timely help – 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Is. 53:10-11; Ps. 33:4-5, 18-20, 22; Heb. 4:14-16; Mk. 10:35-45

We can with timely help be the servant of all for the greater good.  “We can” says James and John. Can we?  Yes, we can approach Jesus for the throne of grace is waiting for us with a great high priest in Jesus Christ.  We are to “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help”.  God’s time is the perfect time.  “Timely help” can serve for the greater good.  “Timely” can be immediately or it may require our wait upon the Lord with the grace of anticipated patience believing and knowing he listens to our confession and can sympathize with our weaknesses.  For this he “passed through the heavens” to be with us in all things but sin.  The “servant of all” represents the good of all and not the few who wish to be first. 

“We can” says James and John as they approached Jesus with the “open checkbook” request.  Sign the check and let us write in the amount.  What boldness or foolishness or both!  Their request, “Teacher we want you to do whatever we ask of you.”  They wanted an answer before revealing the request.  It is the kind of request you expect from a child, “Mom if I ask you for something will you promise to say ‘yes’?”  Chances are the answer is already understood to be “no” because it is being hidden from the truth.  Jesus comes to reveal the truth to us and how to live it.    We live it when we strive for the truth that creates a “win-win” for the greater good and not when we create winners and losers striving to be first among others. 

Jesus let James and John know there is a “cup” to drink with their request and they do not know what they are asking that comes with that “cup”.  It is a baptism by the fire of persecution that Jesus will be the first to bear and they will need to endure next as his followers.  Can we drink of this cup in our life?  We come to drink of the cup of life in communion so we can endure the cup of sacrifice and suffering in our lives and be strengthened by grace with timely help.  He who does not sacrifice does not serve and we are called to be a “slave of all” in our sacrifice for the Lord.  What does it mean to be a “slave of all”?  

What it does not mean is to be at the beck and call of all without the will or the courage to respond to the truth of the gospel.  Thus, what it means is to serve all with the gospel truth as a slave to the truth of the gospel.  The gospel is the path to the throne of grace and eternal life.  The truth of the gospel is to do all things with love in humility through the guidance of the Holy Spirit whose cardinal virtues we receive to be prudent, just, and to respond with fortitude and temperance to the test of life and all its’ challenges.  The servant of all serves for the good of all and not all things serve the good of all so seek the wisdom to know the difference. 

“We can” overcome our sacrifice and suffering by the grace of God who is with us.  Can we trust in him?  Trusting in Jesus is not being passive waiting for change to happen.  Trusting in Jesus is knowing we can take the next right step trusting his divine providence to open the path of righteousness for us to follow guided by the Holy Spirit.  Trusting in Jesus is an active response of faith.  When all our control is gone and our only control left is how we respond to our circumstances then we are left with our faith to still believe God is there in the unknown with timely help for a greater good.  We are all sent to “go forth” at the end of Mass and it represents having received the grace needed to overcome the “test” of living out our faith strengthened by the Eucharist and with the light of the Holy Spirit.

We can by grace of God carry the cross with Jesus without being crushed.  Isaiah prophesied Jesus coming was “to crush him in infirmity…as an offering for sin” to bear our guilt.  We turn to Jesus to lift us out of our cross with “timely help” and to help us bear what we must as a servant of the greater good of all.  We turn to Jesus to offer our confession to then receive the throne of grace.  The throne of grace will not only lift us up but send us forth to bear witness as servants of the Lord.  Thus, when we say “we can” it represents we can offer our confession for our guilt, we can receive the throne of grace from God’s mercy, and we can go forth to be his servant in life.  “Timely help” is less about us and more about him in search of his servants.  Who will serve him with a timely response of “we can”? 

“Can we?”  Can we live outside of our comfort zone?  In a world that demands having their “safe space” by avoiding a challenging environment and without question to whatever identity they adopt we can be a voice of light in the darkness of sin.  God has already given us an identity in his own image and there is no comfort zone outside of his identity for us.  Jesus laid his head upon a stone to rest outside of any comfort zone as a sacrifice and “ransom for many”.  We can say “we can” to the Lord and accept his call to live outside of our comfort zone by his grace. 

Can we accept the challenge from God to go outside of ourselves, our comfort, our fears, our worries and speak out the truth of the gospel in word and deed?  As believers we all want to serve God but can we accept the challenge of being asked to contribute by volunteering as members of his body serving the poor or serving as CCE teachers, lectors, or extraordinary ministers of communion?  Who wants to get to heaven?  We all do.  Who want to go through death to get to heaven?  We don’t.  There is a comfort in knowing what you have in this world even when it includes suffering compared to the unknown passage into death.  Jesus gave witness of a life after death with his resurrection and left us the hope of eternal glory. 

We are wired for life and death appears as an apostasy to life and yet Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reveals it is in dying that we are born again.  We die to sin every day in our confession, we die to our childhood in order to enter the adult life, we die to self in our baptism and confirmation, and when someone we love dies a part of us dies with them in our separation from them and the relationship that existed.  Even our bodies are continuously having our cells die and creating new ones in order to live longer.  Death is a part of our daily life and we are to be at peace with it because we have seen in our God the power to rise again. 

This is the story of Jesus “a great high priest who has passed through the heavens” to join our humanity and die to self as an expiation for our sins.  The cup he offers us in his body and blood is to drink of the cross as we lay down our life so that life can remain in us for all eternity.  How much are we willing to sacrifice in order to live in the heavens and earth.  Those who choose to retreat from life and remain in themselves offer little of themselves for the kingdom of God and are retreating into the darkness of a lasting misery.  Repent while there is still time and pray “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”  The Lord who comes with “timely help” will hear our prayers and rescue us.

Can we look to the eternal through the lens of suffering with Jesus by carrying the cross and following him?  The cross to bear comes through difficult relationships, sickness, persecution, betrayal, rejection or any other suffering mental, emotional, physical or relational but it is also a means of coming into God’s perfection.  The cross can serve to purify our souls.  It is the cup to drink that we face by the baptism of fire with the courage that we are not alone in those challenging situations.  God’s mercy and “timely help” is with us.  The unbearable becomes bearable as we discover in the mystery of suffering the love of God for us.  Yes, we can!  Yes, we can with the grace of God live through “it” whatever “it” is and this too shall pass.  Even death is not the end but the next right step towards heaven.  No avoiding or denying “it” for it comes to pass for God’s glory. 

What is our purpose in building simply an earthly kingdom to satisfy our pleasure, our pride, or our passions knowing it is a fleeting moment of life and then it all ends?  How sad for anyone who holds to this purpose to foolishly say “I did my way!”  Will “my way” bring us lasting happiness or the joy of love or a peaceful death?  For this St. Augustine reminds us that we are restless until we rest in him.  Jesus followers were known to be followers of “the way”.  There is unity in “the way”.  It is the unity of being of the same mind and heart of Jesus in living the way to perfection. 

The world will say “to each his way” but to followers of Christ “to each his way” is a path of self-destruction.  If we are trying to find “our way” then it is Jesus Christ who can reveal to us the way to our salvation, our “little way” of being his child and coming to him with all our trust in him.  No matter our age to God we are simply a child in need of a Father, of a mother, and a family. He provides us our Father in heaven and our Blessed Mother, our brother in Christ, and our mother church, and our gift of the Holy Spirit to bind us all as one family.  Can we?  Yes, we can be a servant of all the good with all the sacrifice and love coming with timely help from our God. 

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Homily

“All things are possible”– 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Wis. 7:7-11; Ps. 90:12-17; Heb. 4:12-13; Mk. 10:17-30

“All things are possible for God” including meeting the precondition to be a follower of God.  The man who ran up to Jesus was given a precondition for he was “lacking in one thing”, giving up all his possessions before coming to follow Jesus.  He was attached to his possessions in a way that was holding him back from his desire for the “eternal life”.  Nothing we have as our possession we take with us into the eternal life.  Naked we came into the world and naked we will return.  What is that one thing in the way keeping us from the eternal life? 

We can be attached to people, places and things that hold us back from growing in our faith.  We can be attached to our sins that we refuse to separate from.  We can turn something natural into something abusive from food to entertainment from sex to work it can all become an attachment of sin.  People, places, and things are not the end all but the means to come into relationship with our God.  But “all things are possible with God” to transform our attachments from sin to service, from dependency to freedom.  

Something good can become something that stands in the way of our call to love God above all things.  God first!  Who are our attachments that hold us back from coming to Jesus?  We can be attached to people who we love so much that we lose sight of God.  Recall when Jesus was told his mother and brothers had arrived to see him.  He asked “who is my mother and who are my brothers?”  Jesus’ love for his mother was not any less than a son to her but he understood his calling was greater than his love for his earthly family.  He came to build up a heavenly family and that did not mean loving anyone less but being willing to love more by sacrifice for something greater.  We are called to make a similar sacrifice when we decide we are ready to “cling” to a “suitable partner”. 

Last week the theme of the readings was about leaving behind mother and father and clinging to your “suitable partner”.  We don’t love our parents less we only grow in love as we come to appreciate even more what they did for us, their sacrifice, and the love so we could be ready to love even more in marriage and with our children. When we get married our focus is on our mission as a couple to help each other get to heaven. 

Priests leave behind mother and father and cling to the mother Church with a sacrificial love for their calling to serve the poor, the neighbor, and the stranger.  If a husband or wife decides they have no intention of coming to Church do we still come and fulfill our commitment to God first?   Won’t our prayers for our family be more of a sacrifice by still coming to Church and serve as a reminder to your spouse that God comes first?  St. Augustine’s mother St. Monica prayed and sacrificed for her son when he was living his life of sin and not only were her prayers answered but she became a saint through her sacrifice.  Come and pray for their conversion for “all things are possible for God.” 

We can be attached to places like our workplace.  Work is a calling from God and scripture reminds that he who does not work should not eat.  Work is especially fruitful when we make our work a place where we invite God into that he may multiply the blessings of our work.  Work can also become an attachment for sin when we don’t work to live but live to work as workaholics.  Workaholism is closely linked to the love of money.  Otherwise, there is plenty of work to do at home, to volunteer at church if someone has the energy and time to give more and the payback can be even greater than any money will buy. 

We can even be attached to things that represent our “silver and gold” like our cell phone.  Can we try putting that cell phone down for just a day, or even just a meal to sit and face each other in conversation?  Let us ask ourselves “how difficult is that?”  Something that has made our life so convenient in communications can even turn to evil.  Evil comes in the form of social media and cancel culture, stalking and bullying.  Youth are more driven to suicide by social media than by going out and living life.  The phone is the silver and gold of youth and can turn into the weapon of Satan if parents are not aware of what their children are viewing.  The evil one can turn all things into possibilities for sin and destruction. 

All things are possible for God”.  Greater than silver and gold are the “countless riches” at the hands of wisdom that bring “all good things together”.  “Nothing in comparison with her” not silver, gold or priceless gems compare to the countless riches coming from the spirit of wisdom in the kingdom of God.  Search for the things from above and greater than any earthly riches will be given.  The things from above work together to separate the darkness from the light and bring us the gift of wisdom.

It takes wisdom to see the hand of God in our presence and recognize in life not just what is but what is becoming of us for we are the unfinished work of God in search of his perfection.  God’s work in us is to grow in holiness, to be made perfect in love, and to come and follow him in doing his will.  Wisdom is the outcome of living the infused virtues coming from God through the gifts of the Holy Spirit put into practice in our human encounters with life in God’s presence. 

“Then come, follow me” sets the precondition to being a follower of Jesus.  Something needs to occur before we become followers of Jesus.  What is our “then come” that is keeping us from entering into the eternal life?  Is it our possessions or even something deeper like our pride?  Do we need to come to the waters of baptism and accept Jesus as our savior?  We need to come to Jesus in humility and accept his love and mercy.  Jesus is waiting?  As he said to a young Maria Faustyna Kowalksa in a vision, “How long will you keep me waiting?”  It was the moment of conversion for St. Faustyna.  For most of us, it is a moment by moment conversion until our last breath.  Jesus does not push us away from him we keep pushing ourselves away from him still trying to live “our life”.  Our life is a breath away from ending the moment the breath of Jesus stops breathing on us. 

The disciples claim to have met the preconditions as Peter claims, “We have given up everything and followed you.”  Jesus’ response is a promise to receive “a hundred times more…now in this present age…and eternal life in the age to come.”  Jesus is preparing his disciples for the coming kingdom of his church on earth that comes with “houses” of worship, “brothers and sisters” in Christ, “mothers” from the Church and children from the followers and with “lands” from the four corners of the world as the gospel is proclaimed.  It also has its sacrifice “with persecutions” as the early Church is persecuted but it’s reward “in the age to come”.  After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples received “a hundred times more…in the present age”, they received the power to heal, to cast out demons, to proclaim the gospel with authority and even to forgive sins in the name of Jesus for “all things are possible for God.” 

We can count our blessings a hundred times but we also need to recognize our gifts coming from God in all the little and big ways he answers our prayers.  God provides us the wisdom to raise our family, the justice to protect the innocent, the resources to feed the hungry, the fortitude to defend our faith, the temperance to balance our life, the prudence to judge rightly and the breath of life to live as true witnesses of the gospel message. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  When there is doubt between the word of God and our thoughts and feelings there is no doubt.  The gift of prudence helps us accept the word of God in humility, to recognize what is lacking in us as poor in spirit comes in the fullness of God’s truth and we trust in him.  “All things are possible for God” when we invite him into our lives.  We come to him in the poverty of our humanity, with all our limitations, all our faults, all our needs and hopes.  We ask for forgiveness in what we have done and failed to do and the most merciful God in his riches hears our prayers and answers. 

Let us remember to pray the Rosary.  It is a meditation on the life of Christ with the Blessed Mother Mary echoing our prayer to her son.  With each mystery place yourself there and imagine witnessing the mystery and experiencing the joy, sorrow, glory, and the light.  Soon we can come to enter into the mystery itself and receive the graces from God who makes all things possible. 

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Homily The Deacon Joe

Cling to Jesus– 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Gen. 2:18-24; Ps. 128:1-6; Heb. 2:9-11; Mk. 10:2-16

Cling to Jesus that we may become of one flesh with his body and blood.  “The two shall become one flesh” is the foundation of experiencing the love of God in holy matrimony.  “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”  To be of one flesh is to come together and be of one mind and heart and reveal ourselves to the other.  Jesus reveals himself to us to know him, love him and serve him and by doing so we recognize him, his love for us, and his continual sacrifice for us. 

Husbands how well do you know your wife and wives how well do you know your husband?  Parents know their children and spend a lot of time observing them seeing them grow and understanding who they are to help them become the best that God created them to be.  In doing so however do not lose focus on each other as husband and wife or you may wake up one day and ask “who is this person I live with?”  Two persons united to Jesus in the mystery of faith become of one body to be fruitful vines who know thyself as a person, as a couple, and as children of God.  In marriage we are to help each other grow in holiness to be the best of thyself for the other. 

Are men clingy to their wives?  Just ask the wife how clingy a man is when he gets sick.  She will tell how quickly a man becomes like a child clinging to his wife to care for his needs.  Clinging to our wife should not wait until we are faced with our mortality.  Clinging in the healthy sense is recognizing that marriage is the priority.  The job is not first, the friends don’t come first, the money not does come first, that boat or golf clubs don’t come first.  “Querias!” you asked for it and vowed with the words “I do”.   

Are women clingy to their husbands?  Just ask the husband if his wife changed priorities with the birth of each child how far down the priority he has fallen.  Children are a priority that succeeds only when the marriage works in being of one mind and body, that is working together for their good.  We can cling to our children like helicopter parents unwilling to face the empty nest and they will grow to be adults despite the clinginess of parents or they will suffer the insecurities of life afraid to go forth and master the gifts of their talents for a greater good.   We cling to our spouse but not to our children because they are a gift from God that needs to return to him.  He left for the man and woman each other to cling to as a “suitable partner”. 

Children grow up and leave the home but who do they first call when they get sick?  They call home to mom to cling on for a remedy.  Moms do you like having your husbands and children clinging onto you?  Sometimes clinginess can become burdensome and we hear the frustration and impatience come out with “what do you want? Not now!”  Not only is a husband flesh of your flesh through matrimony but children coming from the womb are literally flesh of your flesh.  In loving them it is the love of self being expressed in the other that binds us into one flesh.  The challenge for parents is to allow our children to grow apart from us, to struggle into maturity and eventually to see them leave us as parents and cling to another and becoming one flesh in search of the fullness of life.

Jesus says, “Let the children come to me” and nothing like having to face hardship through illness, trauma, tragedy, or sin and seeing our lives come apart to realize how much we need to come to our God as clingy children of faith, seek forgiveness and be healed.  We are all called to cling to Jesus.  Jesus is our salvation.  Remember when Jesus was left behind in Jerusalem as a child and his parent had to return and search for him.  It is the fifth mystery of the Joyful mysteries of the rosary.  They found him in the temple ready to go about the will of God the Father but he remained obedient to his parents because his hour had not yet come.  The hour eventually comes for all of us to decide who will we cling to?  Cling to Jesus!

In marriage preparation the question to ask is whether the person we to want to marry and cling to we are also willing to sacrifice and die for.  Too often in our culture marriage is seen as a “trial” experience or one person is ready for that lifetime commitment but the other lacks that sacrificial love of other and the relationship deteriorates after months, years, or even decades of failing to enter into a covenant of love.  The early pitfalls of a marriage are those good intentions that do not equal readiness to enter into a covenant love with each other especially if that covenant love has not been established with God first. 

We need to grow in covenant with God to recognize when true love is there as an offering coming from someone else.  The first teachers of that love are our parents when it is there. When it is not there due to divorce, a dysfunctional home, or the evil of sin in the lifestyle choices then “love” is simply a word of desire or emotion with unmet needs.  No one can fill that void in life without God first.  God is love.  God is a person we enter into a personal relationship with that is to define any and all other relationships of love.  In God’s love we grow in maturity within our human experiences to know true love, beauty, goodness, and truth when we enter into the unity as husband and wife. 

MRI studies (magnetic resonance imaging) indicate the male brain does not fully mature until age 25 while the female age is at 21 years-old.  Now add today’s culture of drug and alcohol misuse and for some the maturity is not only extended into later life but for others it becomes locked into the immaturity of a child, self-centered, impulsive, and driven by the passions of the body and temptations of the world.  The result is the danger of clinging onto someone who is not only unhealthy to themselves but to the relationship of marriage in the least and in the worst can be damaging to the soul.  For these the church recognizes it was never a covenant marriage and allows for the annulment of what never was. 

Just because the marriage is annulled does not make illegitimate the children of the marriage.  In fact, all children in marriage or out of marriage, in the womb or out of the womb are legitimate children of God.  Jesus is reminding us “let the children come to me”, let the unborn “come to me” for at the moment of conception they have receive their soul and it is not righteous that they be denied life for the sins of another.  That is not a choice for God or for love of God.  It is a choice for evil and to suffer the consequences of that evil. 

The sanctity of the family is under attack for it is the first institution that determines a child’s foundation of faith.  When divorce becomes prevalent in society not only is the family broken apart but the trust of commitment to each other is broken.  We no longer cling to each other in a covenant bond to last a lifetime.  We begin to establish those conditional “prenuptial agreements” that say “I will love you conditionally as long as you are faithful to the agreement” instead of fidelity to the person.  Even when the agreement is not in writing it is already a condition being written into the heart of the person who seeks marriage.  Adultery of the heart begins before there ever is adultery of the flesh and divorce will not be far behind. 

It is in the home that a child learns they are a creation of God to grow to be the best they were created to be in the image of God.  God first is the greatest commandment.  Beliefs that attempt to rise above God from ideologies of the world are attempting to replace the primacy of God for the primacy of theory and laws that satisfy the human desire for power.  “He ‘for a little while’ was made lower than the angels that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone…(is) bringing many children to glory”. This is not a theory but a person, Jesus Christ.  He is above all to be in all and through all who receive him.  He did not bring us a theory of God but the person of God to be our God, “leader to their salvation perfect through suffering”. 

God’s love is “brought to perfection in us” by our participation in the mystery of faith through the bond of marriage.  In marriage we struggle together, we celebrate together and at times we suffer together but never alone for “if God is with us who can be against us”.  Our goal in holy matrimony is to help each other get to heaven. There is a choice and a consequence for the greater good or for the greater evil by how we choose to participate.  God’s work of perfection in us begins in the family when we create a Godly home, secure in faith and commitment to God and to each other.  Our presence in church is a sign of that commitment.  If coming to church is not priority then how can we say “God comes first” in our life? God is most present to us here in the Eucharist.

We all became comfortable in participating in “church” virtually with the pandemic.  It is in church however where “the two become one flesh” when we take and eat and drink of his body and blood.  Spiritual communion is not the ideal that Jesus left us to do in remembrance of him.  He desires our transformation into his body and blood by receiving him in the Eucharist so that it is no longer us but Christ is us that lives and we cling to him who is life eternal. 

The infant Jesus born of the womb of Mary did cling to his mother to grow as the son of Mary and Joseph in his humanity.  Mary the Immaculate Conception was brought to perfection to be the channel of grace for her son to be born who “for a little while was made lower than the angels” to cling to the cross that “he may taste death for everyone” so that we may “all have the same origin” to become of one flesh with Jesus.  This is our call to return to the promise land in the flesh.  Thus, Mary did cling to Jesus to remain by his side at the hour of his death, at foot of the cross on his last breath and at the hour of her death when she ascends to heaven to remain at his side.  Do we cling to Jesus?  Jesus desires to cling to us calling us to his salvation. Jesus does not push away from us we push away from him.  

Today, cling to our blessings, cling to the fruitful vine who God made to be “your suitable partner”.  Cling to our Mother Mary and Father in heaven that you may see your children’s children.  Cling to the cross that this moment may soon pass by into the greater glory of God.  Cling to our mother church who is here to sanctify us and be with us in the journey.  Cling to Jesus, that the Lord may bless us all the days of our lives. 

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