HOMILIES
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Second Sunday of Advent B
December 4, 2011

The first words of today’s First Reading are for us, “Comfort, give comfort to my people.”
The words of the prophecy were originally addressed to Jerusalem but in today’s readings there are many different Jerusalems, though one is more important than all the others.
At first Jerusalem is the city was Israel’s ancient capital. At the time these words were spoken the city was in ruins because God’s People had been conquered and exiled. The prophet is telling those exiles that God has not forgotten about them and that He will bring them home to Jerusalem. And God can bring them back.

The second Jerusalem is the Jerusalem still to come. The Second Reading turns our attention in this direction. It reminds us that Jesus will come again bringing His Kingdom to fulfillment and creating a new heaven and a new earth, that God will wipe away every tear. Looking to that can give us great comfort because it shows us that our sufferings on earth have a purpose and that they will not last forever.

In the Gospel we have a third Jerusalem. John the Baptist addresses his prophecy to the “in habitants of Jerusalem,” to people, like you and me. In God’s perspective, every Christian soul is like a sacred city, a holy Jerusalem. This Christmas, Jesus wants to make a fresh entry into that city bringing gifts of wisdom and grace. This should also bring us comfort. God has not forgotten about us, He knows our lives; He had a plan for us: He is guiding us always. And it is up to each of us to prepare our inner city for Christ’s coming.

In our society where we get most things we want immediately, we forget that the natural rhythm of life requires a time of preparation before important events. With instant coffee, instant suntan, fast-food, overnight delivery, cyber shopping, we tend to think of spiritual things the same.

Think about how much work a farmer puts into plowing his field before its ready to plant. Think of the nine months of preparation that happens before the arrival of a baby. Think of the literally thousands of hours that a pro football team needs to get ready for just one regular season game.

The prophecy John uses from Isaiah tells us that “preparing the way of the Lord” means “making straight his paths.”

One of the things that ancient cities would do to get ready for an official visit was to fix the roads that he would use as he approached the city. This would make sure that the final stretch of his journey was pleasant so that he would arrive in a good mood.

There are three roads that Jesus uses to enter the Jerusalem of our hearts.

First, the road of prayer. Advent is the perfect time to jumpstart our prayer life. So many times God is trying to give us guidance and light but because we don’t spend any time in prayer, we haven’t learn to recognize His voice.

On his visit to New York in the spring of 2008, Pope Benedict said, “Have we perhaps lost something of the art of listening? Do you leave space to hear God’s whisper, calling you forth into goodness? Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness, listen to God, adore him in the Eucharist…Let his word shape our journey.

The second road is the sacraments. Sometimes in personal prayer we are unsure of God’s presence but in the sacraments Christ guarantees that He is really present.

During Advent we can spend time with Christ in the Eucharist. Maybe your daily schedule would allow for daily Mass or spending time in adoration on Thursday mornings or this Sunday afternoon. During Advent a trip to Confession is the most direct way to remove the clutter, clear the road and get some spiritual advice.

The third road that Jesus uses to enter our hearts is other people. Advent should be a time when we reach out to other people, to those who don’t know Christ or those who are suffering. As we reach out to them, we come closer to Jesus. You can do that by taking ornaments from the angel tree to provide gifts for those who otherwise won’t have them.

Jesus is really looking forward to Christmas but maybe not for the same reasons we are. He wants to make a fresh entrance into the sacred city of our souls and fill us with supernatural comfort.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania

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First Sunday of Advent B
November 27, 2011

Here we are in Advent. A new Church year. A new translation of the Mass. A time of waiting and expectation.

There are four periods in the history of the world and we are in the third, Advent reminds us of that.

The first was from Creation, the beginning of all things, until Original Sin, the first act of disobedience that caused the alienation of human beings and all of Creation from communion with God. The second period was between Original Sin and the coming of God in Jesus, the first Christmas. Since then, we have been living in the third period of world history, the Age of the Church.

Jesus spent most of His public life laying the foundation for His Church by training the apostles. The, with the sacrifice of the cross, He reversed the selfishness and gave access to Heaven making God’s grace available through the sacraments. And after the Ascension, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to continue guiding the apostles and eventually those who succeeded them, the pope and the bishops. That is the period we are in now, the period described by the parable in today’s Gospel where Jesus reminds the servants to take care of His household, the Church, until He returns. But the main point of the story is to remind us that the present arrangement will not last forever.

Just as Jesus came to earth on Christmas, the Lord will come again at the end of time which may happen tomorrow or in a thousand years. And the fourth period of history will begin. The old heavens and earth will pass away, evil will be conquered and those who lived and died in friendship will enter into everlasting glory.

Only God can give a history lesson that includes the entire future. And He gives it to us every year at this time because He loves us to much to let us forget about the bigger picture.

Some use this understanding of history as an argument against the Christian faith. They say if the Savior has already come into the world, then why is the world still such a mess? Jesus didn’t eliminate natural disasters, disease, ignorance, poverty and sin. They existed before the first Christmas and they continued to exist after it. So, they argue, Jesus was not a Savior at all. They are wrong for two reasons:

Christianity has made all the difference in the world and it continues to do that. In his book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Thomas Woods listed the more obvious contributions of the Christian faith to the world. It is responsible for the birth of modern science. It is the Church that created the university system and is responsible for the first hospitals, orphanages and general education. It gave the world the idea of individual human rights, national and international law. These and much more came from a Christian culture even though today they are enjoyed by most of the world.

The second reason they are wrong is even more important. Jesus never claimed that the third period, the Age of the Church, would bring Heaven on earth. They criticize Jesus for not keeping a promise that He never made in the first place. In fact, Jesus promised that the elimination of pain and suffering would happen in the fourth age. This age is to give the greatest number of people possible the chance to join Him and move to eternal glory by living lives of virtue and goodness.

Some people like history, others find it boring, but this particular history lesson has at least two practical consequences for all of us.

First, it tells us where to find meaning. We don’t know exactly what reward the master of the house will give his faithful servants when he returns but Jesus promises that a reward will be given. And He promised it so we can look forward to it, to be certain of it, that there is a reason to continue to be faithful even when it is difficult. No good deed done in the name of Jesus will ever be forgotten, it has everlasting meaning. We are invited to look forward to the unimaginable joy of the last day.

Second, this Christian view of history give us hope. We recognize that we are not always faithful in our relationship with Jesus. We lose patience. We overindulge in pleasures. We turn a blind eye to those in need. We lie, spend too much money…and the list goes on. But because we are in the third period, these sins and failings can be erased by God’s grace. All it takes is a renewal of hope and a good Confession. There will be many chance for that in all the parishes as we continue in Advent.

And there is Advent, the chance for a fresh start, a new beginning. Today we can take our cares ad worries and lay them at the altar. And we can pray for the grace to see history and time, the world’s and our own, from God’s perspective.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania

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Christ the King A
November 20, 2011

We all know and believe that Jesus “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” We affirm that belief every week in the Creed. But it is possible that we have not thought much about the meaning of final judgment.

For example, we know that God is infinitely merciful. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus welcomes some people into His eternal kingdom but others go off to eternal punishment. It is hard for us to understand how God’s mercy fits with eternal punishment. But we can understand it a bit and today’s Gospel can help.

When Jesus addresses the first group of people, the ones entering Heaven, He says to them, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father..” When he addresses the second group, the ones entering eternal punishment, He says to them, “Depart from me, you accursed.” Notice that the blessing received by the first group came from God, “blessed by my Father,” but the curse does not come from God.

The second group freely and deliberately chose to live their lives selfishly. They didn’t enter into friendship with God because they didn’t want to live in love and self-giving. For their entire lives they resisted and rejected God’s many invitations that came in the voice of conscience, the Bible, the teachings of the Church, the example of good people, the beauty of creation. They freely chose to live separate from God.

Now after lives like that, would it be merciful for God to force them to spend eternity in His presence? Hell is not God’s idea.

One way to think of this is to think of a normal, healthy family. In a healthy family, the parents are very concerned about what might happen to their children. They worry about all the bad things that might happen to their children. And so, in the early years they protect them from harm and teach them to be careful, good and wise.

As the children grow up, the parents have two choices. The first choice is to gradually give their children more freedom and responsibility as fits their age. But this is a risk. There is a chance that the children will abuse their freedom, as the Prodigal Son did, and do damage to themselves.

The second choice is to put the children in straight jackets and control everything that happens to them. You can force them to eat only good food; watch only good quality entertainment; have contact with only good people; never be exposed to temptations or dangers. This way, they decrease the chance of injury, hardship or youthful mistakes. However, in the second choice, the children are no longer being treated as human beings.
Which choice is more loving and more merciful? Clearly, gradually giving the children more freedom and responsibility is the more loving thing to do even though it involves a risk. The risk is that the children could abandon their parents completely.

God is our Father. He loves us too much to use a straight jacket on us. He loves us so much that He is even willing to let us go if that is what we choose. And that is why the idea of a hell that is eternal doesn’t contradict God’s mercy and love.

Jesus has made it very simple for us to choose to live in friendship and communion with God and not separate from God so that we can find happiness on earth and forever in Heaven.
He has done this by hiding Himself in every person we meet, much like He is hidden in the Eucharist. But becoming human, He identified Himself with every person. And so when we find someone in need, whether a family member, a friend or a stranger, we find ourselves face to face not only with that person but also with our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. That is the meaning of the Gospel, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did or did not do for one of the least, you did or did not do for me.”

And so, to build our friendship with Christ and travel the path that leads to eternal blessing, all we have to do is reach out and serve those around us. That is how simple Jesus has made it, even our smallest, everyday encounters have an “eternal weight of glory” as Saint Paul put it (2 Corinthians 4.17).

So, making friends with the new kid at school; defending someone who is being bullied; supporting a woman who is pregnant and alone; adopting an orphan or taking in a foster child; visiting a sick person; praying with a lonely neighbor…..all of a sudden, with Christ, these are no longer just random acts of kindness. They take on eternal proportions, they echo forever.

Here, once again, we have the invitation to live in friendship with Jesus Christ. Here He tell us that leads to blessing and glory.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania

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Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time A
November 13, 2011

The story that Jesus tells in the Gospel is a parable. In it, the master stands for God and the servants are each one of us.

Perhaps that is the first thing we should think about: Do we think of God as Master and ourselves as servants, as dependent on God? Our tendency is to think of ourselves as the center of the universe. But the parable is clear, we are dependent on God and only in knowing Him, loving Him and serving Him can we find happiness.

And the parable tells us how to do that. God has given each of us a certain number of “talents.” The Greek word uses actually refers to a large amount of money. But in the actual meaning of the parable, it means all the abilities and blessings we have received from God.
God has given them to us and we are free to squander our gifts, burying them in the hole of self-indulgence, fear, laziness and greed, or to use them as God would have us use them which is the secret to happiness in this life and in the life to come.

There are three steps we have to follow in order to invest our gifts well.

First, we have to identify what our gift is. We should always thank God for all the blessings we have received. But we should also reflect on the one or two strong talents or traits that God has given to us personally. What type of think do you enjoy most? What kind of activity do you find exciting? What personality trait do others compliment you on? What have you always dreamed of doing but were afraid of getting started on?

The second step is to get right with God and stay that way. The third servant left his mission in life unfulfilled because he didn’t have a good relationship with his master. In order to have a good relationship with the Lord, it is necessary to pray daily, clean our consciences with a good Confession, read something spiritual to grow in grace.

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania

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Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
October 23, 2011

In the Gospel, Jesus packs all the wisdom of the world into two commandments. This is Jesus, who is God with us, giving us the meaning of life, the road to fulfillment and the secret to happiness. But we have heard it so often that we have to make a special effort to squeeze out of it what we can.

The key word, obviously, is love. Usually, we associate this word with some pleasant feelings intense and delightful emotions. But the word Jesus used means something much deeper. In Greek, it is the word “agape,” and it refers to the love that means desiring union with something good. It would mean then, that if love a person, we want to spend time with them, get to know them, share experiences with them, enter into communion with them. But using the word is not enough.

Jesus wants to be sure we do not misunderstand. So He explains how this love applies to our two key relationships: with God and with other people. We must love God with all our heart, mind and soul.

We must desire what God desires, that is the heart.

We must value and understand all things the way God does, this is the mind.

We must actively live in accordance with those desires and that understanding, choosing what God would choose in our place, this is the soul.

Then we must love our neighbors as we love ourselves; treating them as we want them to treat us regardless of how we feel. This is Christian love, not a passing emotion that makes me feel good but a life lived with courage that puts God first, others second and the self third.

This love, this life lived with courage and not focusing on the self is most shown by the life of Jesus Christ. He is our model in how to love God and neighbor.

First, He became one of us. He decided to live with us in this often difficult world. The One who had created the universe lived for 30 years in poverty and humility making His living in manual labor. Then, even though He was all-powerful, He allowed His enemies to humiliate Him, condemn Him, whip Him, crown Him with thorns and nail Him to a cross. None of this filled Him with delightful emotions or the warm feelings we often associate with love.

We are still talking about love. His enemies made Him sweat blood and experience the deepest pits of sorrow and fear in the Agony of the Garden. The entire life of Jesus is a picture of what true love looks like in our world. It is all about self-giving and not at all about self-indulgence.

And still talking about love. This is the only path that leads us to the joy we want. As Jesus Himself told us, “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20.35). And as Saint Therese, the Little Flower wrote, “Jesus flooded the darkness of my soul with torrents of light…Love filled my heart, I forgot myself, and henceforth I was happy.”

This is what will fill out hearts and give our lives the meaning we look for: Love like that of Jesus. There is no shortcut to learning this love. It’s like learning to swim, you really have to jump in the water and get wet. The Holy Spirit is a great Teacher but cannot make any progress unless we are willing to take the risk of diving in.

So, the first thing we need to do is to tell Jesus in prayer that we sincerely want to follow His commandments and love like Him. This is how we love God, by wanting what He wants. During Mass is the perfect time to do this.

Then, after deciding to take the risk, we have to make sure there is nothing blocking God’s grace working inside us. So, the second step is to acknowledge any selfishness and, if necessary, to make a good Confession.

Then once we have decided to do our best and made sure that no sin is blocking the work of God’s grace, then we are ready to begin. The work is quite simple though not easy. It starts by treating those closest to us with since respect and attention. We have to begin with those closest, family, coworkers, teammates, classmates, because it is easy to put on the appearance of love like Christ with people we don’t deal with regularly. But we are not interested in appearances; we are interested in living Christian love with courage.

That path means, with God’s help, putting God first, others second and self third.

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Anniversary of the Dedication of the Church
October 16, 2011

This is the 5th Anniversary of the Dedication of this church. We remember and give thanks for the day when this building of concrete, metal, wood and stone was consecrated for the purpose of divine worship. And, in a special way, we bring to prayer all those who helped and continue helping to support our parish.

We have listened the word of God. Genesis, the word means “in the beginning,” which told us that when Jacob awoke from his wonderful dream of the ‘stairway to Heaven,’ he declared, “Truly, the Lord is in this spot, although I did not know it! How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!” (Genesis 28. 16-17) The First Letter of Saint Peter advises us, “let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2.5) And in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us, “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth” (John 4.24).

Five years ago we celebrated the consecration of this church to the glory of God. On that day, this place became and “awesome shrine…an abode of God…the gateway to Heaven.” God’s grace converted this building into a spiritual house where acceptable worship would be offered. It is here that we worship “in Spirit and in truth” every time we gather to celebrate the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection in the Mass.

Five years ago, this altar was anointed to the service of the Lord so that from it would flow graces necessary for living the life of faith and growing in holiness. These walls were anointed with Sacred Chrism as they could hold us when we worship as the Body of Christ. It is, after all, Jesus Christ who worships here. Here in His word He gives glory to the Father and reveals the mystery to us. Here on the altar Christ offers Himself to the Father. Here He gives us His Body and Blood as food for our journey in this life leading right into the next. Here in the other sacraments, Christ welcomes new members in Baptism, pours out His Spirit in Confirmation, anoints and strengthens the sick, binds the love of man and woman in marriage. Here Christ opens His arms to receive our beloved dead.

“Truly, the Lord is in this spot.

It is so good that we are here today. But as soon as I say that, my mind moves to all those who should be with us and are not. And I think of all those, even Catholics, for whom all of this makes no sense at all. And I know that to find these people we do not have to travel far since they are members of our own families and can be found among our friends.

Each has their own reasons for not being here; we have probably all heard many of them. Sometimes it is the very human face of the Church that hides the mystery of God’s presence. Sometimes it is the sin and evil of members of the Church, even among ministers and leaders of the Church, that drives people away. Sometimes it is personal hardships, difficult life experiences, life choices that conflict with Church teaching, rejection of some beliefs that or even an unkind word or action by one of us that separates people from the Church.

I would like them all to know, as we all need to know, that in order to respond to the call of God and start on the journey, it is not necessary to be already perfect. Remember that for the prodigal son, it was the awareness of his sin that pushed him to set out on his journey back to his father. This is also the experience of Saint Paul who confessed, “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12.9).
We need to know that the Church is holy, even if the members need to be purified so that the gift of God’s holiness can shine. It is in the mystery of the Church, in the Body of Christ, that the divine power of love begins to change the hearts of people.

We need to know that it is by nothing less than the power and grace of God that we come here this morning. We are no better, and I hope no worse…we are no better than all other people. But we have been given the Gift of faith. We hold in our hearts that above all, beyond all, through all, in all, God is with us. Our foundation rock is not some extraordinary self-confidence but trust in God’s goodness and love. And we aware painfully aware that some times that trust is not what we want to be. Like everyone else we get afraid when the skies turn black and the earth shakes.

We need to know all this because in order for us to bring the message of God’s love and holiness to even one other person, we need to hear it ourselves. We need to be reminded, perhaps even to have our hearts stirred up.

In the story I started with and Jacob’s wonderful dream of the “stairway to heaven” and his joyful shout declaring that the Lord was in that spot, it did not start out so well. Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau in fear for his life. And as the night falls, he has a dream that changes him from a person who is unaware of God to a person who suddenly knows God is with him. He becomes a person of faith.

When we come here, although sometimes we may not know it, in the sense of recognize it, God is here. Yes, most certainly in His word, most especially in the Eucharist, but also in each of us and in us together as the Body of Christ. We are the living stones, the living spiritual house, just ordinary people with our unique mixture of good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, grace and sin. Truly, Jesus Christ is present here.

The gift of recognizing God’s presence here is what we have to bring to others. The clear witness of our lives is the welcome others need. The comfort of our words spoken in love at the right time. The visit that is prompted by that voice within. The phone call we’d rather not make. The apology we prefer not to give. The prayer said before meals. The prayers said with your children at night as you ask the Lord to watch over them. The sympathy expressed in a card. The invitation to join you at Mass.

In all of these very ordinary things, we carry with us the power and presence of Christ. And we invite those around us to recognize with Jacob, “Truly the Lord is in this spot although I did not know it.”

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
October 9, 2011

Saint Paul ends his letter to the Philippians with a phrase that seems to be an enormous exaggeration.

Paul is writing from prison, probably in Rome but maybe in Ephesus. He is encouraging the Christians in Philippi to hold onto the true faith and above all to keep their fellowship united through humility and Christian charity. Throughout this letter, Paul writes some of his most famous phrases.

At the beginning of the last chapter, he told the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord, rejoice in the Lord at all times!” And in the passage we just listened to, we heard a sentence that has continued to give strength to Christians through suffering, persecution and even martyrdom for 2000 years. He says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

In this letter, Saint Paul also thanks them for the financial help they gave him. Usually Paul tried to be self-sufficient so that his critics would not be able to spread lies about him saying his preaching was motivated by greed. But in this case, he accepted the gift.

Finally, at the very end of the letter, he reminds them that God will never be outdone in generosity. He writes, “My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with the glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” This is a confidence based on the unlimited resources of God’s generosity and goodness. In this way, he is echoing what today’s Psalm told us, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want..Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil…”

This is our God. This is the Lord. He is abundant in his generosity and limitless in his mercy. We can probably not be reminded of that too often.

So, we have been reminded that the mercy and generosity of God are unlimited. There are two very practical consequences that flow from this.

First, it is really the only things that can save us from discouragement. When we look honestly into ourselves, we find a lot of wounds, pains, unresolved conflicts and ingrained selfish tendencies. This is because we have all been affected by original sin and this fallen world. Whenever we see this part of ourselves, it can lead to anger, resentment, self-hatred, depression, discouragement or even despair. These can paralyze our lives and damage those around us. That is when we need to remember that God is bigger than the deepest human misery. God’s mercy and generosity are limitless. In comparison, our failings, needs and sin are like a drop of water compared to the ocean. Whenever we come face to face with our own weakness and sin, we need to turn back to the Good Shepherd through prayer and Confessions.

Second, knowing the mercy and goodness of God shows us how we should treat other people. Jesus told His apostles during the Last Supper, “Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34). If His mercy and goodness towards us are without limit, then ours should be without limit too. Of course, we cannot do that if we depend only on our own strength. But the Lord knows that and so give us a share in His strength in the sacraments especially in Holy Communion.

Then, in the week to come, we can experience with Saint Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time A
October 2, 2011

God is reminding us today that all good things in life have come from Him.
Often people get angry at God and ask why He allows bad things to happen. Less often are people humble and honest enough to ask a much more important question: Why do good things happen, why is there any good in the world at all, where does the good come from? We should think more about the answers to those questions.

The readings give us the picture of a vineyard or a garden. Gardens are environments carefully created by gardeners to enable plants to be healthy and reach maturity and bear fruit. God has provided the vineyard with air, sunlight, water, soil, the wall to protect it and the tower to guard it. And God also sees our souls as gardens of virtue. So He supplies each one of us with life, talents, opportunities, family, sacraments, faith, conscience and the Church. There is no good thing we can think of that does not have its origin in God.

One of the best things that God gives us is His mercy, His patience. Look at how many chances God gives the tenants to do the right thing, to fulfill their duties, to what they were put there to do. When they don’t do what is right, God sends three different messengers including His own Son. In justice, He didn’t have to send any. He could have evicted those selfish stewards right away. But God is patient with our sin and selfishness. He keeps giving more and more chances, many more than we deserve. God never gives up on us even though sometimes we give up on ourselves

Without the help of God’s revelation, people have a tendency to think that God is just like us. We are all familiar with the stories from ancient Greece in which the gods got into arguments, tried to trick one another, committed adultery, it was as if they were just like human beings only immortal. As Christians, we know that although human beings are made in the image of God, God is not made in the image of humans. God is unlimited in His knowledge, goodness, wisdom, and power; He is not just bigger and stronger than us, He is on an entirely different level. But we still tend to think of God in terms of us.

One mistake we often make is to think that God loses patience with us just like we lose patience with other people or with ourselves. We think that since we run out of mercy, that giving mercy takes such a huge effort for us, well then it is the same for God. God’s mercy is not like a huge eye-dropper in Heaven reluctantly dispensing forgiveness and love in small bits, drip by drip. That is how we do it.

Gods’ mercy is more like a waterfall, a rushing spring. The only thing that would allow us to die of thirst is our own self-centered refusal to drink from this fountain like the stewards in the Gospel. God’s mercy and goodness are always ready to come into our lives, always. We just have to open the door.

Saint Paul experienced the goodness and mercy of God. And in the second reading he describes the results of this experience in his own soul. He calls it “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding,” a peace that keeps all anxiety away and “guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

All of us are thirsty for that kind of interior peace. The circumstances of life tend to be somewhat stormy, in one way or another, but in our hearts we long for peace and stability. The experience of God’s endless mercy and goodness can give that to us when we suddenly realize we do not have to earn God’s love but that we already have it.

And Jesus told us the secret to having that experience. He said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” If we show mercy to others, our hearts open up and God’s mercy, which is always showering down on us, can get in. But if we don’t show mercy, then it’s like holding an umbrella over our hearts.

To show mercy and goodness to others opens us to mercy and will fill us with
the peace that passes all understanding.”

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
September 18, 2011

God, Himself, is the generous landowner in the Gospel and the lesson is that His generosity goes beyond even our wildest comprehension. That is why in the First Reading God says that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” To pay these hired workers a full day’s wage for only a few hours work is generosity beyond our imagining. There is no other reason for it, he does it simply because he is generous; he is deeply concerned about these men and capable of helping them.

Day laborers has no steady work and no steady income. In 2000 years it has not changed much for migrant workers. They were hired on a day-to-day basis. The workers still waiting had probably resigned themselves to another hungry night for them and their families. Only a compassionate and generous man would take the trouble to put them to work with only an hour left in the day. Only an extraordinarily generous man would then pay them the full day’s wage.

That’s our God. First He gives life. Then after Original Sin He gives hope in the promise of salvation. Then in becoming human He gives the grace of redemption. And, finally, to those who work in His vineyard, He gives everlasting life in Heaven.

Strictly speaking, we do not deserve any of those gifts. And yet, just as the landowner gave the laborers real work to do in his vineyard, even if the reward far outweighed the work. Jesus allows us to make a real contribution to the eternal happiness of ourselves through prayer, self-sacrifice and service.

What makes the saints so extraordinary is they are reflections of God’s extraordinary generosity. Like the landowner, like God, they give without counting the cost. Blessed Mother Teresa was an example of this.

When Mother Teresa visited the many convents that she had started, even though she was the Superior General, she had a habit of waking up early on the last day of her visit, early being 4:00 AM or so, and cleaning the convent bathrooms before the rest of the sisters woke up.
And a priest connected to Blessed Mother Teresa’s community explains how he learned generosity from her:

“One day I was working at the home for the dying in Kaligat, Calcutta. The corporation ambulance brought in a man. I looked at him and recognized him straightaway, as he had been to our home several times. So I told Mother Teresa that there was no sense in taking him in again, as he would go out when he might feel a little better [he was taking advantage of their generosity]. Blessed Mother Teresa looked at me and said: ‘Brother Sebastian, does this man need your help now or not? It does not matter that he was here yesterday or not, or that he is going to be back again tomorrow . We do not have yesterday any more, not do we have tomorrow yet; all we have is today to love God and serve the poor.’”

That is just a glimpse of the kind of generosity that flows from God’s heart toward us all the time. That is about generosity.

But there is one part of the parable that is often overlooked. The landowner gave those workers real work to do in his vineyard even though the reward far outweighed the actual amount of the work. Jesus does the same thing with us.

Jesus allows us to make a real contribution to our own eternal happiness and that of our neighbors though loving Him, serving others and building up His Church. This is one of the biggest differences between the Christian faith and many other religions. In eastern religions, for example, where they believe in reincarnation, our actions in this life have no lasting effect. If someone acts rightly, they will dissolve out of existence and be absorbed into nothingness after death. They will escape existence and escape suffering. But those who act wrongly will simply be recycled into some other form of existence and the recycling continues until they finally get it right and then are dissolved into Nirvana. That means that all human activity really has no meaning.

But in Christ, what we do does have meaning. We are members of His Body, we are His hands, His feet. When we serve those around us, we are serving Christ and contributing to our own eternal life. When we stay faithful even under pressure, humiliation or persecution, we are praising God with our lives and adding to our heavenly reward. When we help and serve others, we are increasing the joys of Heaven for them and for ourselves. We are fellow workers in God’s vineyard.

So, we praise and thank God for His overwhelming generosity while we renew our commitment to do the work entrusted to us.

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Tenth Anniversary of 9-11
September 11, 2011

We mark the 10th anniversary of what we now know as 911. On that day almost 3,000 people lost their lives in the worst terrorist attack in history. 1,600 people lost a spouse. Over 3,000 children lost a parent. 20% of all Americans know a person who died that day. New York lost some 146,000 jobs that day and the economic loss in the next month was $105 billion. The numbers are overwhelming but they only tell part of the story. Each of us likely knows exactly what we were doing that day. It is etched in our memories.

Robert Harding belongs to Saint Peter’s Church which is one block from what we call “Ground Zero.” He and his young son were at home near the Twin Towers on the morning of the attacks. His wife had traveled uptown for the day.

He remembers being startled by a “loud banging” noise and so he walked out on the fire escape. He said “It was quiet. Not much traffic, suddenly in the distance, about three or four blocks away, I could see paper that looked like confetti falling out of the sky.” He didn’t know that a plane had just crashed into the North Tower. As a group of his neighbors started to gather and looked south, he said, “We could see the North Tower had a big hole in it, and smoke was coming out.” About nine o’clock, Harding was discussing it with his neighbors. “Suddenly, the South Tower exploded in a huge plume of black smoke and flame, and debris flying out of the second building. That was the second plane.

Debris from the explosion hit the roof of the church. The World Trade Center, Harding said “looked literally like it was going to fall on us. And from where we were, that would have meant it was going to fall pretty much on top of us.” He was standing on the street when he heard “a rumbling behind us…We saw that the North Tower was coming down. It took only about 10 seconds.”

Robert Harding said he felt God calling people of every nation, race, language and religion to repentance. “I didn’t think God was punishing us, but I did feel that it was a spiritual event. I literally felt the presence of a tremendous spiritual power. It was like a wake-up call, to me: ‘Look at what you’re doing, humanity. Take stock of yourselves. This is where you are, so wake up.’”

Father Kevin Madigan is Robert Harding’s pastor. Many of the wounded and dying were brought to his church later in the day on the way to the hospital or the morgue. He said he found that many New Yorkers needed “a deeper, more expansive vision of God, and a deeper relationship with God, that’s able to be sustained when things are not going my own personal way.” He remembers noticing other positive, but fleeting changes in the city during the fall of 2001. “In the weeks afterward, I saw a great change in people. Just the average person on the street would be much more compassionate, much more caring. People seemed to be more tuned in to what were the important things in life.” Remember a lot of people went to churches back then?

Father Madigan said, “But I think one way of putting it, is that the alarm went off and people hit the ‘snooze’ button soon afterwards. They went back to sleep. He wonders if now, on the tenth anniversary, are we prepared to consider the event in the light of our faith?

The readings offer an uncomfortable but clear challenge to us on this anniversary, the challenge of forgiveness.

The first reading from Sirach reminds us to release or turn over to the Lord our anger and desire for vengeance, for it is God’s role, not ours, to punish those who have done evil. We are not to be vengeful; we are to forgive. “The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail,” Sirach says. But as for us, we must forgive: “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice, then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.”

It is important to remember that forgiving another does not mean absolving them of responsibility. To forgive a person confirms that they have done wrong and are in need of forgiveness. Mercy does not cancel out justice or the need for conversion. As Christians, we entrust final justice always to God. As long as we believe in the power and mercy of God, we can always have hope.

Again in the Gospel, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, we hear the story of the master, who represents God, who forgives the servant his debt. The servant represents us. The message is that God forgives us not because we deserve it but because God is merciful. Yet, when that servant does not extend the same forgiveness to others, he finds himself in trouble, for he has not acted toward others the way the master acted toward him. We are called to forgive as is made clear by Peter’s question, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answers, “Not seven times but seventy-seven times” (Mt. 18.21-22).

We have probably heard this many times. It may be possible to apply to everyday situations: I will forgive you for leaving the dishes in the sink, being late to pick me up, forgetting my birthday. But, in fact, these smaller matters are all about developing an attitude of forgiveness. Without that attitude, what will we do about the difficult things: the close friend who talks behind your back, the spouse who cheats, the murderer on death row, the terrorists who carried out the attacks on September 11? Our inclination may be to simply say that some things are too terrible to forgive. Certainly, it is only human that we must feel anger, bitterness and mourning. And, perhaps, we will never forget some wrongs.

But there is great wisdom here. Our human experience tells us that when we hold on to anger and hatred, it eats away at us. It can begin to change us and make into people we never wanted to be. Forgiveness frees the one who forgives from carrying that burden. We can let it go and entrust it to God. The teaching on forgiveness is about being like God who is merciful. It is about seeing something of ourselves in those who commit even the greatest evils, for no one is free of sin. Finally, this teaching about forgiveness is about being able to live with the peace of love instead of hate which tears and destroys.

Be clear. Jesus is not asking that we be passive in the face of evil. We must work to protect the innocent and to hold those who cause violence and terrorism accountable. But, at the same time, we are called to forgive even while asking, in love, how we can move forward in truth and love. Forgiveness requires that we address the situation in a positive and loving way instead of with fear and hatred.

This may well be a hard message to hear today. When people and things dearest to us are attacked, how will we respond? The Gospel challenges us to consider what the response of a Christian might be. Our personal response will have long-lasting implications on us as individuals and as a society.

This anniversary can be a time for prayer for all those affected; a time for teaching about Catholic teaching on war and peace; a time for dialogue among people of different faiths and cultures; a time for witness to live our values of respect for life and human dignity; a time for service to those who still suffer; and a time for hope in God’s grace in ourselves and in one another.

Some of the material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time A
August 28, 2011

As I was preparing the homily for this weekend, everyone was still talking about the earthquake and waiting for the arrival of hurricane Irene. I had just returned from Madrid where I was at the 25th celebration of World Youth Day. And I had already decided to try and share with you some of the experience of this past week.

World Youth Day was started by Blessed John Paul II. It is an international gathering of mostly Catholic young people. These celebrations have been held in Rome, Denver, Toronto, Cologne, Sydney and Madrid. The next one is scheduled for Rio de Janeiro in 2013.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we gathered in a parish church for teaching by a bishop. Thursday evening we welcomed Pope Benedict to Madrid. This was a massive outpouring of young people filled with joy and excitement that is hard to describe. The crowds literally took over the streets of Madrid. Friday Pope Benedict presided over the Stations of the Cross held on one of the main streets. And Saturday evening everyone went outside the city to spend the night. That night there was a torrential downpour of rain that soaked everyone including the Pope. And the entire week closed with Mass celebrated by Pope Benedict together with some 800 bishops and thousands of priests.

You can Google World Youth Day and you will see pictures of all the events. But what you will really see is a picture, a vision of the Church. I think I saw a glimpse of the future and I’d like to try and share a bit of that with you this morning.

First, you can gain a feel for the celebration by imitating what Archbishop Dolan had us do at his teaching. Every time he said, “Praised be Jesus Christ.” All of us would answer, “Now and forever!”

Praised be Jesus Christ! (Now and forever!)

The center of the celebration was clearly Jesus Christ. 90% of the almost 2 million people were young people, teenagers or young adults. And they were there because of their faith in Jesus Christ. They had not set out on a vacation but on a pilgrimage. They walked miles, stood for hours, some slept on floors or outside. Music filled the air with the sound of guitars, drums and their songs. Young people who did not even speak the same language greeted each other in the streets. They carried banners, flags and crosses.

Pope Benedict described it as a “moving ecclesial event. He said, “approximately 2 million youth from every continent gathered for a truly exceptional experience of fraternity, of encounter with the Lord, of sharing and of growth in the faith: a true cascade of life.” The Pope went on, “I thank God for this precious gift, which gives hope for the future of the Church: young people with unwavering and sincere desire to root their lives in Christ, to remain firm in the faith and to walk together with the Church.”

These young people affirm that faith in Jesus Christ is a personal choice. We no longer live in a time when it is enough to inherit it from parents or family and the increasingly secular culture does not support living the life of faith and is, in fact, increasingly hostile to faith. So the young become an example to all of us. Praised be Jesus Christ! (Now and forever!)

Second, the entire week was filled with joy. No one has to try to work up the crowd. These young people already felt the joy that comes with faith.

As the crowds of young people walked the streets of Madrid, they sang and danced. On the day after the closing Mass, I went off by myself to see the Cathedral. Now the Metro was far less crowded and the stations almost empty. But when I came up near the Cathedral everything changed. The large square in front of the church was filled with young people, their chaperones, priest and sisters. They were in small and large groups, some listening and praying, others singing and dancing circles. The music was all religious. I had to negotiate the crowds to work my way up the stairs. The inside of the cathedral was packed, seats filled, aisles filled, music playing and singing. There was one notable exception. In the chapel were the Blessed Sacrament was kept, it was packed but there was a deep silence as everyone was on their knees in adoration of Jesus present. Praised be Jesus Christ! (Now and forever)

Third, and last, the young people are very aware that to follow Jesus means they have a mission. It is from this group that our future leaders will come. They are aware that God calls each of us in a particular way to love Him, to serve Him and to bring the light of faith to the world and its problems. I believe we can trust them to lead us into a future that is bright with hope.

They are open should God call them to be priests, deacons or religious brothers and sisters. They know that their happiness is to be found in living the vision that God has for each of us. Praised be Jesus Christ! (Now and forever!)

My friends, these young people can instill hope in all of us regardless of our age. Their joy can be our joy. We just have to establish our lives in Jesus Christ and remain faithful. There is no assurance that road will be easy, rather, the invitation to follow Jesus clearly includes the invitation to pick up and carry the cross.

With these young people we face a world that is no longer welcoming to faith and so we need to walk together in firmness of faith. The central temptation is really no different for us than for Peter in today’s Gospel. Can’t the cross and suffering just be erased from the picture? Wouldn’t it be more positive to talk of the benefits and rewards? We would rather hear of Heaven.

But only faith in its fullness brings joy and gives reason for hope. That is faith lived in good times and in bad; faith lived with joy even in the face of hardship and challenge.

Le me close with a quote from Pope Benedict, “Faith is not a theory. To believe is to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus and to live with him in fellowship with others, in the communion of the Church. Entrust the whole of your lives to Christ and bring your friends to find their way to the source of life, to God. May the Lord make you happy and joy-filled witnesses of his love.”

Praised be Jesus Christ! (Now and forever)
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Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
July 31, 2011

Saint Matthew tells us, “When Jesus heard of it, He withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by Himself.” What is the “it” that Matthew is referring to? The death of John the Baptist. The death of John moves Jesus deeply for three reasons.

First, they were cousins, so there was the bond of family between them. Second, they had both received a special mission in salvation, so there was a deep common bond of dedication to Gods’ Kingdom. And, third, John’s death marked the beginning of a new stage in His mission.
And so, with a sorrowful heart and a lot on His mind, Jesus does away to be alone, to have time to reflect and pray at this painful moment.

So this gives us an insight into the heart of Jesus. This is our God, a man who knows what it is to be human, to suffer, to feel the weight of things. This is why we can always pour out our hearts to Him, knowing that He will understand.

But the crowds refuse to let Jesus have His time alone. They flock around him, begging for words of wisdom and miracles of healing. And how does Jesus respond? He cannot resist. He puts aside His own loneliness and preoccupations, sits down and offers comforting, healing, teaching and listening.

And when it seems He can do no more, when even His disciples are worn out, He performs the miracle of multiplying the loaves and the fish.

All day long taking care of needy crowds when His heart only wanted to be alone with His Father! This is our Lord, a man who lives entirely for the good of those He loves.

This is why we can always turn to Jesus and trust Jesus with no fear of rejection or disappointment. His love for us is not based on our qualities or achievements, so our weaknesses and failures don’t drive him away. Just the opposite, they draw Jesus to us just as a sick child draws his mother’s attention.

There is a good story about a small town trial many years ago. Everyone had gathered in the courthouse. The prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand, an elderly woman. He approached her and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?” She responded, “Why, yes, I know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about then behind their backs. Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?” She replied, “Why, of course, I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. I used to babysit him. And he, too, has been a real disappointment. He’s lazy, bigoted, and has a drinking problem. The man can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is shoddy and crooked. Yes, I know him.”

At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both attorney’s to the bench. In a very quiet voice, he said, “If either of you ask her if she knows me, I’ll hold you both in contempt of court!”

We may be afraid if other people found out the truth about us, they would reject us and be disappointed in us. But it is not that way with Jesus. For Him, our misery is a like a magnet that attracts His healing love.

Jesus Christ lived for others. He lives for us.

Through His Presence in the Eucharist, and in the other sacraments, He continues living for us.
And, if that is how Jesus is, that is how we should be. We are Christians, bearing His name, because we are called to follow His example. Our mission in this world is to show forth His love, so that all people will come to know Jesus, believe in Jesus and come to eternal life in Jesus. We do that by loving others as Christ has loved us.

Do you know what holds us back from doing this? FEAR. We are afraid that if we give of ourselves to others- our time, talent, treasure, attention, help, comfort- we are afraid that if we give what we have, we won’t have enough left over for ourselves.

Today, Jesus wants to erase that fear. His apostles started with 5 loaves and 2 fish, not even enough for them. They gave what little they had to Him, and then, in His name, gave it away to others. Did they go hungry? Just the opposite.

In the end, there were 12 baskets of leftovers, more than what they started with, an entire basket for each apostle. God will never be outdone in generosity. If we give as He has given to us, we will receive more than we can imagine.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
July 24, 2011

The parable of the dragnet teaches us an important lesson about the Church: It is made up of both good fish and bad fish.

The net symbolizes the Church, and the fish are the members of the Church, you and me. The water represents the world of human history in which the Church exists and with which the Church interacts. At the end of history there will be a judgment. Jesus will “come again to judge the living and the dead,” as we pray every week in the Creed. At this judgment some of the fish in the net will be saved, but others will be thrown “into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” Both kinds of fish, the “righteous and the wicked,” were inside the net, inside the Church.

In other words, it is not enough to be an official member of the Church, just to say we are Catholic, just to go through the motions of being Catholic. We need to do that so that we find ourselves in the net. But we also need to let God’s grace penetrate our minds and change our hearts, so that we follow Christ all week long, day in and day out, not just for an hour on the weekend. Like the farmer and the merchant in the other parables, we have to sell everything in order to take full possession of the treasure and the pearl. We have to actively fight and sacrifice to enter into friendship with Jesus, the only treasure that will fill us with everlasting peace and joy.

It is possible to work in the field without possessing the treasure. That is exactly what Jesus wants us to avoid.

Jesus is encouraging us to be like the wise Solomon who we heard about in the first reading. Solomon was the son of King David, the one who fought with Goliath. It was under Solomon that Israel reached its highpoint of prosperity, influence and size.

At the beginning of his reign, God invited Solomon to ask Him a favor. In a sense, God asked Him to choose his treasure, what was most valuable to him. Solomon, knowing that God had given him an important and difficult mission, asked for the grace of wisdom which would help him complete his mission. That made Solomon “righteous.” Not that he was perfect in every way but that loving God and neighbor by faithfully fulfilling his duties was his first priority. God granted his request for wisdom.

God does the same with us each day. Each of us is to show God’s goodness by the way we fulfill our duties and use our gifts and talents. And each day God makes His presence known in our hearts and in our conscience. Every day we are free to choose things that are passing and superficial, like the things Solomon did not ask for: long life, riches, revenge. Or we can choose to desire and pursue the one thing that really last, the treasure, the pearl of great price: following Jesus, friendship with Jesus, living life as Jesus would have us live. The other things, pleasure, power, popularity, do not satisfy the human heart. We are made for more!

Now the devil likes to take the truth that the net of the Church contains both good fish and bad fish to distract us. He uses that to get people to turn away from the Church and he likes to get us caught up in trying to label the good and the bad. That, in turn, leads to gossip, destructive criticism and detraction. Detraction is the sin of spreading news of the faults and sins of others even if they are true.

This is a temptation for all of us, because spreading news about the faults of others makes us seem superior to them. And because of Original Sin, we like to feel superior. That is why speaking badly of other people without a very good reason is against two important commandments. It violates the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. Which one of us would want others talking behind our backs even if what they said was true? And it violates the first commandment, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Because we try to feel superior, we put ourselves on a higher level and make ourselves like judges.

Our first responsibility is to keep is to be sure that when Jesus pulls up the net, we will find ourselves enjoying the bright light of His love on the safe shores of eternal life. Our second responsibility is to help those around us to do the same. Both of these require that we avoid talking badly of others or listening with pleasure when someone else does.

Today we are invited to choose the treasure. That treasure is our faith in Jesus Christ and friendship with Him.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
July 3, 2011

This beautiful Gospel is often used for funerals since the words are so comforting. But hidden in the same Gospel is a very serious warning.

Jesus is speaking to a group of His followers returning from missionary journey which was amazingly successful. They are full of joy and the satisfaction of victory. In Christ’s name they have finally been able to do something worthwhile, meaningful and wonderful.

Jesus rejoices with them. These disciples have believed in Him, trusted Him and followed His teaching. Now they are reaping the benefits, they know the inner peace and satisfaction that comes only to the humble, to the “childlike,” the ones willing to take Jesus at His word. Those who are “wise and learned,” on the other hand, require that God explain Himself completely before they agree to trust Him. That is a reasonable expectation to have from a politician but it is a terrible attitude to take in relation to God.

The “wise and learned” are the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the successful people and the intellectuals. These are the ones who will eventually nail Jesus to a cross instead of “taking his yoke upon them.” They cannot imagine that maybe, just maybe, God knows a bit more than they do and so they should accept His teaching with faith, the way children trust their parents. As a result, they cut themselves off from the joy, interior peace and deep satisfaction that only Jesus can bring. By refusing to take His yoke, they have refused to let Him give them rest. Their sin is one we don’t hear much about today, maybe because it is so widespread: the sin of intellectual pride.

Intellectual pride is diabolical because it tries to put the creature into the place of the Creator. After all, we were the ones created to reverence and obey God, not the other way around.

One of the places we see this sin of intellectual pride and where it has done great damage is in Catholic higher education. During recent times, some important people have been promoting a false idea of academic freedom. Real academic freedom means that professors and researchers should be allowed to follow the truth wherever good evidence leads them. This would not be allowed under Communism or Nazism.

But the idea of academic freedom can be used as a banner for relativism. That is a worldview that says all opinions are of equal value since no one can really know the truth in any certain way. But if the truth cannot be known, then education becomes a power-play or a popularity contest in which each one teaching tries to impose their own personal truth not by reasonable argument but by seduction and force. Like the arrogance of the Pharisees, relativism closes off the mind to God’s light and wisdom.

People who come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as academic truth also hold there is no such thing as moral truth. So students are taught things contrary to Catholic values. The result? Catholic schools have the same rates of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, suicide, unexpected pregnancies, abortions and STD’s as non-Catholic colleges. Intellectual pride is about lots more than ideas!

That is one example, but we are all vulnerable to the sin of intellectual pride. We are all tempted to put God’s teachings on trial with own limited and prejudiced intelligence acting as judge.

The best defense against the sin of intellectual pride is childlike wonder. Jesus praised His Father, …”for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” We welcome the gift of faith because it helps us see things that our own weak human reason cannot see all by itself.

The next time we don’t understand the reason behind some teaching of the Church, instead of closing our minds and making our own limited judgments like the Pharisees, we should use our minds and pray for the light of God’s wisdom to open our them to His truth.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Corpus Christi
June 26, 2011

In 1263 a German priest, Peter of Prague, stopped at Bolsena while on a pilgrimage to Rome. He is described as being a pious priest, but one who found it difficult to believe that Christ was actually present in the consecrated Host. While celebrating Holy Mass above the tomb of St. Christina , he had barely spoken the words of Consecration when blood started to seep from the consecrated Host and trickle over his hands onto the altar and the corporal.

The priest was immediately confused. At first he attempted to hide the blood, but then he interrupted the Mass and asked to be taken to the neighboring city of Orvieto, the city where Pope Ur ban IV was then residing.

The Pope listened to the priest's account and absolved him. He then sent emissaries for an immediate investigation. When all the facts were ascertained, he ordered the Bishop of the diocese to bring to Orvieto the Host and the linen cloth bearing the stains of blood. With archbishops, cardinals and other Church dignitaries in attendance, the Pope met the procession and, amid great pomp, had the relics placed in the cathedral. The linen corporal with the stains of blood can still be seen in the Cathedral of Orvieto. In fact, I saw it on a visit to Italy.

We live in a time when science is king, we tend to overlook the mysteries and miracles of our Catholic faith. And yet, the mysteries and the miracles are real. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is one of these.

The Eucharist is not just a symbol of Christ’s presence. It is really Christ. Every Mass is a miracle in which Christ makes Himself truly present to us under the appearances of bread and wine. Every Mass is a miracle in which God shatters the limits of time and space to bring the sacrifice of the Cross into the present of our lives. Every moment, every day, candles burn beside Tabernacles all over the world to remind us that Christ’s living Presence in the Eucharist continues.

But why did Jesus choose to leave us His Presence in this way, under the appearances of bread and wine? He told us the reason in the Gospel we just heard, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

Pope Benedict put it this way, “The purpose of this communion, of this partaking, is the assimilation of my life with his, my transformation and conformation into he who is living Love. Therefore, this communion implies adoration; it implies the will to follow Christ, to follow the One who goes ahead of us. Adoration and procession thereby make up a single gesture of communion; they answer his mandate: ‘Take and eat’.”

Throughout the history of the Church , God has made the power of the Eucharist clear in many ways. For example, some of the saints have gone long periods of their lives in which their only food was the Eucharist.

In the 1300’s, Saint Catherine of Siena often went for months at a time living only on Holy Communion. In the 1400’s, Saint Nicolas of Flue from Switzerland spent the last 19 years of his life as a hermit. He would give spiritual advice all day and pray all night. For those 19 years, he was unable to eat any food. The Eucharist was his only nourishment.

Blessed Alejandrina Maria da Costa from Portugal was paralyzed when she was 14 and spent her life offering her sufferings and prayers to God for the conversion of sinners. She died in 1955. For the last 13 years of her life, Alejandrina ate and drank nothing except her daily Communion. And since she lived in an age of science, all sorts of medical studies were done and no explanation was found. She told her spiritual director that Jesus had said to her, “You will live only on the Eucharist because I want to show the entire world the power of the Eucharist and the power of my life in souls.”

The Holy Eucharist is an amazing Gift. But in the ordinary busy-ness of life we can sometimes take it for granted. So we can use today to renew our sense of gratitude and appreciation. That is not hard to do, it is simply a matter of paying attention.

We can begin with how we enter and leave the church. We should always genuflect toward the Jesus present in the Tabernacle. As a child I was taught to genuflect and say as I did, “Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, I adore you.” If we do it slowly and with great reverence, we will be more aware of the Gift.

We should be conscious of the way we dress when we come to celebrate this miracle remembering that when we receive Holy Communion we become living temples of the Lord.
Before receiving Jesus in Communion there is always a need for repentance and there is a need for Confession if we have sinned seriously. Among other obvious serious sins is missing Mass deliberately. Remember the warning given by Saint Paul: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. “ (1 Cor. 11:27-29).
And after Communion, we should reflect on the great Gift we have received.

The Eucharist is Jesus Christ among us. Christ giving Himself to us completely. Today we open our hearts to His love and then when we leave, carrying the Presence of Christ in our hearts, we go to live that love.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Trinity Sunday
June 19, 2011

It is common in today’s world to run into people who believe that all religions are basically the same. In fact, you can even run into Catholics who have adopted this viewpoint. And they have adopted it because they consider this to be tolerant and open-minded. The reality is just the opposite. Holding that all religions are the same is actually close-minded and intolerant.
But let’s start with what is basically the same.

Human nature is the same wherever we find human beings. And human nature always has the same basic needs and problems, biological, emotional and spiritual. And every religion tries to speak to those basic needs, for happiness and meaning for example. And every religion tries to solve those basic problems such as sin, forgiveness and life after death. In other words, all religions have to deal with the same basic human condition. This is one reason why people claim that all religions are the same.

But the interesting thing is that different religions actually deal with those basic problems and needs in different ways. Atheists say there is no god. Pantheists say that everything in the universe is part of god and identical to god. Polytheists say that there are many gods, sometimes competing with one another. Monotheists, like Christianity, believe in one, all-powerful, eternal God.

But the differences don’t stop there. Inside each of those groups there are variations. And each variation presents its own view about the nature of God, salvation and human happiness and how salvation and fullness of life can be found.

This is why it is close-minded or even lazy to simply say that all religions are the same. That attitude does not show respect to any religion or the people who follow them.

A very good example of this is what we celebrate today, the great mystery of the Christian faith, the Trinity. Of the world’s three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, only Christians understand that the real nature of God is actually One in Three: there is one divine nature and three divine Persons. Each of these Persons has the full divine nature which is why we always pray in the “name” of the Father, the Son, and the Holt Spirit, and not in their “names.” This is why we say in the creed that the Son is “one in being with the Father, God from God, light from light,” and that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son; with the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us this is “the central mystery of Christian faith and life” (CCC 234).
It seems like a contradiction and that is what Jewish and Muslim theologians would say to us. How can the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each be fully God and yet distinct Persons? True, it is hard to understand and our minds cannot completely get it. But that is one fact that makes it ring true. It shows that no human being would have come up with such a thought. It also shows that God, the Creator of the universe, exists in a way that we cannot fully understand. After all, if God did not go beyond our ability to understand Him, He would not be much of a God.

The Trinity is just one example of differences in religions but it makes the point. All religions are not the same and to pretend that they are is to be close-minded and disrespectful.

Only if we respectfully acknowledge the real differences among religions can we really hope to live peacefully together. This is something that Pope Benedict explained in a visit to the United States. In a meeting with representatives from different religions, he said we have a responsibility to acknowledge and discuss our differences if we want to build lasting peace. He said, “Dear friends, in our attempt to discover points of commonality, perhaps we have shied away from the responsibility to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity” ( Papal Address to Interreligious Leaders, April 17, 2008).

In today’s world we live in constant contact with people who do not share our Catholic faith. Unless all of us, not just clergy, learn to acknowledge the real differences among these groups, our peacefully living together will be surface and fragile.

The real heart of people of various religions getting alone is a respectful willingness to try to understand what others believe and to be able to explain what we believe. But none of us can do that unless we know our own faith. Our mission in the world requires more than a superficial knowledge of our Catholic faith.

Today we profess our faith in the one, true God, the Holy Trinity. Let us renew our commitment to know Him better so that we can build His Kingdom here and be instruments of His peace.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Pentecost
June 12, 2011

Almost everyone likes a spectacular fireworks display. They are exciting, impressive and exhilarating. The Church’s first Pentecost had some amazing fireworks.

The Apostles, Mary, the Mother of God, and some other Christians were gathered “in one place together.” We don’t know exactly where this place was but it was likely near the Temple in Jerusalem since the crowds gathered so quickly. In fact, it may have been the same large room where Jesus and the Apostles shared in the Last Supper.

So they were all in one place and then a thunderous noise like a strong wind, like a tornado, came from the sky. And flames appeared. Flames of fire appeared out of nowhere, spontaneously, and hovered in the air. And then the flames divided and started floating through the air until they came to rest on each of the people gathered there.
If that was not enough, then those present started speaking in languages that they didn’t know. This is when the crowd begins to gather made up of visitors from all over who had come to Jerusalem for the feast. And each of them heard the Gospel being explained in their own language (Acts 2:1-21). It was a dramatic and powerful display.

But we would be wrong if we concluded from this that the normal way for the Holy Spirit to act is in such dramatic displays. In fact, it is just the opposite. God’s action in our life is most often gentle and maybe even hardly able to be perceived at first. How does Jesus send the Spirit to His Apostles when He appears after His resurrection? He breathes on them, just quietly breathes on them. How does Saint Paul describe the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church? Like the soul in the body, powerful, essential but invisible and subtle. The Holy Spirit works quietly.

Think of a symphony orchestra. It is made up of hundreds of musicians and many different instruments. The conductor is the visible focus of everyone’s attention. And yet, is the conductor the source of the music? No, the composer is. In front of every musician is a music stand holding pages marked with black dots, the score, the music. No one in the audience sees the score but it brings all the members together, coordinating their efforts to produce one beautiful piece of music.

Think of the Church like that. The Pope and Bishops are like the conductor keeping us faithful to the musical score. We, the members of the Church, the members of the Body of Christ, are the musicians, each contributing our own unique talents to the symphony of holiness and praise that sounds throughout the world and all through history.

And the Holy Spirit is the living musical score, the One who tell us what notes to play, when to play them, how fast or slow to play them, how loud or soft to play them. The Spirit is the silent force behind every saint, every Christian. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church.

The Holy Spirit works quietly but effectively. Like the life of a vine which constantly but silently carries nutrients to every branch, invisibly producing visible fruit, the Holy Spirit is always gently inspiring us to follow Christ more closely so that we may have the fullness of life both here and eternally.

But unlike vines, this process does not happen automatically. It depends somewhat on our free choice. Jesus says in the Gospel, “Whoever loves me will keep my word.” We don’t obey the inspirations of the Holy Spirit like robots; we obey out of love. That is our part, to obey God’s will. Just as each musician must consciously choose to play the music that is in front of him. So each Christian must consciously choose to move according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
And since the Holy Spirit usually works quietly, we have to pay close attention. We have to make a point of listening to Him, consulting Him when we have doubts to resolve or decisions to make. He guides us from within.

Today as we celebrate the great event of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit renews His commitment to guide us and we should renew our commitment to listen, to pay attention. This is not in order to experience spiritual fireworks but in order to know the fire of God’s love in our hearts and His light to guide us.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fifth Sunday of Easter A
May 22, 2011

Saint Peter was writing to the first generation of Christians in the second reading today. There he tells them that they are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.” He is quoting from the book of Exodus in which God uses the same words to describe the entire people of Israel. It is likely that if we listen to it carefully, it seems a bit strange. How can the whole nation be a royal priesthood? One of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Tribe of Levi, was set aside to provide priests for the rest of the people. Isn’t it a contradiction, then, to say that the whole nation was a royal priesthood?

And in the Church of Christ, Jesus established a priesthood at the Last Supper similar to the Levitical priesthood of Israel. Ever since then, only ordained priests can celebrate certain sacraments. So why would Saint Peter refer to the whole Church, to all of the people of the Church, as a royal priesthood? Is he claiming that there is no difference between those who are ordained and those who are not ordained? Not at all. There is a difference.

The Church has always taught that there are actually two kinds of Christian priesthood. There is the common priesthood shared by everyone who is baptized. And there is the ordained priesthood which is shared in different degrees by deacons, priests and bishops.
Understanding and appreciating the difference will help each of us to better live the mission that is given to each of us.

Jesus is the High Priest, the one Mediator between God and people. Jesus offers the sacrifice of His life on the cross for our salvation. But Jesus did not keep His priesthood all to Himself. He made the Twelve Apostles to be His priests at the Last Supper, to maintain the bridge between God and people in the sacrifice of the Eucharist. In turn, the Apostles ordained other priests as they established new Christian communities. You can see, also, in the first reading, how they chose and ordained the first deacons.

In this way, every Christian community had a guaranteed access to the one, true Mediator and Bridge, Jesus Christ. This access was not symbolic but real in the sacraments. When an ordained minister celebrates the sacraments, it is Christ Himself who celebrates them through the minister. In that way, the bridge between God and people is kept open and grace flows over it.

But the generosity of Christ did not stop there. Every Christian, through Baptism, becomes connected to Christ in a real, sacramental way. Baptism gives us a share in Christ’s own life. It is like being plugged into the divine current of grace. So every Christian shares in the divine nature of Christ without losing our humanity. In this way, EVERY Christian can act as a bridge between God and the world. Being that bridge is what the Church calls the common priesthood of all the faithful.

We, then, are a “royal priesthood.” We are messengers and ambassadors of Jesus Christ who is the true High Priest. Each one of us is a path of light and grace reaching into a corner of the world, where we live our life, that is different than everyone else’s corner. Our mission in life is to bring others to the bridge, to the sacraments, to a relationship with Jesus Christ, the saving King and Eternal Priest. Our mission is to bring grace into the lives of those who are still lost in ways of fear, sin and ignorance and looking for the bridge to God’s grace.

And so today, we come to bring our offerings and unite them with the sacrifice of Christ our Priest. Then, in turn, we receive from Christ grace, the life of God, to live free from fear, free from sin and free to carry out our mission to bring the light of Christ and His grace to those around us.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fourth Sunday of Easter A
May 15, 2011

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who protects and cares for the people of God as a shepherd cares for his sheep.

Shepherds always want their sheep to be healthy and taken care. They want them to have the best grass, fresh water and safety so they can grow and prosper. As a sheep has no better friend than a good shepherd, so we have no greater friend that Jesus Christ. He invented life, He gave us life and He came so that, in Him, we might learn to live it “more abundantly.”
He does not claim to one good shepherd among many good shepherds, but the only one, “All others who have come are thieves and robbers.” Some religious leaders and philosophers throughout history, and even in our own day, have claimed to be saviors, to have all the answers, but they were really consumed by pride, greed or lust. Others have sincerely tried to make the world better but simply have insufficient wisdom or power to provide the kind of hope we long for and need. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, not only wants us to live a more abundant life but He can give us the hope we need. Only Jesus Christ is eternal and has the knowledge and the power combined with complete goodness and infinite wisdom.

And so with His flock, the problem is not the limitations or the ignorance of the shepherd but the stubbornness of the sheep. We stray from the flock and get ourselves trapped in thistles and swamps of self-centeredness, self-indulgence and stubborn disobedience.

All we need to be is sensible sheep and listen to the voice of the One Good Shepherd.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd because He knows the lay of the land. He was there at Creation and so He knows how we need to live in order to have “life more abundantly.” That is why in living the Christian life, obedience has always been rightly understood as a virtue, not a bad word. (A “virtue” is a habit of doing good).

In today’s world of individualism and personal freedom, obedience is viewed with suspicion as if anyone who obeys any authority is acting like a robot and is less than human. It used to be expected that children and teens would be learning the value of obedience to their parents and teachers. It was also accepted that mature adults would be obedient to lawful authorities of the government and the Church.

The Christian virtue of obedience is not mindless or irrational. It is obedience like that of a good athlete to an expert coach. It is the obedience of a student to a wise teacher. It is like the obedience of a sick patient to an experienced and good doctor. It is the obedience of a child to loving parents.

The Christian obeys Christ, the Good Shepherd, by obeying the commandments, the teachings of Christ’s Church and the voice of conscience which needs to be clear and well-formed. The Christian also obeys just laws and legitimate authority in society. So Christians should make excellent citizens and valuable members of any community.

Since our Good Shepherd does not want blind robots, we should make an effort to understand the teachings of the Church so that we can follow them with our whole heart and mind.
But there are times when we will not completely understand, times when we notice a valley that seems to have delicious grass, a field that we just have to investigate. But if our Good Shepherd, through the commandments or the teachings of the Church, has warned us that there is harm there, we will obey trusting in His goodness, wisdom and love.

Everyone loves the Psalm that assures us that “there is nothing we shall want.” But we need to remember the comforting promises of the psalm presume that we are faithfully following the Good Shepherd. It is through obedience to the Shepherd that our souls are revived. It is in following the Shepherd that goodness and kindness will follow us all the days of our lives.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Third Sunday of Easter A
May 8, 2011

“That very day, the first day of the week, two of Jesus’ disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus…..And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.”

Have you ever wondered about those “chance” encounters? The ones where you’re not really sure how under any other given set of circumstances you would ever meet this person who has become your best friend or even your husband or your wife? A Benedictine Monk tells the story of a young boy who set off for a day of play in the park, all loaded up with his lunch in his backpack. After a hard day of play, he began looking for a picnic table to have his lunch. All seemed to be taken, except for one table that had only one person sitting at it, and she was an older woman. So he politely asked if he could share the table with her and seeing her grandmother like smile, he offered her part of his lunch, which she accepted. Back home the boys parents asked him, "So how did your day go?" He beamed and said it was great and he had lunch with God. "Oh?" they asked. "Yes" he said- but I did not know that God was a grandmother and so old. Also having returned home to her family, the old woman was asked by her son "Mother how was your day today?" She said: "It was wonderful and I had lunch with God, but I never knew God was such a young boy."

The point is that every chance encounter is an encounter with God. The disciples discover this when they meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus in today's gospel. In their encounter they discuss, interpret and converse about the Scriptures. Saint Luke uses the word 'homileo' – or homily to describe this event. He does this very intentionally, to show us that the early Christian Community worshipped God by celebrating the Eucharist. It is a very carefully worded story. It doesn’t say that they just suddenly recognized Jesus…but that He became known to them IN the “breaking of the bread.” The point is that while we may encounter God just about anytime or anywhere, it is a sure thing you WILL when you come to Mass on Sunday. So if you can't experience God anywhere else, or feel He's far off, or you know of others struggling with where God is in the midst of this crazy world of ours, this is where to find Him.

Let’s take a few minutes to look at some quotes from the Gospel.

The Gospel says, "They stopped, looking downcast."

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had a very similar experience. They were dispirited and they did not know what to do next. They were leaving Jerusalem and their friends and they were heading back home. They hoped so much that Jesus, the great prophet in the sight of God and of the whole people, would bring freedom to their nation. But he died a terrible death on a cross. They were walking towards the west. They faced the sun setting and with the sun all their hope was sinking as well. There was night and darkness awaiting them. But something happened that changed everything, something that was not planned by them: a stranger approached them and began to ask questions.

Then the Gospel says, "Were not our hearts burning within us…?"

There is something special about the stories recorded in the Gospels: every time Jesus enters the stage, the lives of the people are changed. The same happened on the road to Emmaus. It was enough to hear the voice of that stranger, to listen to his explanation of the Scriptures regarding the Messiah, to make their hearts burning. An encounter with Jesus changes everything.

We may say, “What a privilege for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to meet Jesus, to listen to Him explaining the Scriptures to them, to share in the Eucharist with Jesus.” Yes, it certainly was a wonderful privilege. You might say you would love to have been there with those two disciples on the road, you would love to have been part of this experience on the road to Emmaus. But, in fact, every time we celebrate the Eucharist here we meet Jesus in the same way. Jesus explained the Scriptures to the two disciples and we also listen to the Scriptures. The Jesus “took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them,” and we also share in the Body of Jesus in the Eucharist.

What an awesome responsibility for those who proclaim the word of God to us. And Jesus spoke to the two disciples, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” Could He say the same to us as our hearts might be slow to believe what the word of God says to us?

When we hear the word of God not only do we hear it with ears and understand it with our minds but the Holy Spirit works within us to allow the word to heal and renew us just as the word healed and renewed the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” They did not realize that they hearts were burning within them, it was only later that they realized this. Without them realizing it, the Holy Spirit had been working on their hearts, changing their hearts and renewing them. The Holy Spirit works on us too when the word of God is proclaimed every time we gather in this church.

You might say that you would have loved to have been with those two disciples on the road, you would love to have been part of this experience on the road to Emmaus. But every time we come here to celebrate Mass our hearts burn within us even if like the two disciples we don’t realize it.

“When Jesus as at table with them, He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.”

It seems strange that Jesus vanished immediately but Jesus wanted them to understand that He is present whenever the Church gathers for the “breaking of the bread,” which we call the Mass. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus did the same four things with the bread that He did during the Last Supper, He took it, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. Jesus Himself taught them on the road to Emmaus that when they do this in remembrance of Him, He is with them. From then on, every time they do this in memory of Him, He will be with them as He was on the road to Emmaus. Every time we do this, Jesus is with us as He was with the two disciples.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Easter Sunday
April 24, 2011

Praised be Jesus Christ!

On the first day of the week, the third day of His Passion, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. This is that day.

Many great historical figures have led wonderful lives, taught great wisdom and even died for the truth. But only one has risen from the dead. Among all of humanity’s greatest heroes, only about Jesus Christ can we say, “He rose again on the third day, in fulfillment of the scriptures.”

Only in the Resurrection of Christ do goodness and power finally unite. Goodness wins! Only in Christ’s Resurrection does love prove that it is stronger than death. In Christ and in His resurrection, a new hope, an amazing new hope, dawns for all people, the hope that if we stay united to Him, we will rise with Him, rise from our own graves and live with Him forever in the never-ending adventure of Heaven. And the way we stay united to Christ is through faith and grace. Grace, meaning that it is God’s gift, and faith, meaning we believe, we hold on to it with our hearts and our minds.

No one else offers such a hope, because no one else has risen from the dead to be able to offer it, only the Lord.

The Resurrection is unique in the history of the world’s religions. It makes the Christian faith stand by itself. In the Resurrection, reality becomes more wonderful than myth.

Only the Resurrection can explain the reality of the history of the Church. A few weak, non-influential and uneducated fishermen from Galilee, frightened near to death when Jesus was arrested and executed, suddenly become world travelers, successful preachers and courageous martyrs.

And the Church they spread continues to grow after they die, holding fast to the exact same truth preached century after century in country after country. Only the continuing presence of the Lord can explain this and only the Resurrection explains the continuing presence of the Lord.

Consider the Resurrection. It is quite interesting that there were no human witnesses of Jesus rising. There are witnesses at all the other significant events in the life of Jesus. There are witnesses at His birth, Baptism, public ministry of teaching, when He performed miracles, witnesses of the Transfiguration, crucifixion, the appearances after the Resurrection and the Ascension.

It was so powerful a moment that it was witnessed by no one. Yet, in the wisdom and the intention of God and for our benefit, anyone who wishes can witness its power today. The life of Christ and the moment of Resurrection transcend all space and time. The powerful moment seen only by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit can be experienced by all who want to know it. This is because its power is present the moment we believe.

The experience of the empty tomb unleashed the moment in history. The first believers who discovered the empty tomb just could not stay away. When the word spread that the tomb was empty, history turned upside down.

Consider how each reacted. Mary Magdalene became concerned about who took the body of Jesus. Peter’s reaction to the news is that he must investigate for himself. John decides he must go alone with him. While John runs faster, the first entry is reserved to Peter the Rock. He saw the linens. John entered and they believed even though we are told they did not understand.

No one saw the Resurrection however we are all blessed to experience the risen Lord. Where is the presence of the risen Jesus? In the hearts of all who have faith, all who believe. This place is filled with the presence and the power of Christ. He is present whenever we come together with open hearts and willing minds. He is present as we hear His word that has moved hearts and changed lives for over 2000 years. He is present most of all in the Eucharist, in the great Gift of His Body and Blood. In the Eucharist He comes to us in the deepest way possible.

We are invited to let the power of Christ roll back the stones of our own sinfulness in order to let the light of God penetrate. We need to let Christ roll back the stones that seal us in tombs of pain, anger, guilt, jealousy, sickness, fear, anxiety or loneliness. We need Him to roll away the stones that keep us from hearing Him calling us forth into fullness of life.

We all have the opportunity to experience the risen Lord in our hearts just like the first believers. This day can be a new beginning. Here, in this church, even though we don’t completely understand, we are invited to believe. As at that first moment the change takes place in the depths of each human heart. We can look into the empty tomb and walk away exactly as we came, or, like the first disciples, we can recognize it is time to believe!

Today we should take hold of the great victory that Christ has won for us in His Resurrection. How different our day to day lives would be if we believed this truth with our whole hearts.

How can we let the power of Christ’s Resurrection seep into the depths of our minds and hearts? There is one very simple thing we can do that will make all the difference: Keep holy the Lord’s Day.

Pope Benedict pointed out earlier in this Holy Week, that it is an unfortunate fact of our age that there are many empty places at the table of the Lord. People to whom faith has been given seem indifferent, distracted and busy with other things. He said, “Jesus knows all about empty places at table, invitations refused, lack of interest in him and his closeness.”

Every Sunday of the year we gather to be strengthened in the same faith we celebrate today. We come again to hear the word and to share in the Eucharist. As life is different for those who believe, so Sunday has to be different for those with faith.

Today let us honor the Lord not only with our voices but with our hearts.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Good Friday
April 22, 2011

As we started Lent, we saw that the devil tempted Jesus in the desert. He tempted Him to turn stones into bread. He tempted Him to do a spectacular miracle by jumping down from the top of the Temple. He tempted Him to rule the world through power and intimidation instead of through self-sacrificing love. All of these temptations had something in common: the devil was trying to get Jesus to reject the plan of God the Father for His life. They all wanted Jesus to say, “my will be done” instead of “thy will be done.” But Jesus did not reject the Father’s plan, He completed His mission exactly as the Father wanted Him to, through obedience, in humility and in selfish love.

Now Lent is over and we have reached nothing less than the climax of all human history, the moment when Jesus reverses original sin and ends the devil’s rule over the human race. And now the devil has come back to tempt Jesus again. But this time he uses a different tactic.
Instead of trying to seduce Him with subtle lies, as in the desert, he assaulted Him with psychological and physical pain, excruciating pain. He tried to make His mission so hard, so painful that He would simply give up. He assaulted Him in the Garden where Jesus experienced emotional and spiritual agony.

And he assaulted Him through the humiliation of false trials, in the heart wrenching betrayals and abandonment by His friends, in the gruesome violence of being scourged and the unimaginable agony of death by crucifixion.

At any point along the way, Jesus could have ended His tortures simply by saying in His heart, “not thy will be done, Father, but my will be done.” Why didn’t He? Why did He go through such horrendous suffering?

It was for our sins that He died. He took on Himself the sentence that should have been handed down to us. When it was time for us to be judged, He stood in our place. He endured the suffering and gave His live out of love for us.

But did it have to be this way? Couldn’t the Father have found some other way to forgive our sins and restore our relationship with Him? Why the sufferings and the cross? Because God is all-powerful certainly He could have dismissed our sins by the power of a divine command.
Then why submit His Son to so much pain and suffering? The simple answer is that the Father wanted us to know how deep His love is for the people He created. He wished to hold nothing of Himself back. He spent Himself completely so that we might know His passion for us. None of us can look at the cross and honestly say, “There’s more you could have done.” The cross convinces us that God’s love for us has no limits. If He is willing to endure so much to save us then we can trust that He will provide us with whatever we need to bring us to Him.

The cross also convinces us how deeply offensive our sins are to God. If our reconciliation with God required that His Son become one of us and die on a cross, then how far must our sins drive us from God? If our sins caused Jesus to die, then can there be such a thing as a harmless sin? The cross not only teaches us about the love of God but it also teaches us something about ourselves. It teaches us that we are sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness. And it teaches us to run to the cross for strength in temptation and for mercy when we have sinned. As the Letter to the Hebrews assures us, we can go confidently to the throne of grace and expect to made whole again.

Finally, the cross begins to answer the most difficult question that every human being faces, “If God is good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world?” When we look on the cross, we do not see a God who keeps Himself at a safe distance from the sufferings of the people He created. Instead, we see a God who is with us in our trials, who feels every pain we feel and who carries us in our afflictions. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus, suffering takes on a whole new meaning. By accepting our pains and offering them to God together with Jesus, we participate in the mystery of salvation. The second reading tells us that Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered and was so perfected to become a means of salvation for the world. God wants us to use our suffering to bring forgiveness of sins to the world. In the light of the cross, our pains and sufferings do not separate us from the love of the Father but help us to grown closer to Him.

Now that we have reflected on the words of the Gospel telling us of the suffering and death of our Savior, we will offer prayers of intercession for the world and its people. Then we will approach the cross to kiss it. We will venerate the instrument that was used to torture and kill Jesus. We are recognizing that it is now transformed from a means of death to the source of salvation. And we are holding on to the promise that through love the cross that each of us must carry in our daily lives can also be a source of life, grace and even joy for us. As we come near today, let us bring our burdens and promise to bear them patiently with the strength that God provides. Let us pledge to help carry the burdens of our neighbors. And let us keep the cross in front of us as a sign of God’s enduring love.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
........................................................................................................

Holy Thursday
April 21, 2011

Every person has two needs that are deeper than any other. We need to be loved and to love. That is because we are created in God’s image, and God is Love. The Trinity of Persons in God is divine love, each Person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loving the others and being loved by them.

And we are created in that image, made to follow that example. We can have all the money in the world, all the popularity, power and success, but if we are not loved just because of who we are, and with no strings attached, and if we don’t love someone else enough to sacrifice ourselves for them, we will never be happy.

Jesus knew our need for love and through His suffering and death, His Passion, which begins tonight, He gave them to us. Saint John tells us, “He loved his own who were in the world, and he loved them to the end.” This means that Jesus gave us the utmost proof of His love, His Passion, evidence that there is no limit to His love for each one of us.

And tonight, Holy Thursday, He gave us three great gifts that would extend His Passion, the proof of His love, throughout all time.

He gave us the Eucharist, His Real Presence, to feed and nourish us in Holy Communion and to be available to us in the Tabernacle.

He gave us the Priesthood, the extension of His mercy and love through all time and in all places.

And He gave us the commandment of true love, so we would know how to love in serving others, not indulging ourselves, just as He bent to wash the feet of His disciples.
Through these gifts, God redeems us, meeting the two deepest needs of every human heart.

Each of these gifts meets both of our deepest needs. Take the Priesthood for example. The Priesthood is God’s way of being present in our lives as a teacher, father and guide, without overwhelming us. He sends grace through priests, ordinary men we can relate to. There are not thunder and clouds as in the Old Testament. He humbles Himself to come to us so He can raise us to Him.

The night before Pope John Paul II’s funeral, Rome was filled with almost 5 million pilgrims who had come for the Mass. The city could barely hold them and thousands and thousands spent the night literally in the streets. Wherever they were gathered, all over the city, throughout the night, you could see priests hearing Confessions in makeshift confessionals, with signs around their necks or hanging from their chairs listing the languages they spoke. All night long God was proving His love, gently offering His mercy and guidance.

In the morning the Today Show interviewed one of these priests. He was tired, hungry, unshaven but happy. They asked him what he had been doing all night. “Hearing confessions in the streets of Rome,” he answered. “Old people?” they asked. “Some older, mostly young,” he responded. The interviewer then asked, “We know that young people liked John Paul II because he was a celebrity, but why would they want to go to confession? Don’t they all want to change the Church’s teaching about sin anyway?” The priest smiled and said, “The only thing these kids want to change is themselves. And John Paull reminded them that with God’s grace, they can. That’s why they came to confession.” The show cut immediately to a commercial!

This is the gift Christ left us in the Priesthood. A sacrament that provides living and breathing help along the journey of life. A gift that shows us we are loved and strengthens us to love.

Take for example the Eucharist. Jesus is truly present in this sacrament. It is not just a symbol. His presence is real and sacramental: body, blood, soul, and divinity. There Jesus waits for us to come and spend time with Him, constantly offering himself to God the Father for us at every moment, wherever the Eucharist is kept.

The sanctuary lamp, the little red candle that burns near every tabernacle symbolizes this living presence. Just as the candle consumes itself in order to give us light,so Jesus in the Eucharist is continuing his sacrifice on the Cross in the Eucharist in order to remind us that no matter how far we fall, no matter what our sins, His love never changes.

But even that wasn't enough.  He knows that original sin has wounded our souls. Part of us doesn't believe we are loveable; part of us has difficulty trusting other people, because we have been hurt by life in this fallen world. And that fear of being hurt, that fear of trusting, it weakens our own ability to love.

Who can heal this deep wound in our spirit? Jesus himself, by giving us the medicine of the Eucharist in Holy Communion. The Eucharist is the supernatural medicine Christ has left the Church, the little, seemingly insignificant bit of food that He applies to all of our spiritual wounds, to heal us from our fears and doubts, so that we can let ourselves be loved by Christ, and become strong enough to love like Christ.

This is the night that Jesus gave us these Gifts. And the best way to give thanks is to use them. To let those gifts meet our deepest needs by opening our hearts to Christ.
Of the two needs, the first is even deeper than the second. Unless we know that we are loved unconditionally, fully, through and through, just for who we are, it is almost impossible for us to be able to love the way we were created to. And the more we know we are loved, the stronger we become, the more able to love in return. We all know that on just a human level: The more we know we are loved, the stronger we are.

So, in these days, let Jesus assure us of His love. But we should not stop there. All of us have already known the love of Christ even though we constantly need more. And each of us knows someone who has not experienced it at all or has not known it for a long time. We can be true disciples of Christ by reaching out to them in some little way, washing their feet just a bit by loving them as Christ would. After all, the love of Jesus is much too precious to keep to ourselves.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Palm Sunday A
April 17, 2011

I mentioned at the beginning that we should not approach this week with a burdening sense of sin and guilt. Rather, we enter this Holy Week grateful for victory that is ours in Jesus Christ; grateful for what God has done for us in Jesus.

The palms we used at the beginning and from which this day takes its name, Palm Sunday, are a symbol of victory. In the Hebrew Scriptures, in their elegance and strength, palm trees stood for the just man or woman, the one who stood strong in God’s law.

When the Romans started conquering other nations, the generals used to bring back palm trees as symbols of their victory.

So the crowds waving palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem were announcing His victory. Today we join them.

Interesting enough, the donkey on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem is also connected to His victory.

In ancient times, military leaders who were engaged in battle would ride on strong, fast, powerful horses. But after the battle was won, the victorious general would parade in to the city riding on- you guessed it- a donkey.

That is why the people shouted when they saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. It was a sign to them. It meant that Jesus had conquered and was bringing the peace of His Kingdom, though they did not understand what kind of Kingdom it was.

Everything today, even the humble donkey, calls us to raise our heads and look to Christ’s victory.

Earlier last week, Pope Benedict suggested that there are only 3 things each of us need to do to live in the grace of Christ’s victory, or if you want, 3 things necessary to become saints. It is as easy as 1, 2, 3.

The three are: Go to Mass on Sunday, begin and end the day in contact with God and make decisions according to the Ten Commandments.

The Pope said, “What is most essential? Essential is that no Sunday be left without an encounter with the Risen Christ in the Eucharist- this is not a burden but light for the whole week. Never to begin or end a day without at least a brief contact with God. And, in the journey of our life, to follow ‘road signs’ that has God has communicated to us in the Decalogue read with Christ, which is simply the definition of charity in specific situations.”

He went on to ask, “Can we, with our limitations, our weakness, reach so high?”

“Let us not be afraid to look on high, to the height of God; let us not be afraid that God will ask too much of us, but let us be guided in all our daily actions by his word, even if we feel that we are poor, inadequate, sinners: He will be the one to transform us according to his love.”

This is Palm Sunday, Victory Day. We renew our faith in the victory of Christ and claim it once more as our own.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fifth Sunday of Lent A
April 10, 2011

Jesus is coming to the end of His mission on earth. His disciples have now been with Him for almost 3 years. Here they see Jesus showing divine knowledge: He knew how the sickness of Lazarus would end, and He knew when Lazarus died without anyone telling Him.

Yet, even now, after 3 years of continually witnessing Jesus work miracles and experiencing His divine wisdom, the disciples still don’t understand Him. They still don’t know their Lord. They misunderstand His words thinking He is talking about normal sleep when He is talking about death. They still doubt His good sense and His power- they try to discourage Him from returning to Jerusalem where His enemies wait. After all this time and all this experience, they just don’t get it.

Any other teacher would have given up on how slow they were but not Jesus. He is a Lord who serves those who follow Him, teaching and guiding to fullness of life with endless patience. The more there is a need, the more caring He is, the more willing to give them whatever it takes to help them believe in Him, trust Him and follow Him.

Aren’t we just like the Apostles? We have been Christians so long, heard so many homilies, received Holy Communion so often. And yet, in the middle of the ups and downs of life we still find it hard to figure out what God is asking. In the middle of life’s temptations, we still find it hard to trust Him enough to follow His will rather than our own. But He hasn’t given up on us and He never will. He is our Lord but a Lord who rules by love.

Even our sufferings are proof that God never gives up on us. They are sometimes a last resort to get our attention.

There once lived in Germany a wealthy and popular couple. They were Catholic in name but not at all active, never making time to pray, go to Confession, serve the needs of their neighbors or develop a relationship with Jesus. After many years, God gave them a child whom they loved dearly. They even had him baptized. But while he was still young, he got sick, suffered terribly and died. They were devastated and their sorrow soon turned to anger. But they did go to talk to the priest. They said, “If God loves us, why did he do this to us?” The priest said, “God does love you. And welcoming your son to Heaven is a special sign of that love.” That did not make them happy.

“Listen,” the priest continued:
A good shepherd prepared a delicious feast for his sheep. But when he opened the sheep pen, they wouldn’t come in to eat. He called and whistled and sang but they just kept wanderingfarther away. Finally the shepherd went out and picked up a little lamb, carried it into the pen and set it down beside the food. When the other sheep saw the lamb eating, they made their way in to enjoy the feast.

This is what Jesus has done for you. Until now, you always refused to prepare yourself to come to the great feast he has prepared for you in Heaven, no matter how many invitations he sent.
You have been giving so much attention to earthly comforts that you neglected the care of your souls. Now in your child, whom you love so much, he wants to inspire you to follow Christ on earth so you can follow your son into Heaven.

Everything in this church reminds us that God never gives up on us. The altar is solid and immovable just like God’s love. The crucifix is front and center, the sign of God’s unlimited forgiveness. The Tabernacle holds the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the greatest proof that God will never give up on us. But one thing shows God’s love: the confession rooms.
Just the fact that they are there proves that God doesn’t just make empty campaign promises but puts His love into action. He gave His forgiveness of sins to the Church because He knew we would need it. He knew we would be tempted, keep falling into sin, keep experiencing our weakness. He knew that the devil would try to use those to discourage us and keep us distant from God.

But the confessional is the shield against that temptation. Just to look at it should remind us that Jesus never gives up on us. No matter what happens, no matter what we do or fail to do, we can always go in there to receive God’s forgiveness with no room for doubt.

God never gives up on us. The question is whether we give up on God, settling for being half Christian instead of aiming for Heaven.
Today we can reboot our spiritual lives. Get back to Christ’s vision for us and do all we can to make it come true.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fourth Sunday of Lent A
April 3, 2011

Jesus gave this blind man two priceless gifts.

First, Jesus gave him the joy of physical sight. For the first time in his life he could see. All of the things that he had known just by words, sound, and touch suddenly came alive. Color flooded his mind and filled him with wonder. There was the sky and the landscape, the subtle beauty of expressions on people's faces emphasizing the meanings of their words and the look of love and tenderness from his mother, which he had never seen. Jesus had opened up to this man a new, glorious, awe-inspiring world of human experience. Joy, amazement, and gratitude filled the man's mind and heart. He experienced an intensity of life that he had not known until now.

But Jesus also gave him the gift of spiritual sight - the gift of faith.  He enabled the blind man to recognize and see God in Jesus. He enabled him to encounter his Creator knowingly, face to face. And the man was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and awe - so much so that he fell down at Christ's feet and worshipped Him, right there in the middle of the crowded Temple. Which gift did the man value more? His actions give us the answer. He stood up to the powerful Pharisees, defending Christ's Lordship, even at the risk of being expelled from the synagogue, making him into a social outcast. This man did not let the gifts of God blind him to the goodness of God.

We have also received two priceless gifts from God: our natural lives, with all that that entails, and our supernatural life, our knowledge of, faith in, and friendship with Christ. Which do we value more?

The fact that all of us are here today is proof that we value the higher gifts. And yet, even we can fall into routine.  Many Catholics who used to come to Sunday Mass are not here with us today. Christ has graces He wants to give them today, graces they will need this week, and they are not here to receive them. We have to remind ourselves of the value of God's supernatural gifts, if we want to protect our friendship with Christ and continue growing in wisdom and true happiness. One of the greatest gifts we have received is the Eucharist, Christ's true presence, body, blood, soul, and divinity, given to us as spiritual food under the appearance of bread and wine.

When the famous Cardinal Newman was about to convert to the Catholic faith, his friends and colleagues at Oxford University tried desperately to dissuade him. One of them, exasperated, finally said, "Think of what you are doing. If you become a Catholic you will lose your job and forfeit your annual income of four thousand pounds [about $120,000 in today's terms]." The future Cardinal responded, "What are four thousand pounds when compared with one Holy Communion?"

Another English saint, Thomas More, Chancellor of England, had a similar conversation with a colleague who criticized him for taking time away from his important work to go to daily Mass. More replied: “Your reasons for wanting me to stay away are exactly the ones which cause me to go so often. My stress is great, but it is by Holy Communion that I calm myself. Many times a day I am tempted to sin - it is through my Communion that I overcome. I have many weighty affairs to manage - and I have need of light and strength to do so well. It is in my Communion that I find all this. These men valued the supernatural gifts of God just as we should all value them.

It's hard for us to keep our priorities straight. The pleasures of our natural life can be so vivid that we let them upstage our supernatural life. We want to be popular, so we join in with the gossiping or the vulgar, locker-room talk. We want to be successful, so we condone the dishonesty and deception being used by everyone else to climb the ladder. We want to enjoy ourselves, so we make excuses when our conscience reminds us that there is more to life than just having a good time.

All of us here today are making an effort to follow Christ, to keep our priorities right, and yet, we still have our falls and failures. Only by strengthening our faith can we really progress on this path of authentic Christianity. We can do two things to strengthen our faith.

First, we can ask God to strengthen it for us.  Just as the blind man asked Jesus to show him the Messiah, so that he could believe in Him, we can ask God to show us more clearly his presence, truth, and love. How could he ever deny such a request?

Second, we can boldly defend our faith.  When the blind man was interrogated, he bore witness to Christ. The more they tried to intimidate him, the more courageously he bore witness. Through that process, the eyes of his soul were gradually opened until he recognized in Jesus not just a man of God, not just a prophet, but the Messiah himself.

This week, God will give each one of us a chance to boldly bear witness to him. Let's make up our minds now to act courageously and faithfully then, so that our lives and the lives of others can be filled more and more with the saving light of faith.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
........................................................................................................

Third Sunday of Lent A
March 27, 2010

We all experience two kinds of thirst in life and unless we know the difference between them, we will always be frustrated.

The first kind we might call “horizontal thirst.” We thirst for, we desire, the good things of the earth: food, drink, companionship, fun, entertainment, a nice house, a good income, success at school or work. It is part of our nature to desire these things and there is nothing wrong with them.

But we also have another kind of thirst; we might call it “vertical thirst.” This is a deeper thirst, a deeper desire. It is a desire for meaning and purpose. This desire is also part of our nature. There is nothing we can do to destroy it, just as there is nothing we can do to destroy our natural desires for food and water.

But unlike horizontal thirst, our vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by our own efforts. Only God Himself can satisfy it. And He created us like that on purpose. It’s as if He put a homing device in the very core of our being and it constantly draws us towards Him, towards intimate, personal contact with His love.

That is why even when all of our horizontal thirsts are satisfied, when we money, success, pleasure, we are still restless. The deeper thirst cannot be satisfied by the things of this world. Here is how the Catechism says it: “Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness” (#45) The meaning and purpose that will give us true happiness come from friendship with God in Christ, not from worldly success, pleasures or even human relationships.

When we forget that, when we try to satisfy our vertical thirst with horizontal stuff, we put ourselves on the road to frustration, disappointment and tragedy.

That is what the Samaritan woman had been experiencing all her life. She had 5 husbands, the Gospel tells us, and now she was living with another man and hadn’t even bothered to marry him. She was coming to town in the middle of the day, the Gospel also says, the hottest time of the day, when none of the other women in the town would be coming to the well. She wanted t avoid them.

Here is a woman of great spiritual sensitivity, and yet, she is living a life of frustration, alienation, loneliness and inner turmoil. She has been trying to satisfy her vertical thirst, which only God can satisfy, with horizontal stuff: human love, comfort and earthly pleasures. She has learned the hard way that this doesn’t work. She has learned she needs to be “saved,” that she needs a Savior. She needs to find the “spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She needs to find “the gift of God.” She needs to discover Jesus. And she does as Jesus reveals Himself to her and her life turns around 180 degrees.

Now she runs back the village announcing the good news to anyone she can find. And we know from the Gospel that Jesus and His disciples ended up spending three days there and the whole town came to believe in Him.

The woman and the whole town has been in a spiritual desert, their souls dying of frustration, boredom and lack of meaning even while they enjoyed material pleasures and prosperity. But all that changed with Jesus.

We don’t need to look any further for the secret to happiness. Jesus Christ is the rock and the water flowing in the spiritual desert of this world.

We are not like the Samaritan woman when she arrived at the well. We already know Jesus. We have experienced His love and grace. We have tasted the water that springs up to eternal life. That “water” is the Holy Spirit that has “been poured into our hearts” as Saint Paul says in the second reading.

Even so, we still have times in our lives when, like the people of Israel in the desert, we struggle, we cry out, we get thirsty, then we God to remind us of His power and His love. But we know where to turn in those times. That is the gift of faith.

So we are not like the Samaritan woman when she arrived at the well. We are more like the woman after her conversation with Jesus. In this world, we are the ones who are blessed, the ones who have met the Savior.

But there are many around us who don’t know where to turn. They are frustrated in life and they don’t know why. It is up to us to tell them. All the Holy Spirit needs from us is a decent effort to spread the good news and He will use our clumsy words to bring faith into thirsty hearts just as He used the words of the Samaritan woman to convert an entire town.

Jesus is the new Moses and each of us is like the wooden staff in His hands. He wants to use us to touch the stony hearts of our thirsting neighbors so he can open with them a flowing fountain of His saving grace.
Let’s give him the chance.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Second Sunday of Lent A
March 20, 2011

Charley and Matt lived in a nice neighborhood where people were friendly except for one man who lived alone at the end of the street in a big house with an enormous swimming pool. His pool had a huge diving board so high they could see it over the big fence that surrounded his property. Charley and Matt wished they could take a dive off that board but no one was ever allowed on the property.

One day the old man left for a trip out of town. Late that night they snuck out of their bedrooms to meet at the old man’s house. They went without flash lights so they wouldn’t be noticed. They climbed over the fence and into the yard. Even in the dark they could make out a second fence right next to the pool which they immediately climbed over. Once inside the pool area they couldn’t see a thing.

Charley was feeling around for a place to put his towel when Matt bumped into the diving board. He started climbing the ladder. “Last one in is a rotten egg!” he yelled to Charlie. “Be quiet!” Charley said as he felt his way to the edge of the pool to check the temperature of the water. He sat down on the edge when he heard Matt spring off the board. Charley heard Matt hit the bottom just about the same time he discovered there was no water in the pool.

Remember last week? God told the Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden or they would die. Whatever God asks of us, He asks it because He loves us.

The Ten Commandments, the teachings of the Church, the small voice of our conscience, these are not random rules to limit our freedom. They are God’s fences, ways that God guides us towards His blessings, just as He guided Abraham.

In the Bible, mountaintops are special places for encountering God, for having life-changing experiences of God. And so it is not a coincidence that Jesus brought His disciples up the mountain to see His Transfiguration.

We have all had mountaintop experiences, times or moments when we felt God’s presence and we knew with absolute certainty that He was near, watching over us and guiding us. Emily Dickinson expressed her blessed assurance of Heaven even though she had never seen it,

“I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea;
Yet I know how the heather looks, And what a wave must be.
I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.”

Maybe it was a specifically religious experience like Baptism or First Communion or while on a retreat. Maybe it was when you went to Confession for the first time in years and experienced a fresh start with God’s mercy. Maybe it was when you fell in love or the day you got married. Maybe it was the birth of a child. It could also be the moment of the death of a loved one. Maybe it was simply one day while walking by the river or in the mountains.

God gave us these mountaintop experiences for a reason, just as He gave it to Peter, James and John for a reason. Jesus knew that His Passion, Crucifixion and death were coming. He knew they would shake the faith of His followers. So He gave them this experience of His glory on the mountaintop so that later on, when the cross appeared, they could remember it and find strength in the memory.

Faith involves at least some things that cannot be seen. Faith is partially defined as trusting what we cannot see. God say’s to Abraham, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” Granted, God promised to make of him a great nation, to make his name great and to protect him. But Abraham was leaving everything he had ever known and going to an unknown place and he was 75 years old. God says, ‘Believe in me; trust in me and you will be blessed.’ And Abraham went forward with nothing but faith to guide him. It is no wonder Abraham is our “father in faith.”

Jesus knows that a life of following Him, the Christian life, a life of faith, can be demanding, that no one can escapes life’s uncertainty and life’s crosses. He knows that following the Commandments and avoiding the temptation to climb over the fences requires discipline and self-sacrifice. He knows that sometimes just going ahead one more day requires all the trust we have.

Today He reminds us that even those difficulties and crosses are part of His plan. Today and through this week, He wants us to think about our mountaintop experiences so that we can find our faith renewed in His goodness, wisdom and desire to bless us.

With that renewed faith, we will be able to live Lent well, listening to Christ and obeying His will. With that faith we will be able to live LIFE well.

“Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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First Sunday of Lent A
March 13, 2011

Original Sin was the first scene in the long complex, drama of human history. The Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment will be the final scene. Everything in-between is connected to both Original Sin and to the Last Judgment. But today’s world has pretty much forgotten about both.

Partly because we have made such extraordinary progress in science and technology, we are tempted to think that we are totally self-sufficient, unaffected by the consequences of the original sin and that we will not be judged by a higher power after we die. But that is just another version of the devil’s ancient lie. It is as if the devil has convinced us that since we learned to turn stones into bread, to dominate and control the physical world, that we like gods ourselves and have no need for any other God. It is the same lie that tricked Adam and Eve.

Today, at the beginning of Lent, we look at that lie.

During Lent, we pay special attention to our sins and our sinful tendencies, not to induce some useless guilt, but so that we don’t forget the bigger story. And Original Sin is one of the most important chapters in that story and one of the most misunderstood. Let’s take a few minutes to consider what it is all about and why it is one of the most important truths of the Christian faith.

It is important to know what happened, what was the cause? The Church points out that the story we just heard is told in figurative language, not in scientific or historical language. That means that it expresses the truth about what happened but it doesn’t necessarily give exact details of what happened. We can speculate about the how, but that will never change the what.

The first humans were morally free beings created in God’s image. That means they were capable of friendship with God, able to know and love Him. But friendship with God is unique because God is God and we are dependent on Him. Living in friendship with God, who is our only source of true happiness, involves admitting and accepting that. Here is how the Catechism puts it:

The ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. (#396)

In other words, we are not God. Our existence and happiness depend on God. If we don’t accept that, we are like a tree that wants to “free itself” from the soil. We are headed for disaster.

And that is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve, they uprooted themselves from the soil of God’s friendship because they resented the fact that they weren’t equal to God. This was the heart of Original Sin:

Man, [tempted by the devil,] let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted or. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness. (#397)

The devil encouraged this rebellion with his lies. He planted the temptation. But ultimately, Adam and Eve were responsible for giving into that temptation. They abused the gift of freedom. They used it to try and make themselves independent of God instead of closer to Him. So the sin happened and it consisted of our parents rebelling against their dependence on God.

It is also essential to remember that Original Sin affected not only Adam and Eve but the whole human race. God created us as a family and when our parents sinned, the whole family suffered. There is a unity in the human race. The alienation that the first people felt from God in the garden was passed on. The tendency to selfishness was passed on. The adversity of the forces of nature symbolized by Eve’s pain in childbirth and Adam’s toil and sweat to earn a living, was also passed on. What’s more, the devil whom they obeyed rather than God, in that rebellion gained a strong influence over human affairs. (#407)

Original Sin was the origin not only of sin but of the whole battle between good and evil that marks the history of every human life and community. As a result we have two tendencies built into us now, the tendency toward goodness, created by God, and the tendency toward selfishness, the result of sin. The two battle against each other in our hearts, in our relationships and they continue for life even after Baptism. The battle for the human heart affects the whole course of human events as can be proved by reading any newspaper or watching the news.

This may seem to be terribly discouraging. Life is a battle that won’t end until we die. There is no escape from the struggle. But Original Sin is only the beginning of the story.

God did not abandon us. He could have. He searched out Adam and Eve even when they were hiding in the garden and He searches for us. He sent us a Savior. Unlike the first Adam, Jesus Christ, the new Adam, never disobeyed God the Father. He never let His trust in the Father die. From the temptations in the desert to death on the cross, He stayed faithful. He defeated the devil and repaired the break opened by sin.

True, our lives will always be a struggle against our own tendencies to sin and the power of sin that is active in the world around us. But it is in this struggle that our lives gain their meaning. Because God has revealed the truth about the origin of evil and the way of salvation, we never have to be surprised either by our own weakness or by the injustice and suffering we meet in the world. We know the story! We know what is going on!

Today, Jesus comes to strengthen us for the battle with the power of His word and Himself in the Eucharist. For our part, we recommit to follow Him and repeat the mistakes of our parents.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
March 6, 2011

There are two wrong ways of understanding what Christian faith is.

First, it is wrong to think that faith is some kind of spiritual force by which we ourselves achieve salvation. That the self-help, New Age, Star Wars point of view, which says that faith is our way of tapping into unseen powers, like the Force, and using them to achieve our personal goals. That is not Christian faith, as Saint Paul explains in the second reading.

He writes, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.” In other words, sin has cut us off from God. We cannot save ourselves, connect ourselves to God, make ourselves really happy or give lasting meaning to our lives by our own efforts. We are not gods. Instead, Saint Paul writes, we are “justified by his grace through the redemption in Jesus Christ.” Jesus has redeemed us. Only through friendship with Him- that is Christian faith- can we know a grace-filled life now and in the life to come.

Second, it is wrong to think that Christian faith consists only in acknowledging a list of abstract doctrines. Not at all. The doctrines that we believe, that God has given to us, have practical consequences for our lives. As Moses says in the first reading, we need to “take these words…into our heart and our soul.” As Jesus Himself says in the Gospel, to be wise we must not only listen to Christian truth, but we must “act” on it, we must build our lives on it. Our faith, when it is real, should inspire us to live, with the help of God’s grace, exactly as friends of Christ ought to live.

So Christian faith is neither an impersonal force nor just abstract doctrine. It is a living relationship with God in Christ. It is a way of life.

This is one of the reasons why being a Christian is not always comfortable. Through His Church, God is constantly guiding us along the path to fulfillment and holiness. We cannot claim to be Christ’s followers if we ignore that guidance.

That is why it is a contradiction for any Catholic politician to claim to be “pro-choice.” As Catholics, we know that abortion is a serious violation of human rights because it involves the deliberate killing of innocent developing human life. It is not a matter of personal opinion, it is a moral truth. Christ, Himself, through the official teaching of His Church, has assured us that it is. And anyone who claims to believe in Christ must also be for the protection of life before birth and the support of pregnant women in crisis situations.

This is why it is also a contradiction for a Catholic lawyer to tamper with evidence or for a Catholic involved in business to overcharge customers. This is why is a contradiction for a Catholic athlete to use illegal drugs or for Catholics to deal in pornography.

We cannot pick and choose among the teachings we find in the Bible and the Catechism as if it were a buffet. We cannot say we agree with the first and second commandments but not the sixth and seventh. If we do that, we are building our lives on sand, hearing Christ’s words but not acting on them, being unfaithful friends, and sooner or later our house will collapse.
Christian faith always involves humble, loving obedience to our Creator and our Redeemer. Only in this obedience of faith will we find through freedom, just as we are only free to send astronauts into space by obeying the laws of physics.

Keeping this clear is a great way to make life more simple. God wants to bless us with wisdom and holiness which are the true sources of happiness. And all we have to do to receive the blessing is to hear and follow. Keeping those two things at the top of the to-do lists will help everything else fall into place.

First, we need to hear the teachings of Christ. This we do by being sure we get good Catholic information. For the most part, that is NOT available in the secular media. We need to look for Catholic sources on TV, the internet and in books or on your kindle or iPad.

We also do this through prayer. Prayer isn’t just “saying prayers” or asking for God’s help. Prayer is also reflecting deeply on God’s word and listening to what He says in our hearts, then responding with our own words of thanksgiving, praise and love. By prayer and study we hear God’s word.

And then, second, we heed that word. We do what God asks of us. Every once in a while, we may be unsure about what that is. But 90% of the time, we know exactly what God wants us to do. God wants us to help those around us, to be faithful in our relationships, to obey the commandments, to build up His Church, to spread His teachings, to help build a society of justice and love.

Our faith is a way of life built on the solid rock of friendship with Jesus Christ. Today we renew our commitment to be faithful.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
February 27, 2011

Our initial reaction to the harsh tone of the words of Jesus in the Gospel may be that it is a call to a life of gloomy austerity or joyless poverty. As Jesus does in all of the Gospel, He is calling us to seek and claim our true selves and to find out true selves in God. You might say that is the whole point of His ministry: Jesus encouraging us to take hold of the fullest possibility of who we really are and pointing out the things that get in the way.

Jesus begins by laying out two possible orientations toward life that will inevitably clash: a life focused on God and a life focused on Mammon. Mammon, is an expression common at that time. It is simply an Aramaic word for property, including, but not only, money. It is sometimes translated as wealth. There is nothing particularly evil about Mammon in and of itself. So the words of Jesus, again from the Sermon on the Mount, are not to encourage us to a life of total renunciation. He is not telling us to “renounce” anything; He is telling us to take responsibility for the focus and orientation of our lives.
“No one can serve two masters,” Jesus says. Serving two masters here is not the same thing as having two jobs and it is not the same thing as saying “Choose between career and family” or something like that, though this could have everything to do with either or both of these.

This is not a call to renounce Mammon or wealth or property. Rather, Jesus is saying that our relationship to wealth must not be one of a slave serving a master. We must not love wealth; we cannot be devoted to wealth. Ultimately, the call of Jesus is not to give up wealth, His call is to love God. “Love” and “hate” here do not refer to emotions but choices. If we would love God, we have to be prepared to despise wealth. If we love God, we cannot choose wealth and gaining it over God.

Again I need to emphasize that this is not a call to renounce wealth. It is a call to love God, a call to choose to honor and serve God with the same kind of devotion that slave serves a master. The “slave” image is probably unsettling for us but at that time slavery, although not grounded in racism, was the norm.

This is not a call to renounce anything. It is a call to decide whom we will serve. If we choose to love God, we do not have to renounce or give up anything. If we choose to give ourselves totally to God, we will come to “hate” and “despise” wealth. And again this does not mean any kind of emotional contempt. If we choose to love God, any undue attachment to wealth will simply fall away. We will begin to find it uninteresting. This brings us to the big “therefore.”

We cannot serve both God and wealth. Therefore, serve God, of course and give up, if anything, the worry to which enslavement to wealth inevitably leads. We free ourselves from enslavement to wealth, first and above all, by not worrying. Jesus is not calling us to a gloomy life of renunciation in which we bend our heads to the ground and go along fearing some temptation that might jump out and grab us. Look up, Jesus says. Look at the birds of the air! Look at the flowers of the field! Don’t reject the beauty this life has to offer, but enjoy it!

A life devoted to loving and serving God is one that gets joy from breathing the fresh air, from looking at the sky, from the wonder of the birds who will soon be gathering their food and building their nests. Do they worry about where their food will come from or where they will build their nests? No, they just give themselves completely to the life that God has given them.
It is the life devoted to Mammon that pulls people down. It is the life dedicated to wealth-as-god that drags us out of the real world to one of worry over houses and property and wealth. It is this life that assumes that is all there is. That is ALL there is. This becomes a life of slavery even now when we think slavery is dead.

Do you want to be free of worry, of enslavement to wealth and possessions? Don’t renounce them. If you want to be free, turn your heart and your mind and your strength toward God. Fix your heart on love and generosity, losing yourself in honest work and good recreation, living for the good that surrounds us and is in right in front of us and not storing up possessions having them just so we can pack them away.

But someone might say there is hunger in the world. There is famine, floods, earthquakes and natural disasters. How does God provide in the midst of such evil?

God provides when God’s people choose to serve God over Mammon. God provides when our love of neighbor automatically flows out of our love for God. When we seek first the Kingdom of God, we will be moved to provide for the needs of others, to reach out to those who are suffering.

It may seem countercultural but we do not come from the womb as totally free human beings without any ties to anything or anybody. We are dependent creatures right from the beginning. Our life consists of only once choice really: Whom shall we serve? If we want to be free, our choice will be God. Don’t worry about food; don’t worry about clothes; don’t even worry about what you have to give up. Choose life with God and everything else will fall away.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
February 6, 2011

Jesus chose His words carefully, including the words we just listened to. Just like the Beatitudes last week, they are part of the Sermon on the Mount which is like a highlight of all His sermons.

In this section Jesus us explaining to His followers what He expects of them. It is like a coach talking to his players before the big game (appropriate on Super Bowl weekend!). But this is Jesus talking to us about the game of life itself. It is like a general instructing his troops before a big battle. But this is Jesus talking to us about the battle of life. He is giving us our life-mission.

And what is that life-mission? To be salt and light for the world around us.

Salt had two functions in the world of Jesus: It gave flavor to food and it preserved food. They did not have refrigerators, so they preserved meat by putting a thin layer of salt over it.
Light had the same function as it does now: it pushed back the darkness. But in the ancient world, before electricity, darkness was much more dramatically real than it is to us. The people understood how helpless they were without lamp. Now, because electricity is everywhere, we rarely even think about our need for light (unless a storm comes along to threaten it).

It is salt and light that Jesus uses to explain our life-mission. And what is the common characteristic of salt and light? They are both for something else. Their purpose is not for themselves but for others. And that is the point.

The mission of a Christian in the world, just like the mission of Jesus, is to make a positive difference for others by bringing the power and the light of the Gospel.

If God is calling each of us to make a real, positive, even everlasting, difference in the lives of others, then it must be possible for us to do it. But how?

Today’s first reading gives a starting list of possibilities: “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and homeless; clothe the naked when your see them, and do not turn your back on your own.” I would like to focus on the last one: “do not turn your back on your own.”

Sometimes the devil tricks us. He distracts us from the opportunities to do good to those around us in our everyday lives by making us think of grand and dramatic projects. The problem with grand and dramatic ideas is that they rarely get beyond the stage of daydreams. The best way to build a cathedral is by laying one stone on top of another. In fact, that is the only way to build anything.

This week, let’s build our own spiritual cathedrals by being salt and light for the people closest to us: the people we live with in our own homes, the people we work with, the people next to us in school. In other words, let’s “not turn our back on our own.”

Treating these people with the same kindness that they deserve, because they are created in God’s image, just like us, is a simple way to carry out our life-mission which is the path to the happiness that each of us wants for ourselves and for those we love.

We can add light and flavor to the lives of those in our homes. Light and flavor to those here, the other members of this parish. Light and flavor to our neighborhoods. And all of that only requires paying attention to see the little things we can do to make a difference.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
January 30, 2011

When Saint Augustine was asked to name the three most important virtues, he gave an interesting answer: First, he said humility. Second, humility. Third, humility. Humility might be God’s favorite thing. He loves to find it in us.

Humility is the idea that unites the eight Beatitudes, which we just heard, and they summarize what Jesus teaches about how to live. If you look carefully, there is a common denominator: the person who is blessed is the person who is not thinking about himself all the time.

The poor in spirit and those who suffer persecution gracefully realize that they are not the center of the universe, God is.

The clean of heart realize that other people do not exist for the sake of their pleasure. The peacemaker is concerned about the needs and problems of others. The merciful is concerned about the suffering of others. The mournful is concerned about the damage his sins do to the Church, the world and to other people. The meek cares more about getting things done than getting credit for doing things. Those who hunger for righteousness realize that their lives have a higher purpose, that they are part of a bigger story.

Underneath the Beatitudes is this fundamental attitude that puts God and others ahead of self. It looks out at the world instead of staring in, stuck on self.

This is humility, the rock of basic human maturity. And God loves this humility because it opens the soul to receive His gifts. The arrogant soul is closed on itself. No one can get in, not even God who wants to deliver gifts. That is why the first reading shows God praising “the humble and the lowly” and encouraging us to “Seek the Lord…seek humility.”

Humility show itself most clearly in times of trouble. The humble person suffers, just like the arrogant person, but the humble person is strong enough to keep things in proper perspective especially in suffering. As a result, humility actually makes suffering fruitful.

Cardinal Faulhaber, one of the courageous leaders of the Church in Germany during the time of World War I, told of seeing humility in action. He was visiting a veteran’s hospital reserved for soldiers in all stages of blindness. Some could see light faintly while others could see nothing. As he walked quietly through the wards, he heard on young soldier praying:
Lord, I beg you not to take away the light of my eyes. But if it is your will that I should be deprived of that, leave me, at least, the light of my mind. But if it is your will that I
be deprived of that, leave me, at least, the light of my faith.

The Cardinal stopped and asked, “Son, where did you learn such a beautiful prayer? The soldier answered, “Your eminence, when I was a boy in Austria, I used to lead the old Cardinal of Vienna into the garden and stay with him there. He was 90 years old. I heard him say that prayer often. I have never forgotten it.

Humility had given that young soldier’s soul 20-20 spiritual vision and that vision was giving him strength in his suffering. Humility always gives strength in suffering because it reminds us that there is a bigger story going on and it helps us to keep first things first and to see what those first things

If the heart of humility is thinking more about God and others than about oneself, growing in humility means training ourselves to do that. It is a “virtue.” That means it is a “learned habit of doing good.” Learning the habit of humility is a life-long project.

Prayer is essential here by turning our attention towards God. Reading the Bible and learning of Jesus is essential since it gives us the perfect example of humility in Jesus. And there is no better prayer than that spent in church in silence in the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

And somehow being of service to others is essential since it takes the focus off of us. Some of our time and energy must be directed to the needs and concerns of other people.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time A
January 23, 2011

It is easy for us to have an idealistic view of past periods in the early life of the Church, as if difficulties and scandals were unique to our generation. But that view comes either from not knowing history or plain old wishful thinking. The history of the Church is a history of one crisis after another. From the time of the Ascension into Heaven until the day of the Second Coming, the Church is at war. There is a spiritual war, in which sin is the enemy and holiness and grace is the ally, and both are equally real. We don’t have to look far to see this.

We can even see it in the very first generation of Christians while the Apostles were still alive and hard at work. Most of the letters of Saint Paul, in fact, were attempts at crisis management, written in response to some crises of faith, morals or church discipline.

The passage we just heard from First Corinthians is a good example. Paul had started the community there on his second missionary journey. As usual, he spent months gathering and instructing believers, appointing local leaders- the first bishops and priests- to continue the work when he moved on to other places. But now he has received news that the community is becoming divided. Trouble has broken out among different cliques breaking up the family of Christians. And so Paul reminds them that all Christians are called to be united in Christ, the one Lord, and to build up their unity, never giving into rivalries, jealousies or backbiting. He writes that they must “be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
The lesson applies equally to us.

Today one of the common sources of division among Catholics is politics. In Saint Paul’s time, Christians didn’t live in democracies, so there was less room for political disagreements. But our experience is different and it creates the potential for divisions in the Christian family.

Every political issue is composed of two basic parts: a fundamental principle and an application of that principle. Catholics should all agree on the fundamental principles because the Church is constantly reminding us about which principles are in harmony with human nature and with the moral truths that God has revealed to us. For example, there is no room for discussion about whether abortion is good or bad. Abortion involves the direct killing of an innocent human life and that is always unjust. But when applying fundamental principles to specific situations, the Church has no special, revealed knowledge. God is not a dictator. He gives us an active role in organizing our lives and building up the society in which we live. So, when a political position has to do with judgments about how to apply a fundamental principle in a concrete situation, there is room for intelligent and healthy disagreement even among Catholics.

For example, every person has a right to a decent education to allow them to develop their human potential. That is a basic principle of justice. But when a government is deciding how to help make that happen, through financing public schools directly or through vouchers given to parents to let them choose schools, there is room for disagreement.

We need to keep all of this in mind in order to take care of the Church. It is the Church that brings Christ and His grace into the world. And so, we must never let our political differences create divisions in the body of the Church. Rather, we must be, as Saint Paul said, “of one mind and purpose” as regards fundamental principles and respectful and open-minded as regards applying those principles.

But let’s be honest, it is not easy to avoid destructive and angry criticism or passionate disagreements. We are fallen human beings, deeply affected by selfish tendencies. But Christ is also always at work with His grace. Through prayer and the sacraments, His grace penetrates our minds and hearts transforming us into mature and wise Christians.

But God’s grace does not do all the work for us. Being Christian is not like being a robot. Jesus gives light and strength but we have to put them into action. So when it comes to being agents of unity instead of division there are many practical things we can do to activate God’s grace. Here are two.

First, we can develop self-discipline in what we say. Words can be powerful weapons for good or evil. In today’s culture, as we have recently seen, lack of respect for words has become rampant. It is actually normal and acceptable to use words like knives to cut people off at the knees. But a Christian should use words like keys, to open hearts and minds, to encourage others, to build communion, to speak well of others or not speaking at all. Second, we can develop self-control in the area of our emotions. How many times have we regretted words spoken in anger, emails written in frustration and decisions made in the middle of passion? When waves of strong emotions break over us, even if they seem righteous, we should simply walk away from any important decisions, conversations or correspondence until we can think clearly.

As we continue to pray, let us ask Christ to heal any divisions that harm the body of the His Church. And let us promise to always try to be “united in mind and purpose” with Him and one another.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time A
January 16, 2011

Sometimes it is good for us to remember the basics of our faith. God created the human race to live in communion, in friendship with God. It is in Him alone that we find happiness. This is the fundamental purpose of life. It is the reason that nothing else in the world satisfies our deepest desires in any lasting way.

Not money, because it runs out. Not pleasure, because pleasure wears off. Not power, because power corrupts. Our hearts were made for more than all these things. They were made to love and be loved with an eternal love and that can only come from God.

But our first parents walked out on God and their children ever since were lost and subject to the power of the devil. If you doubt that children inherit the consequences of the choices their parents make even on a natural level, just think about it a bit.

If my great, great, great grandfather had won one of these enormous lotteries, $300 million, but then proceeded to lose it on gambling. My family would have no benefit whatsoever. But if he won and invested it carefully, giving some to each child, we might all be much better off. Think also, most of us are here today because our ancestors decided to leave their homelands at great personal risk and move to this country. We are the beneficiaries of that sacrifice. And this is only on a natural level that we are affected by the consequences of decisions of our parents. On a spiritual level the effect is internal.

We could not save ourselves, so Jesus came to rescue us. Since He was truly human and truly God, He was able to end the original rebellion against God and re-establish our communion with God. It makes sense the more we reflect on it.

There was once a boy who spent many hours building a model sailboat. When he put it in the river, however, it moved away from him quickly. He chased it along the bank but the strong wind and current carried the boat away. The boy was heartbroken since he knew how hard he would have to work to build another sailboat.

Down river, a man found the beautiful boat, took it to town and sold it to a toy store. Later, the boy was walking through town and noticed the boat in the store window. He explained the situation but the store owner didn’t believe him and said the only way to get the boat back was to buy it. The boy wanted the boat back so badly that did exactly that. Then the boy looked at the boats and said, “Little boat, now you are twice mine: I made you and I bought you.”

That’s what God did for us. We are twice His. He created us and brought us back when we were lost but instead of paying cash, He paid with His blood, the blood of the Lamb of God.

The self-sacrificing, self-forgetting love of Christ is so central to our faith that we are reminded of it every time we come to Mass when we pray, “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.”

When we receive Holy Communion, we are receiving the Lamb of God, sharing in the saving Lamb just as the Jewish people shared in the Passover Lamb. And when we receive the Lamb of God with a living faith, He gives us the strength to follow His example.

Every day of our lives we are presented with struggles and choices, big and little, that hold the possibility of helping us in salvation. By offering Himself on the cross, Jesus reconciled sinners to God. By offering ourselves on our own crosses, we can contribute to the same thing. When we offer our daily sufferings to God in prayer, they become channels of grace.

Most people in the world do not pray, don’t believe, don’t confess their sins and are continuing in the rebellion against God. We see evidence of that all around us. But we can be a bridge between them and God by offering up our sufferings through prayer, by becoming lambs with the Lamb of God.

Here is how Pope Benedict put it:

“There used to be a form of devotion…that included the idea of ‘offering up’ the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating ‘jabs’, thereby giving them meaning…Those who did so were convinced that they could insert these little annoyances into Christ’s great ‘com-passion’ so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves” (Spe salvi, 40).

Many who are old enough remember “The Morning Offering” by which we offered “prayers, works, joys and sufferings” of the whole day in union with Christ. It would still be a great way to begin the day.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Baptism of the Lord A
January 9, 2011

The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan shows true truths of Christianity, one which we think about a lot and the other which probably hardly ever think about.

The one we think about it that Jesus is the promised Savior, the Messiah, the Christ. He is the one described by Isaiah in the first reading, the one God sent to take away the sins of the world and to begin a new and eternal kingdom of justice and love. This is seen at His baptism by the coming of the Holy Spirit and God’s voice ringing out from Heaven.

The truth we think less about is the Trinity. We always pray in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We profess our belief every Sunday when we pray the creed in the true God who is one and three, one in divine nature and three in Persons. The Father is fully God; the Son is fully God; and the Holy Spirit is fully God. All Three are eternal, were not created and are divine, separate Persons but one God. Yet we don’t believe in three Gods but only One.

The Three are present at the Baptism. The Son is Jesus. The Holy Spirit descend on Jesus like a dove from Heaven. And the Father is the voice saying, “This is my beloved Son.” The reason we don’t think much about the Trinity is because it is difficult to understand. But now and then we should think about it since God revealed it for a reason.

The Trinity is hard for us to understand but it is reasonable. We are talking about the nature of God Himself. Our trying to understand God is like an infant trying to grasp nuclear physics completely or a monkey trying to play Mozart. In fact, the existence of the idea shows the truth since no human mind could have invented such an idea. Only God could have revealed it.

One day Saint Augustine, the great bishop from North Africa who lived in the 300’s, was walking along the beach contemplating the Trinity. He was frustrated because he could not understand it. As he walked he passed by a little boy who had dug a hole in the sand. The boy had a little clay cup, and he was walking back and forth between the ocean and the hole in the sand. He would fill the cup with water, then go and pour the water into the hole. After watching him do it about a dozen times, Saint Augustine said, “Child, what are you doing?” The boy answered, “I am putting the ocean into this hole in the sand.” Augustine laughed and said, “My Child, it is a foolish task. The ocean will never fit inside that hole.” The little boy looked right into his eyes and answered, “Neither will the Blessed Trinity be contained by your small human mind.”

If our idea of God did fit into our limited human mind, that wouldn’t be much of a God, would it?

It is still good for us to think about this mystery.

First, because it is true and God revealed it so we could know Him better. Toward the end of his life, Saint Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, used to think about the Trinity every day. Just the thought of it would throw him into spiritual ecstasy. It was all the nourishment his soul needed.

But we should also think about the Trinity because it has a direct effect on how we live. That is because human nature is created in the image and likeness of God, the Trinity. And it is from the Trinity that human persons get their dignity. Human dignity comes from the fact human nature is an image of divine nature. God loved us so much that He created us in His image. It is Original Sin that distorted that image and made us unsure how to live it. Jesus came to restore it.

The idea of human dignity, that every person has equal rights and deserves respect, decent opportunity and fair treatment, just because they are human, is an idea that developed out of Christian culture. This is because only Christianity sees God as personal, interpersonal and substantial love and understands human beings as created in that image. Jesus is God’s mercy in the flesh. He came to both reveal and to restore human dignity.

Today we can thank God for creation but especially for being created in love and in His image. And we can ask to recognize that same dignity in every person.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Epiphany
January 2, 2011

God is King; He comes to rule.

Herod trembled because he knew this. The wisemen rejoiced because they knew this.
Even before He can talk Jesus teaches us a precious truth about ourselves. In our hearts live two potential responses to the coming of such a King, that of Herod or that of the Magi.
Herod spent his life murdering and extorting and building a personal kingdom ruled by his whim and for his personal glory. Christ enters the scene, a King with authority from on high. Herod immediately senses the threat: if Christ is not destroyed, it could mean the end of all his work.

The Magi, on the other hand, far from fearing the demands that this new King might make on their lives, rejoice to know that God’s Savior has finally come. Instead of hoarding their treasures, they generously offer them to Christ as signs of honor and respect due to the One whose Kingdom will last forever.

Every time that Jesus enters our lives, and He does this every day in the voice of our conscience, the Scripture, the teachings of the Church, His hand in the direction of our lives, we must choose in whose steps we will follow, Herod’s or the Magi’s. Will we tremble, afraid of what Jesus may require of us, or will we rejoice, glad to have such a One to follow? We have two possibilities in our hearts. We hold the potential to be like Herod or like the Wisemen.

I found two quotes, one from Pope Benedict and from long before that from Saint Augustine.
First from Pope Benedict:

“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived or our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear (young) people: Do not be afraid of Christ!

And from Saint Augustine from the Tale of Two Cities:

“What we see, then, is that two societies have issued from two kinds of love. Worldly society has flowered from a selfish love which dared to despise even God, whereas the communion of saints is rooted in a love of God that is ready to trample on self. In a word, this latter relies on the Lord, whereas the other boasts that it can get along by itself. The city of men seeks the praise of men, whereas the height of glory for the other is to hear God in the witness of conscience.” (City of God XIV.28)

Why did Herod try to destroy Jesus while the Magi worshipped Him? The difference can be summed up in one word: humility. Herod lacked humility; the Magi had it.

We don’t know what happened to the Magi but we do know where Herod’s lack of humility landed him. He spent his life trying to keep everything under his control. He became a very suspicious man. He ended up murdering his own wife and three of his sons, because he thought they were plotting against him. In fact, his whole life was a series of horrible crimes. His tyrannical fear of losing control eventually made him hated by everyone, even those closest to him. As he was dying, he ordered a thousand of his best servants and ministers to be killed because he wanted to be sure there would be mourning and sadness in the kingdom on his death.

It is an extreme case but shows us the truth: we are not God. God is God. We are not meant to control everything; we are meant to humbly follow Christ, to trust Him, to kneel before Him, like the Wisemen, and say with our lives, “Thy will be done, not mine; thy kingdom come, not mine.” Only then will our lives be fulfilled as we want.

The first step to becoming more like the Wisemen and less like Herod is knowing ourselves. We have see the level of our selfishness. We have to face it honestly.

The Holy Spirit has given us a perfect thermometer to take our selfishness temperature. How do we react when our plans and hopes don’t work out? Herod wanted to rule without opposition. When the potential for opposition showed up, he blew up. He lashed out. The Wisemen were determined to follow he star to the newborn King and then it disappeared. Their plans were disrupted. Did they throw a tantrum. No, they stayed calm and looked for another solution. They perservered.

Today we should ask God for the grace to conquer what there is of Herod in our hearts and to strengthen the humility that is like the Wisemen.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
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Mary, Mother of God
January 1, 2011

Children take after their parents. We learn how to be human by the example of our parents. The same is true of the spiritual life.

In the second reading, Saint Paul reminds us that through God’s grace we have all become brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and, therefore, children of God. This happened at Baptism. At that moment we were born again supernaturally, you might say that God infused His divine DNA into our souls. The spiritual life, then, consists of the gradual spread and development of that DNA until each one of us becomes a mature, wise and fruitful follower of Jesus Christ.

Today’s feast of the Mother of God reminds us that, if we have become Christ’s spiritual brothers and sisters, we have also become spiritual children of Mary. She was His mother in the flesh and she is our mother in grace. And just as we learn from our natural mothers how to be good human beings, so we learn from Mary how to become mature Christians. She is the living school where we learn every virtue that leads to happiness and holiness.
In today’s Gospel, she teaches us the most important virtue of all: wisdom.

Saint Luke tell us how Mary responded to the wonderful things God was doing in and around her: “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Jesus as Mary was open to receiving God’s living Word within her at the moment of Christ’s conception, so her heart was constantly open to receiving God’s word and messages as He continued to speak in the event of her life.

This ability and habit of reflecting in our heart on God’s action in our lives is a sign and source of wisdom. We can never become mature, joyful followers of Christ unless we practice it. Our lives tend to be noisy, distracted and rushed, full of self-centered worries and self-absorbed preoccupations. At any moment of the day if we could see the inner chamber of our soul it would probably look like a very messy basement or a cluttered garage with all kinds of ideas, desires, regrets, hopes, thoughts strewn about like broken toys and old magazines.

But Mary’s inner chamber was different. She also had a busy life, after all there were no microwaves, washing machines, telephones and all the other time-saving things we have. And yet, she kept the inner room neat and ordered. As a result she was able to hear the gentle messages that God sent through the events of her life. She “kept all these things and reflected on them in her heart.”

Her heart was like the smooth surface of a very deep pond: clear and quiet. And when a stone was thrown in, she absorbed it with deep reflection and soon the ripples smoothed out and she was back to clarity and light. This was Mary’s interior life.

Mary knows that we tend to get distracted by life, by the things of this world, by things less important. She knows we need help learning how to reflect deeply on God’s action in our lives and so she has given us a tool. This tool for developing the interior life has a 100% success rate. Everyone who has used this tool has become closer to God and grown in wisdom, courage and joy. It has been used by people unable to read and by queens, by popes, mothers, sailors and soldiers. It’s called the rosary.

The rosary is the key letting us into the heart of Mary. It can let the light of Christ shine on the dark corners of our minds and hearts.

If you keep the custom of making a resolution for the New Year, deciding to pray the rosary would be one small step toward wisdom and peace.

The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied.

Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania

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