“I will place my law within them, I will write it upon their hearts, says the Lord.”

EUCHARIST CONNECTION: In the sacrament of this altar the Lord gains access to our hearts when we open ourselves to receive his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. He enters our hearts to heal what’s wounded and to write upon them the law and the promise of his love.

Viewing Jesus’s Mission as a Global Exorcism

From Lent to “Living Color”

Sad to say but our grandmother needed to die first. We liked her a lot but her day arrived. It wasn’t long after that we got a color TV in our family home. A color TV. I thought we’d never get one.

Our black and white TV was okay until I saw a color TV through our living room window. You see, our neighbors, who were childless, got to purchase a precious color TV. Our home full of children could not. (You do the math.) “Ours is just fine,” was my mother’s dismissive answer to my plaguing requests.

The Danger of the Cross

We frequently say that we are saved through the cross of Jesus. But here is where we need to be very careful. It is important for us to understand how we are saved through the cross of Jesus. What is it about Jesus’ crucifixion that saves us? We know that Jesus’ crucifixion was unjust, brutal, and horrible. We are safe to say that there is nothing about the injustice, the brutality, and the horror that saves us. All of these things were evil things. Had we been present during Jesus’ life, we should have taken every step we could to prevent Jesus—or anyone else for that matter—from experiencing such an unjust and horrible death. So we are not saved by the injustice or brutality of the cross. What we are saved by is the love and service of Christ who embraces the cross and the power of God that raises Jesus from the dead. It is the love of Christ and the power of God that saves us. And that love is stronger than the evil of the cross. To say this in another way: There is nothing good in the cross itself.  But good comes to us through the cross because what comes to us through the cross is the love of Christ and the power of God.

RELATED HOMILIES

A Realistic Disciple (April 6, 2003)
Life, Death, and Walnuts (April 2, 2006)
Planning Potatoes in the Kingdom (March 24, 2012)
Facing the Hour (March 22, 2015)
When Life Turns (March 18, 2018)
God Can Change Us (March 20, 2021)

Our Hour

We have the choice to stand for Christ and live in peace with God and with ourselves, or to turn towards that which is popular and sinful and live in turmoil. See, that is what sin does to us. It puts us in turmoil. We make believe that we are OK with whatever is happening, but we aren’t. Sometimes we even have a hard time looking into the mirror. We can’t stand looking at ourselves because we can’t stand the person we are becoming when our actions contradict all that is within us.

The Gospel today is, to the world and to those who are perishing, utter madness, utter foolishness. For Christ, in effect, declares that dying (to this world) is the only way to true life. While the world’s so-called wisdom declares to us that the way to life is power, prestige, possessions and popularity, Jesus says, die to all that and you’ll find true life.

Let’s examine the Lord’s Paradoxical Plan to save us and bring us to new life.

SOURCE: LifeIssues.net Homily Archive

Finding Hope When Life Hurts: Stop Procrastinating

Bottom line: Meditating on what Jesus has done, we ask his help to rightly order our lives. Stop procrastinating!

RELATED HOMILIES:

2015: New Mind and Heart
2012: To Know the Lord
2009: A Matter of Life and Death
2006: Your Judgment on the World
2003: Now is the Time of Judgment
2000: We Would Like to See Jesus

Jesus, the Grain of Wheat, who died to harvest Us

We can never forget that Jesus did all of this for love of us. We know that the risen Jesus appeared to the apostles in Galilee and asked Peter three times if he loved him (John 21:15-17). It was Jesus’ way of undoing Peter’s three denials of Jesus. But as we reflect on Jesus’ passion, his dying like a grain of wheat to harvest us for his kingdom, we cannot but help question our own love for Jesus. Do we love Jesus who died to harvest us?

Repentance and Eucharist

I’ve come to see that the admission of sin is a constant theme of every Mass. I do not mean the implicit willingness to “repent and believe the Good News” when we hear the word of God, or the acknowledgment of our inadequacy when we offer our prayers of the faithful. I mean, rather, the continuing acknowledgment of our sinful condition at the height of the Communion rite.

Memento Mori

For this week of Lent leading up to Palm Sunday, it may be helpful for all of us to begin meditating on how God incarnate became the grain of wheat, indeed has become food and drink for us, leading us to an eternal harvest. We are invited this week to reflect again on the words we heard on Ash Wednesday, remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. And then ask ourselves, how can I be like that grain of wheat? What are the weeds in my garden that I need to pull? How can I invest myself more into what really matters in this life? Who is that person in my life I need to stop taking for granted and love the way I am called to love? What are the ways that I can grow closer to the Lord as I make my pilgrimage to Holy Week? This is why I think a “memento mori” every so often is not all together bad. It can be in fact be very good ifit helps us reorient our focus to where it should be: our Easter hope

Forgiveness and “Create in me a clean heart, O God”

We need to learn the way of forgiveness. Forgiveness brings life and it liberates from isolation and anger. The readings for this Sunday, the Gospel, the writings of the saints, the disciplines of Lent, the sacrament of reconciliation all help to teach us this healing truth.