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Sunday, September 24, 2017

September 24th, 2017 - 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Are You Idle?

Listen to the Homily:  September 24th, 2017 - 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Are You Idle?

Gospel Reflection:

In today’s Gospel passage, the landowner hires workers at different times during the day, yet at the end of the day, all of them are paid the same daily wage.  The landowner represents God, the workers hired at the beginning of the day are the Jews.  Those hired late are the Gentiles.  God is offering the full daily wage to all who work in His vineyard.  Although, the Gentiles came late, Heaven is offered to them too if they would work in the Lord’s vineyard.

This is good news for us.  It means that regardless of whether we started to follow God late in life or not we can still receive the reward of Heaven.  If you are not working for God right now, then rejoice because He is hiring you for a specific job that only you can fulfill.  Maybe right now you are working for God in some aspects of your life, but in others you might not be working for God.  Consider the following aspects of time, money, and your moral life.  Are you following God’s teaching and by doing so working in His vineyard?

It is not too late to start now.  Ask for the help of God’s grace and He will guide you little by little to working fully and completely for Him.  Let us turn to the Lord for mercy, for He is generous in forgiving.  Let us make ourselves available to God in prayer and through repentance, so that He can hire us and so we can be with Him forever in Heaven. 

Monday, September 18, 2017

September 17th, 2017 - 24th Sunday of OT - Forgiveness and Forgiving Others

Listen to the Homily: September 17th, 2017 - 24th Sunday of OT - Forgiveness and Forgiving Others

Gospel Reflection
Our passage for this weekend about forgiveness.  Peter asks how often he must forgive someone that sins against him.  Jesus’ reply of seventy-seven times, can also be translated as seventy times seven, which is understood to mean “always.”  To help illustrate His point, Jesus tells us a parable where a servant is forgiven an unpayable debt, a huge amount.  The same servant than refused to forgive a much smaller debt.
The servant represents us and our debt to God as a result of our sins.  We are not able to pay it off, but if we go to Confession and ask for His forgiveness we will be forgiven.  Such a great gift of forgiveness should inspire us to forgive others for their sins against us.  Yet for the servant in the parable and for many of us, forgiving those that are in debt to us or sinned against us is difficult.  We may be tempted to seek revenge and in some way seek repayment from our offenders.  But, should we take that same path of the unforgiving servant, then we ourselves will not be forgiven by our Heavenly Father.
Forgiveness is an act of the will rather than an emotion or a feeling.  To forgive is to remove the debt, to wipe the slate of offenses clean, to give up the right to hurt those who have hurt you.  We forgive someone not because they deserve it, but instead as an act of mercy and love.  When we forgive others, we free ourselves spiritually and emotionally from being bound to the offender in our own unforgiveness.  Forgiveness works best the more specific you are when you forgive.  It is also helpful to invoke the powerful name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  One possible way of forgiving is to say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I forgive [name of offender] for [name the particular and specific offense].”  Being so specific often would require multiple acts of forgiveness, one for each offense.  Those who find it difficult to forgive others should pray to God for the grace to forgive.  Those who do not even desire to forgive, should pray for the desire to forgive and once the desire is there, pray for the grace to forgive.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

September 3rd, 2017 - 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Carrying Our Crosses

Listen to Homily:  September 3rd, 2017 - 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time - Carrying Our Crosses

We hear in our Gospel passage today about how Jesus must suffer and die before He is raised.  He also tells us that we must likewise take up our crosses and follow Him.  It is not always easy to be Catholic and to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, which He entrusted to His bride the Church.  Especially when those teachings differ from the morality of today’s society.  Jesus Himself asks us, “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?”  Jesus means, it isn’t good to indulge in the sinfulness found here on earth and in doing so, forfeit heaven.  Instead whatever difficulties we have in following Him should be thought of as our crosses, which we are to carry.  To do this we often times must deny ourselves, our impulses, our disordered desires, our love of comfort and convenience, and instead follow Christ by following His teaching.


Our crosses become easier to carry when we love the Lord and long to be with Him as we hear in our Responsorial Psalm, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”  Love makes sacrifices easy and it is because of the great love of Jesus Christ for God the Father and for all of us, that He was willing to go through His passion, death, and resurrection to express that love and bring about our salvation.  Let us grow in our love for the Lord, and as we so, let us more easily take up our crosses and follow Him.

Last Posting for this Blog!

Hello Everyone, I was blessed to be at Ascension for 4 years and all my Sunday homilies, most Holy Days of Obligation homilies, some Vocatio...