Category Archives: Weekdays

Friends in Christ, today, Jesus says: ‘As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.’

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What is the best way that we remain in his love? He tells us: ‘If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.’ Remaining in Jesus’ love is not about cheap talk or claiming that one is a Catholic, it’s about how we live. And if we live our life in conformity with the commandments, the result? Christ says: ‘I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.

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The way of Christ is the way of joy. Not the joy the world gives; a Christian does not always have emotional joy, and we certainly encounter the cross – but a Christian will always have, deep in his gut, the sense that he is at peace with God.

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This world is passing, it is temporary. The world is desperate to find happiness, but it’s approach does not really yield peace, or joy. Who does not have joy? Those who do not keep the commandments.

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Find the person who steals and lies, a deceiver – he is not really happy. Find the person who is a slave to money and things – they are not happy. Find the person who is caught in sensuality and passion, – he is not happy.

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But if you find the person who was kind to an enemy at school – he smiles as he goes to sleep, because he knows he did well. Find a person who told the truth even if he paid a price for it – his heart is at peace. Find a person who threw the pornography into the garbage or gave up drugs – he is a person who is more happy than before.

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Jesus says: I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. Thomas Aquinas says: Joy that comes from passions and bodily experiences, are not long lasting compared to the joys of the spirit. Pleasures of this world pass quickly, but the joy of doing God’s will gives the joy and the peace that makes us feel complete.

Friends in Christ, in the gospel today, Our Lord says ‘I am the vine and you are the branches.’ In speaking this way, Jesus is recalling a theme with which the Jewish people would have been very familiar: the vine.

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The Old Testament spoke often of Israel as ‘the vine.’ ‘I had planted thee a noble vine,’ says Jeremiah. ‘You have brought a vine out of Egypt,’ says David. The symbol on the coin made by the Maccabees was the vine. In the temple, above the door, was an enormous carved vine, with grapes the size of a man. The vine therefore, had become a symbol of Israel.

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Christ today, calls himself the vine. ‘I am the vine, you are the branches,’ and in this, he is revealing a mystery of the Church, because we know that the church is the New Israel.

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St. Paul calls the Church the Mystical Body, in which Christ is the head, and we are the other parts of the body, yet we are all one. Well Jesus gives this other image as well, in which he is the main vine, and we are the branches. It is an image that reveals to us, that Christ and his Church are one. That Jesus is really living here, now, in us and with us, not just metaphorically, but really.

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Our Lord will go on to say, ‘I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.’ As Pope St. John Paul II would say, Our Lord shows us the communion of each Christian with Christ, and the communion of all Christians with one another.

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We should pray daily for Holy Mother Church; that she would be faithful to the Truth, and that this Vine of Christ will continue to spread over the whole earth.

Friends in Christ, in the first reading today, we see that Paul and Barnabas healed a lame man. The crowds seeing this called them gods. The apostles however insisted that they were not gods, but that the people should worship the true, living, God. Paul and Barnabas rightly ascribed everything, even that miracle, to God, not to themselves. The psalmist today also urges us to give God the glory, not ourselves.

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But the danger is always there, for us to seek praise for ourselves apart from God, and this is pride. The desert fathers spoke often of this demon of pride. Temptations of the passions are obvious, they said. But for pride, it is difficult to fight against, because it takes many forms.

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There can be pride in our way of speaking, in what we say, and in our silences; in our work there can be pride, and there can even be pride in our prayers. We can speak in such a subtle way, as to imply that others are not as insightful as ourself. We could show restraint in our speech so that others think that we are humble. We could have a secret pride because we have surely said more prayers today than most people, and none of my relatives ever fast so well as I do. In an instant, pride can destroy our good work, because it ascribes accomplishments and talents to ourselves instead of to God.

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When pride cannot seduce us by vanity in wearing fancy clothes, it provokes us to use simpler clothes to show others of our superior, simple good-taste. When we avoid the pride of bragging, we can fall into thinking that we have become holy.

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One of the great desert fathers was St. John Cassian. These monks lived as hermits in the desert, seeking the highest degrees of holiness. But he tells us how once he saw that pride could utterly humiliate a good brother monk. He went to visit a brother in his hut, and as he approached the door, he heard him speaking inside. It seemed that pride had driven that monk utterly out of his mind, for he had convinced himself that he was a Deacon, and imagined he was speaking to the catechumens at Mass.

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Cassian knocked at the door. ‘How long were you standing at the door,’ asked the brother. With a smile he said, ‘I was there long enough to hear that you had become a Deacon!’ When the brother heard this he fell ashamed at his feet and asked that he would pray for him.

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Cassian tells us that he only relates this incident to show us to what depths of stupidity the demon of pride can bring us.

Friends in Christ, today in the Acts of the Apostles, we see that St. Peter is given this strange vision by God. In the vision, he saw a large sheet coming down from the sky; it contained many four-legged animals of the earth and birds; he then heard a voice say: ‘Peter, kill and eat.’

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He was shocked, because only some animals the Jews were allowed to eat, but here was God telling him to ‘kill and eat’ all kinds of animals. This was a sign to Peter that no longer were there certain unclean foods, and that most importantly, the Gentiles were now to be invited into the Covenant.

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It is evident that no foods are unclean to we Christians. There is nothing sinful about eating plants or animals of all types. Some people today are trying to claim that to be a good Christian, you may not eat meat, but this is not Catholic and it is certainly not Biblical.

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The Catechism tells us that we must respect the integrity of creation. Animals and plants are for the common good of humanity. It is therefore legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. Medical experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives. It is not right to cause animals to suffer needlessly, and it is not right to spend a lot of money on an animal that otherwise could be used to help relieve human misery. While we can love our pet, they should not be given the kind of affection due only to persons.

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The Holy Scriptures tell us that God gives us all creatures for our use and for food. (Genesis 9:3)

Jesus ate fish, he fed 5000 people with fish, he ate the Passover lamb every year, and he told the people that they are worth far more than birds. Although animals have feelings and emotions, they do not have a spiritual soul; unlike angels and human beings, they are not Persons.

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For health reasons, a person may decide not to eat meat, but if they say that it is a sin to kill an animal for food, they are not aligned with the Catholic faith, and they do not grasp the great dignity of the human person in the order of creation.

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Following the Church and the Holy Scriptures, we care for creation and the resources God gives us, and we are perfectly free to eat meat, because what defiles us is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out.

Friends in Christ, in today’s Gospel, Our Lord is beginning his famous ‘Bread of Life’ discourse, and we will be reading it over the next few days.  Jesus says, ‘I am the Bread of Life;’  he will go on to teach about the Holy Eucharist, that it is truly his Flesh and Blood.

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So why during the Easter Season, does Mother church have us read this? Well, in this discourse, Our Lord will, multiple times link the Holy Eucharist with the Resurrection. 8 times Jesus will speak of the Resurrection and of Eternal Life – and incidentally, the number ‘8’ is the symbol for the Resurrection, 8 times he says it. Our Lord is connecting our eating of the Holy Eucharist with our own Resurrection.

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During the first week of the Easter Season, we read about the appearances of the Resurrected Lord to the Apostles, and these appearances had Eucharistic over-tones. He comes to Thomas on Sunday – the primary day of the Eucharist – and he says, ‘Thomas, touch me, see that I am really here,’ bodily. In the same way, on Sunday, the Church gathers and in fact, Jesus IS really there, and in the Sacrament we touch him.

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It was on Sunday, that Our Lord met his disciples on the Road to Emmaus. There they finally recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread. So Our Lord connects the resurrection – his and ours – to Holy Communion.

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The Church teaches that when we receive Holy Communion, we are receiving the Risen Christ. This Risen Christ is able to be in many places at the same time; scripture says that he once appeared to over 500 disciples at the same time; and so Christ can be received by you and by me and a thousand others.

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Is receiving Holy Communion then, essential to our own resurrection? Well, if we wish to be resurrected in glory, how can we do it without being in contact with the Body of Christ? Thomas Aquinas says that normally yes, we must eat his Body in order to be resurrected, and this is why the Church requires us to receive the Eucharist at least once a year; But Aquinas says this is not absolutely required.

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If a baby or a young person was baptized and dies, but has not yet received Holy Communion, what of them? As St. Augustine says, by being baptized, they already begin to share in the Body of Christ – the Church.

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” And he said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.’

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Friends in Christ, in the gospel today, Our Lord is disappointed with the people chasing after him, because their minds are on earthly things. Jesus wishes our eyes to look more upward, to Him, to ensure that what we are doing is done with Him.

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In his famous book, The Soul of the Apostolate, Dom Chautard emphasizes that a life of good works and even many important undertakings, are useless if we do not have an interior life. We need to have an interior life, that is, acting and living in union with God.

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The world of today is intoxicated with its own, sterile, activities; so much of what is passed off for virtuous or generous works, is often a veneer for pride and worldly motivations.

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St. Josemaria would say that prayer must be first in our life. Second in importance is sacrifice, self-denial, the seeking of humility; and lastly – and definitely last: good works, actions, and activities.

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Can you imagine if a priest said, ‘I’m really too busy to pray; we have so many important projects to do and sermons to write and sick to visit – I always tell God that I will produce great results for him if he just stays out of my way.’ Can we imagine how utterly pathetic that would be, to hear that a priest puts his confidence in his own efforts and does not rely on prayer and the assistance of God? We would say: ‘He’s crazy.’

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But this is the truth for everyone. The Lord has said, ‘Without me, you can do nothing,’ and any experienced Christian has learned that – usually the hard way.

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Pope St. John Paul II said that there is a temptation that continually hangs over every good work: the thought that the results depend on me. Of course we must work hard, ‘but,’ he says, ‘it is fatal to forget that “without Christ we can do nothing.”

Friends in the Lord, today we read of Our Lord’s multiplication of the loaves to feed the thousands – this miraculous bread. This miraculous bread is an anticipation, a symbol, for the Holy Eucharist.

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After this great miracle, the crowds won’t leave Christ alone. But he says to them, ‘Do not seek after food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.’ Christ will then go on to give his Bread of Life discourse.  

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The Holy Eucharist has been called the secret to immortality. The early fathers called the Holy Eucharist, ‘the Medicine of Immortality.’

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We have seen on Easter, Jesus conquer death. Rising in his glorified, resurrected body. We are to do the same. But how? We need contact with that miraculous, resurrected body. Our Lord therefore instructs us to eat his Body and drink his Blood. Jesus has said, ‘He who eats this bread will live forever, and I will raise him up on the last day.’

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We assimilate this resurrected Lord, we become one with the Eternal God-man. This is how we will survive death and live forever.

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You know, St. Catherine of Sienna was an amazing woman, God gave her many favors. Her confessor relates to us an interesting fact: for a period of many years, she ate nothing except the Sacred Host.  St. Joseph Cupertino also, ate and drank nothing for 15 years except Holy Communion. Catherine of Genoa, during Lent and Advent, for 23 years, took no food whatever, except Holy Communion. The Eucharist alone, has sustained at least 62 different saints for long periods of time.

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And quite recently, a German lay woman, Therese Neumann, who died in just 1962, lived the last 36 years of her life without any food or water other than Holy Communion. Despite daily, vigorous work on their farm, doctors always concluded that only one thing was keeping her alive: Holy Communion.

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What do these miracles point to? To the supernatural life we receive in the Body and Blood of Christ, which will bring us safely across death, to the resurrection in Paradise.

Friends in Christ,

In these days, Christianity is under attack from all directions. Not only the secret enemies slithering through the secular society of today, but also direct, open enemies that cut off heads of Christians.

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Not long ago you may have seen the picture of the terrorists from ISIS lining up Christians along the sea in orange jumpsuits where they would be decapitated. Those were Coptic Christians, and like the Orthodox, their faith is quite close to ours.

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In solidarity with our brethren suffering persecution, I read that at some churches around the U.S., people are coming to Church on Sunday wearing orange. Orange jumpsuits, or orange armbands, or orange ribbons. I think this is great.

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When we read of the sad situation of our brothers and sisters we can’t help but put ourselves in their shoes – how would it be to be pressured to give up the faith in exchange for one’s life? And decapitation is not clean, as with a guillotine, but with a knife – gruesome. Yet people are giving their life rather than deny the Lord.

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In the first reading today, we see the same pressure facing the early Church; ‘We gave you strict orders to stop teaching in that Name,’ said the high priest. But the apostles answered: ‘We must obey God rather than men. And they became infuriated and wanted to put them to death.’

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Friends, we can’t expect to have the courage to give our life for the faith, to endure suffering for Christ, unless we become accustomed to doing the same in small things. As Our Lord said, ‘he that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.’ So we must accustom ourselves to choosing Christ over the world, choosing God’s will over our own, choosing the moral way rather than the easy way. ‘We must obey God rather than men.’ If we can do this in practice with small things, only then would we be prepared for greater things, for the glory of God.

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It is true, that the honor of martyrdom is not accorded everyone, but we should live our life in constant training, so that we would be worthy of that call of Christ.

Friends in Christ,

in the Acts of the Apostles, we read today of what it is like to be a Christian in a pagan society. Peter and John were mocked by the Sanhedrin as being unlearned and ignorant men.

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The Christian today also, is often put down in a similar way; Catholics are accused of not being ‘with the times;’ we are accused of not being ‘enlightened,’ as the world suddenly is. Freedom, for the world, is to do anything you want; but we teach freedom in Christ, by living his Law, and we are called ‘backward, old-fashion, out of date.’

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The Sanhedrin, having ridiculed Peter and John for their beliefs, moved on to the next step: threats. In our times, we have seen what happens to a pizzeria that said they would not make pizzas for a so-called gay wedding. They received death threats and an on-line hate campaign against them, simply by standing for their Faith. We’ve seen how Hobby Lobby and the Catholic Church had to go to court against our own government, in order to practice their Christian faith. Or the attempt in 2005 by the Illinois governor to force pharmacists to provide abortion-causing Plan B drugs against their conscience. Not to mention the many in the middle east who are killed for their belief in Jesus.

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But these are only the high-profile cases. One of our students has told me how her teacher at our own public high school, finds many ways to distort and ridicule the Catholic religion. It is blatant anti-Catholicism.

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But no matter what people say to us, or how much pressure they put on us, we still have the same undeniable fact that Peter and John had before the Sanhedrin: God has visited his people; Jesus has come to teach us the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and he has risen from the dead so that we can too.

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The voice of the world around us is getting stronger; it says what the Sanhedrin said: ‘And they charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.’ But before his Ascension, Christ said, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature’ So we do.

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The world wants to shut us up. They do not wish to hear the name of Jesus, they do not want to hear about the way of life that leads to heaven. Nevertheless, like the Apostles, we calmly reply: ‘We cannot help but speak, of what we have seen and heard.’

Friends in Christ, today we are given this great image of the apostles at the sea of Galilee, after the resurrection. The apostles are sad. They were told to go to Galilee and there they would see Jesus, but …. apparently not. Peter then seems to think….well, about his old life: fishing. maybe he should go back to that. ‘I’m going fishing,’ he says. And the others follow.

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They catch nothing, and then there is this figure on the beach, who gives them a fishing tip, and their nets are breaking with large fish – just like when they met the Lord! It’s Jesus! Peter is so happy, that he dives into the water and swims to Christ as fast as he can.

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On the beach, as the Lord wants to make them some breakfast – out of the fish – he says, bring here those fish you caught. Peter himself, drags that net full of 153 large fish up to the Lord.

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The number 153 has surely a deep meaning. Scholars have puzzled over what it’s significance is. The ancients believed there were 153 nations at that time; they thought also, that there were 153 species of fish. So this catch represents all the peoples, all the nations, enclosed in this net,[i] and the apostles have caught them. The leader of the apostles Peter, the first Pope, he himself, hauls that entire net and presents it to Christ.

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We see here then in this scene, the boat which is a symbol of the church, and with Jesus’ guidance, the apostles are able to catch those fish – those souls – and they are all brought to the feet of Christ.

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So here at the end of the gospel, those apostles no doubt recalled Christ’s words at the beginning, when they met him: ‘Follow me. I will make you fishers of men.’ And the Church continues today to seek out believers, and fish them out of the sea.

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[i] I believe the most compelling theory for the meaning of the number 153 is the following. Words in the scriptures (in Greek/Hebrew) also represent numbers, this is called Gematria. If you look for which words in the scripture have a Gematria of 153, you will find few. One of those few words is the name Bezalel, found in the Old Testament (Exodus 31:1). He was the builder, the master craftsman of the Tabernacle, i.e., God’s temple in the desert. So this number, 153, points to the construction of God’s temple. But the temple is Christ’s Mystical Body, made out of his people, a temple of ‘living stones,’ as St. Peter said (1 Peter 2:5). Living stones – or perhaps we would say believers – fished out of the sea.