Category: Homilies

Recordings of Recent Sunday Homilies

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Really Jesus

     It’s disheartening how many Catholics are confused about the true and substantial presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, in the last 50 years. Blame it on poor catechesis, a lack of good preaching, or whatever. Turns out things were not all that different in the middle of the 13th century. It took the vision of St Juliana of Cornillon and the Eucharistic miracle at Bolsena, Italy, in 1263 where the precious blood spilled out of the consecrated host and onto the corporal and altar cloth, to get folks’ attention. Pope Urban IV was so moved by the miracle, that he had the bloodied corporal moved to the cathedral in Orvieto where it resides today. (I’ve actually seen it. It’s pretty cool.) The following year Pope Urban  proclaimed the universal celebration of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord, commonly known by its Latin name of Corpus Christi. 

Throughout the years, the Church has come up with various ways to try to describe this great mystery of our faith in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Eventually, the best we could come up with was to use Greek philosophical categories to at least attempt to describe a little of what was going on. Briefly put, all things are made up of their substance and their attributes. The substance of a person or thing is its essence, its identity—what or who it is in and of itself. The attributes are what it looks like. Take yourself for example. You have always been you. Your identity has not changed. But your attributes have. As you aged, you got  taller, more trim and better looking! Your substance is the same, but your attributes have changed.

In the Eucharist, the process is the opposite. The attributes remain the same. It still looks and tastes like bread and wine.  However, the substance, the essence, the identity of the bread and wine is changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.

Why? Well, quite frankly, because Jesus said so. Like the resurrection, the mechanics of this mystery escape us. Furthermore, we have to be careful not to get too bogged down in the details of sacramental analysis.  We can try to understand certain aspects, and use, quite rightly, the term “trans-substantiation,” but even as we do so, we realize that we are only talking about one tiny aspect of the immensity of the reality that is the Eucharist. When we understand that all that Christ is, is truly present to all that we are; that there is nothing that separates us from the love of God in a holy communion at the very essence of who we are, it is truly astounding.

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Trinity Sunday – Good Doctrine Leads to Good Behavior

We don’t argue about doctrine these days. Sometimes I wish we did. Why?  Because bad theology leads to bad behavior.

Sincerity is no arbiter of truth. You can be very sincere in your convictions and very, very wrong. Think about it. Every super villain in the Marvel universe is convinced that he or she is justified in their evil actions by a just cause. Thanos wanted people to thrive, but he didn’t think there was enough resources to go around. His solution was to randomly eliminate half the sentient beings in the universe.

Such a thought process can be sneaky. When it first came out, I thought the WWJD fad was kind of neat. When faced with a moral question, why not ask, “What would Jesus do?” The problem is that the vast majority of people wearing WWJD bracelets never really bothered to find out who Jesus actually is and what Jesus actually did. The result is that all too often WWJD became a way to justify bad behavior by recreating Jesus in one’s own image to fit one’s own preferences.  Bad theology leads to bad behavior.

The early Church had a deep appreciation for the need to articulate the Faith in a way that reflected, as best as humanly possible, the divine realities what were revealed to us. 

So it was that 1700 years ago, in 325 that the first Ecumenical Council met at Nicaea to come up with a way to suitably articulate the nature of Christ. Simply put, the controversy was this.  We Christians say that “Jesus is Lord!”  But how do we say that Jesus is Lord? One group, led by Arias, overemphasizing the transcendence of God, said that Jesus was the first of God’s creation and leads us to the Father. Thus, Christ was not to be worshipped.  This did not sit well with Arias’s bishop, Alexander, who rightly upheld the divinity of Jesus. The controversy spilled out into the whole Church. Apparently there were even a few bar fights about the divinity of Christ in the streets of Alexandria. So, the Emperor Constantine, who had recently legalized the Church, called the bishops to his summer palace in Nicaea to work it out. It was at this first ecumenical council that the bulk of the statement of faith we now know as the Nicaean Creed was pounded out. One of the canons of the Council of Nicaea was that the creed it produced would be recited at every Mass throughout the world for all time. That is why we recite the Nicaean Creed every Sunday.

On this Trinity Sunday, we should take time to really pay attention. When we understand the Creed, we understand what it means to say that Jesus is Lord. Good doctrine leads to good behavior. I don’t recommend getting into any bar fights, but I do pray it helps us to be more charitable and credible witnesses of the Gospel.

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Pentecost, 2025 – The Power of Relationship

The Power of Relationship

      Think of your best friend, soulmate, BFF, bestie, or whoever you consider the one who knows you better than anyone. Now think of the quality of that relationship. How did it start? How did it develop. Were there any particular moments, trials, achievements, that took it to the next level? When you describe the relationship itself, what words do you use? How do you explain such a relationship? At a certain point, words will fail, but you can at least describe such a relationship gives you life. 

       In a nutshell, this is exactly what the Church does when we try to describe the Holy Spirit. Words will ultimately fail, but that does not mean we should not try.

       The key to pondering the reality of the Holy Spirit is to understand that we are talking about relationship. Specifically, we are referring to the relationship between the Father and the Son. Like all loving relationships, such as the one between a husband and wife, it includes the two principle parties; but like a good marriage, such a love cannot be contained to just those two. This is manifested in several ways.

       Love by its very nature is creative and life-giving. For example, in the total self-giving spiritual and physical union of husband and wife, body and soul, we are talking about love so intense in its expression that nine months later you may have to give it a name! Such a love literally begets a life of its own. In a similar, but perfect and eternal way, all creation including you and me is begotten of the loving,  creative love between the Father and the Son. 

       This power of the love of God we  call the Holy Spirit also sustains and sanctifies. We Catholics are not ‘deists.’  We do not believe that God set the world in motion and then walked away. Maybe checking on it from time to time as one will check the soup. No, Divine Love cares for what it begets. As Catholics we believe that God is present to all creation, sustains us, continues to redeem us and sanctify us.

       It is this last bit about sanctification which is the kicker. It is a very heady thing to realize that each of us, by our baptism and by the other sacraments of the Church, are invited to participate in the very relationship that is God. This “Holy Spirit,” which is the power of the love of God between the Father and the Son, this relationship of sanctifying grace is what enables us to be what God has intended for each of us when he loved us into being.

       May we welcome such grace and let it transform us to reflections of such a perfect love.

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Power and Witness to the Ends of the Earth

     I worked construction for many years in the western Aleutian Islands. One of islands was a place called Shemya. It is a small island that sits about 1800 miles west of Anchorage, at 52°43′27″N 174°07′08″E in the North Pacific. As we used to say, “It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.” There is an Air Force Base with a chapel there. I used to go to Mass there every Sunday.

       I wonder if our Lord had Shemya in mind when he said that the disciples would receive power from on high and be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Perhaps, but in truth, the antipode of Jerusalem is in the middle of the South Pacific. The nearest city is Mataura in French Polynesia. That is as far away from Jerusalem as you can get on the planet. In downtown Mataura is the old parish church of Christ the King.      That is amazing, but we should not fall prey to the temptation of thinking that our work as disciples is complete. Geography is one thing. Demographics is another. As of the last study, Alaska was still one of the most unreligious places in the country. According to the 2020 Census, the population of Alaska was 733,391 in 2020. The adherent totals of all religious groups (258,020) made up only 35.2% of the total population. Of this, Catholics make up only 5.5% of the population (down from 8.7% twenty years ago.) We have work to do. 

       Thankfully, the same power from on high given to the disciples that allowed the gospel to travel to the remotest ends of the earth, is the same power given to you and to me by virtue of our baptism and confirmation. Now, however, our focus needs to shift from geography to demography and even, if I may, to spiritual physiology.   

       I have said before that the Ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit allows Christ to be as truly and substantially present today in every time and place, as He was to the disciples in his Passion, Death and Resurrection. This is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit through the grace of sacraments of the Church.   The difference now is that our efforts must be directed to reaching those souls and hearts which are furthest away from Christ and his Church. For us here in St. Patrick’s the focus is two-fold.  First, we must strengthen the faith and open the door of interior conversion to the people in our own parish family. Second, we need to reach out to those in 99504 who are searching for the truth and introduce them to the One who is Truth itself.

Sure we have work to do, but we do so having entered the true sanctuary and clothed with Power from on high.

And if you think about it, if your entire life is spent bringing just one other person to the Gospel, is that not a life well spent?

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Waiting and Wondering. Moving Across Town

It’s nice to live in the time of fulfillment. After 2000 years of Christian living, we know what Jesus was talking about when he promised the coming Advocate to the disciples before he went to the Father. Those in the Upper Room, however, were hearing it for the first time. How could they know or appreciate what he meant? That realization would not come until the Holy Spirit actually descended on Mary and the apostles at Pentecost. In the meantime, they had to wait and wonder about what he said.
I have always been struck by the difference between Jesus’s words to the disciples before the resurrection and his words after.
So often during his ministry he would encourage or reassure the disciples by saying, “Be not afraid!” But after the resurrection, his first words are almost invariably, “Peace be with you.” Perhaps this is because everything changes after the resurrection. The price for sin has been paid, a disordered world is set aright, and all creation is reconciled to God. Things can now be as they should be. It is the time of fulfillment which continues to unfold unto the present day.
The Christian who loves Christ and keeps his word realizes this. The Father and the Son love him and make their dwelling with him. This indwelling of the love of God, who we know as the Holy Spirit, gives a peace that the world cannot give. Rooted in the love of the Father, redeemed by Christ, and animated by the Holy Spirit, we stand in the truth in love, no matter what chaos this passing world may throw our way.
This promise of Christ to his disciples as recorded in the Gospel of John (14:23-29), is the promise of Christ that allows us to move from “Be not afraid.” to “Peace be with you.”
It is Christ’s gift to us. Let us make it our gift to the world.

MOVING TO ST. ELIZABETH’S

Yes, it is true. Effective July 1, 2025, I will be pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in south Anchorage. It’s been a good run here at St. Patrick’s, a time of growth for the parish, the people and the pastor. Lots to do before then. Let’s go do good thing for Jesus.

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We Win!!!

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood books of the Bible is the Book of Revelation (No “s”, by the way). It’s understandable given that it is a very particular type of text known as “apocalyptic literature.” It comes from the Greek word apokalysis which literally means “unveiling” as when a statue is revealed when the veil is taken away.  Colloquially, it can mean “to bring one to knowledge he could not get on his own” or simply “revelation.” Most notably, it is seen in certain parts of the Book of Daniel and in the Book of Revelation, but also in Isaiah and various parts of many of the prophetic books. It became very popular in post-exile Judaism as a way to make sense of present suffering and how the righteousness of God would reconcile all things in his divine justice, and establish lasting peace. Of course, when you are being persecuted, the last thing you  want to do is name your persecutor outright. By using highly symbolic language, it allowed the author to identify certain people, places and events without others outside the group knowing about it. Thus, Rome becomes “Babylon” and the Emperor Nero becomes “The Beast” whose name, if you translate it into Roman numerals adds up to “666.”

     Despite what Hollywood would like you to believe, the purpose of the Revelation of John as the book is rendered in English, is not to be a repository of strange and mysterious prophecies of cosmic, cataclysmic struggles, but rather it is written down by John to the churches who were being persecuted to strengthen their faith and remind them that no matter what they may have had to endure, in the end God’s mercy and God’s justice will prevail.  In short, a subtitle of the Book of Revelation could be “We Win!!!” or more specifically, “Christ wins and we who are united with Christ are victorious with him.” 

     In the five verses we see in this week’s second reading (Rev 21:1-5a), we see the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth.  The old order has passed away. Gone are sin and suffering and death. Everything, including us, is as God has intended for it to be. This is nothing to be feared. This is the fulfillment of all that we could hope for, and more than we can imagine.

     Still, we have an odd tendency to think that this is some kind of far off, distant reality. In truth, it is something that has been unfolding since Pentecost. Even now Christ is renewing the face of the earth. God’s plan of salvation is unfolding in the life of every Christian. The Kingdom of God is in our midst. 

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Good Shepherds

Wow! What a week! A new pope, born in America but really a citizen of the world, and with a really cool name. Christ continues to bless his Church. Let us keep our new chief shepherd in our prayers.

Speaking of shepherds, the 4th Sunday of Easter is always known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  It’s done so, because the gospel reading in all three cycles of the Lectionary makes some mention of Christ, the Good Shepherd.  So, I figured I would start us out with five clean sheep jokes:

  1. What do you call it when a young sheep attacks you by surprise? A lambush!
  2. What’s a sheep’s favorite car?  A Lamborghini
  3. Where did the female sheep like to watch videos? Ewe Tube
  4. Two sheep were talking about a ewe. They were trying to figure out if they’d met herbivore.
  5. What’s the optimistic sheep’s motto? All’s wool that ends wool.

Our shepherd reference in today’s gospel is pretty brief.  It’s just two lines from John 10:27: 

My sheep hear my voice

I know them and they follow me.

Let’s take the first line:  My sheep hear my voice.

Sheep are interesting creatures. Unlike goats, who are primarily food motivated.  Sheep are more highly motivated by safety and security. The are most calm when they feel most safe.

       Since they are a herd animal, they are very good at recognizing threats and benefactors. Sheep recognize the shepherd by appearance, voice and smell. 

       I’m told that a shepherd will try to be present when a new lamb is born. As soon as practical, he will hold the sheep and speak or sing to it.  In this way, his face, his voice and his smell will be imprinted in that lamb’s mind forever. In a very short time, that lamb will respond to no other person than its shepherd. 

       Fr. Scott Garrett tells a story about when he visited Iceland and watched the shepherds call their flocks out of the common sheepfold. As each shepherd when to the gate, his sheep would recognize his face, and each shepherd had a unique call.  When they heard this, all of his sheep and only his sheep would come out of the paddock. The rest simply ignored him. 

       If you think about it, a similar thing happens to us here in Church. We behold the face of Christ, we hear his voice and we recognize him as the Good Shepherd.  At baptism we are sealed by grace, imprinted so that we can recognize the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd in a world of voices contrary to his own.  In time, we learn to hear only his voice and simply ignore the others. For it is in him that our safety and our salvation lies. With him we thrive.  Apart from him, we wither.

       Let us listen then to the voice of the Good Shepherd.

Now let’s look at the second line:

I know them and they follow me. 

I know them.  Now that is a really comforting thought. 

It is one thing to seek to know Christ.

       It is quite another to realize that long before we do, he has already known us.

       You may recall what God says in Jeremiah 1:5:

       Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

       I often say that when you were created, God spoke a word.  It’s a word that has never been spoken before and will never be spoken again. God already knows what he intended when he spoke the divine utterance that is you, but after that your entire life is giving that word its proper meaning so that it may be shouted or danced, or proclaimed or sung perfectly in the heavenly liturgy for all eternity.

       You are known by Christ.

       And, I would hope, you are known by your pastor.

The late Pope Francis said that pastors should have the smell of the sheep, he was right on the money. He meant that the pastor needs to know his people so that he may respond to their needs.

       Many years ago, I had an associate pastor who grew up in eastern Europe.  He was a good kid, and was trying his best, but he had this annoying habit of beginning every one of his homilies with, “My dearly beloved in Christ…”

       At our weekly meeting, I asked him looked him straight in the eye and I said, “Father, I notice that you begin every homily with ‘My dearly beloved in Christ’.  I have one simple question for you…Are they? 

       “Vell, of course!” he said, “I am zer priest, zey are my people.” 

       “Actually,” I replied, “They are my people, but that is not the main point. The point is…do you know their joys?  Do you know their fears?  Do you know who is rejoicing? Who is suffering? Do you know how the local high school football team is doing. Do you know which of our kids is the lead in the school play? Do you know their hope, their dreams, their disappointments, their triumphs?  Are they truly your beloved?  Because if they are not, you have no right to say those words!”

       Both sheep and the People of God recognize when they are in good hands, and when they are not.

       Christ is the Good Shepherd,

and through the centuries he has called good men to be good shepherds for his People.

And he does so today.

       He calls them to the holy priesthood. 

So now, a little twist.  Do you recognize Christ the Good Shepherd in any of the young men of this parish?  If so, do you have the charity and grace to say to him,

       “You know, I see the qualities in you that would make a good priest.  I want you to consider it, and I’m going to pray for you.” 

       I guarantee you, if you can recognize Christ the Good Shepherd in him, he is like that sheep waiting in the paddock to hear the voice of that same Good Shepherd speak to his own heart and call him forth.

       Do not be surprised if the voice of Christ which speaks to his heart will somehow sound a lot like yours.

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Resurrection 101

There is the story about a teenaged boy who befriended some missionaries in a small town in Africa. For several weeks they chatted about their work and life in the mission. At one point, the boy asked them about Jesus. So they described the life and ministry of Our Lord to him. At the end of the conversation one of the missionaries gave him a small New Testament and suggested that he read it. To their consternation, the boy did not return for several weeks. Finally, one day he showed up on the steps of the church, asking to speak with the missionaries. They invited him in. He looked them straight in the eye and said, “I have read the gospels that you gave me and I need to ask you one question. Is it true that Jesus rose from the dead?”


“Why, yes,” they said.

To which he replied, “This changes everything! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?!”
The young man is right. It does change everything. So why are we Christians so timid about proclaiming the resurrection of Christ? Perhaps it is that we have not stopped to understand what it really means for us and for the world.
Let’s start at the beginning.

Principle #1: Whatever Christ encounters, Christ transforms. He did this when he transformed the waters of the Jordan into the waters of baptism. He did the same at the wedding at Cana and at the Last Supper, transforming those rituals in the sacraments we know today. But he did this most profoundly when he took flesh of the Virgin Mary. Christ entered fully into our humanity and thus all humankind is transformed and perfected.

Principle #2: To be a human being is a wonderful thing. We have a body and a soul. No other being in creation is like us. For example, angels are spiritual beings. They do not have a body. We do. There is a strange heresy out there that when we die and go to heaven, we become angels. It makes for great Christmas stories, but it falls flat theologically.

Principle #3: The passion, death and resurrection of Christ not only restored humanity, but transformed and perfected it. By his passion and death we have been redeemed and reconciled to Almighty God. But it is his resurrection which is the kicker. By rising from the dead, he shows us that we too shall rise with him on the last day, body and soul.

Therefore: At the end of the age, if we have died with him in baptism, we will rise with him on the last day. Our final destiny is not to morph into something else. Instead, we become what God has created us to be—perfectly human, body and soul.
There is a tendency to think of the resurrection as some future, far off reality, but that is not the case.

As St. Paul says, if we have died with him in baptism, we rise with him in his resurrection.
From the moment of our baptism, our life of grace is unfolding,
Even now, we are becoming what God has created us to be,

Let us allow God to continue to transform us into what we have been created to be…now. Christ is risen. This changes everything, right here and now. Let us be people of the resurrection…now.

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What was Jesus Writing?

I’m told that children are no longer taught penmanship anymore, nor are they taught how to write in cursive. What further need have we of proof of the decline of western civilization? I bet Jesus knew how to write in cursive…in Hebrew! Still, I wonder what he was writing on the ground as the religious leaders confronted him with the woman caught in the act of adultery.
First of all, we know that they are not genuine in the encounter. They could care less about her offense. If they did, then where is the guy?! The last I checked, it took two person to commit this sin. No, they are simply using her situation to try to trap Jesus so they can have something to accuse him of. They think they have him in a “Catch 22.” If he says they should stone her, then they can denounce him to the Roman authorities as an insurgent. If he says they should not, then they can discredit him as one who does not know or follow the Law of Moses.
It’s not so easy to fool the Incarnate Word of God. Instead, Jesus simply bends down and starts writing on the ground. Many scholars have speculated about what he was writing. Was he writing the passage of the Law to which they were referring, thus showing his knowledge to them? Or was he writing down the sins of the religious leaders? The sacred text does not say. It does say that when Jesus says, “Let the one without sin be the first to cast a stone,” they have no response and drift away one by one, starting with the elders. Jesus is the only one present who could cast a stone, but he choses not to. Her guilt is not in question, but neither is the love and the mercy of Christ.
This Lent, do I have the courage to stand before Christ honestly and admitting my sins? Can I trust in the love and mercy of Christ who came not to condemn, but to save the world and to show us a better way?

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Of Burning Bushes, Fig Trees, and Such

There is a lot going on in the scriptures this weekend. While we are in Year C of the three-year lectionary cycle, various Masses will be using the A Cycle readings for the next three weeks as we celebrate the Scrutinies for the Elect in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA).

       While the burning bush is a neat attention getter, it is the parable of the fig tree that should really give us pause.  It’s notable that it comes in the context of two recent tragedies, the folks whose blood Pilate mingled with the pagan sacrifices (a terrible sacrilege and curse) and the death of 18 people who died when a tower collapsed.

Whether we admit it or not, we still carry with us the notion that “what goes around comes around.”  Namely, if you do something bad, something bad is going to happen to you. It was even more prevalent in the days of Jesus. Many in the crowd assumed that those who suffered these tragedies must have done something to deserve it. While our Lord is quick to disavow them of this, he uses it as a way to remind them and us that an even greater tragedy looms for our souls if we don’t repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel. Dying is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Eternal damnation is.

So how does this tie into the fig tree that does not bear fruit? Simple. A disciple who does not repent is not much of a disciple. Repentance, not perfection, is the fruit that Christ is looking for. If we are too proud  or too busy to repent, then there’s not much he can do for us, no matter how much he cares for us.

Lent is a time that reminds us that the first fruit, the first gift, we give to God is sorrow for our sins. Doing so opens the door for the healing grace of God to enter our lives and lead us down the path of reconciliation leading to the joys of the resurrection. May our Lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving guide our steps into the way of true discipleship.