Fr. Bryan Howard
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 28 October 2018 There was a very intelligent young man who grow up in a home with a Catholic mother and a non-Catholic father. His mother was very religious, but his father wasn’t very religious at all. During his teenage years, he began to think of Catholicism as childish and silly. He slowly began to drift away from the Church. When he went to college, to study law, he fully left the Church. He eventually got his girlfriend pregnant and had her move in with him. He basically, according to his own words, lived for the pleasures of life. Does that story sound familiar to you? I’m talking about a specific person, but I bet almost everyone here knows someone like that. It may be a very modern story, but it actually happened 1600 years ago. I’m talking about St. Augustine of Hippo, priest, bishop, and Doctor of the Church. St. Augustine was never satisfied with his life. The pursuit of pleasure didn’t give any lasting satisfaction and neither did his intellectual pursuits. He went from one philosophy and religion to another, searching for the truth. Then one day while he was sitting in a garden reflecting he heard the words, “Take, read.” He saw that there was a copy of the Bible next to him and he picked it up and started to read. Through prayer and study and with the help of his mother, St. Monica, and the local bishop, St. Ambrose of Milan, he came back to the faith of his childhood and was eventually ordained as a priest and latter a bishop. He knew that there was something wrong, something missing, and he never stopped searching for it. Eventually, his search lead him back to God. Our Gospel today follows a similar pattern. Bartimaeus the blind man was sitting on the side of the road begging, when he heard a commotion. Someone told him that it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by, so Bartimaeus began to call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on my.” He had obstacles in his way, too. The people around tried to shut him up and stop him from bothering Jesus, but he didn’t let it stop him. He knew that He needed help, and he knew that Jesus could help him, so he kept calling to Jesus even louder. Jesus heard him and called him over and asked what he wanted. He didn’t beat around the bush but he got right to the point, “Master, I want to see.” And Jesus replied, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” This is a true story with a spiritual lesson. Bartimaeus knows what he needs, his sight restored. He knows where he can get it, from Jesus, and he keeps going no matter what gets in his way. Jesus says that his faith has saved him, but he needs faith to get it. Compare Bartimaeus to another man Jesus helped at the pool of Siloam. He was crippled, and had been coming to that pool for 38 years hoping to be healed. Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed, but he makes excuses. He doesn’t even say yes. Then, later, he hands Jesus over to the Pharisees. Bartimaeus needed faith to see that only Jesus could help him. We have disabilities, too, spiritual disabilities. Sin is a type of blindness. It blinds us to what is happening in our own soul and we don’t want to admit that we have a problem. The pleasures of this world can never fully satisfy us. The only thing that we seek for its own sake is happiness. Whether it’s eating good food, watching a movie, seeking political office, trying to become famous, or playing the lottery, everything you do is for something else. You play the lottery to get money, which you use to buy a new boat, which you use to go fishing, which makes you happy. You can do the same thing with every decision. We may not always be right that something will make us happy, but that’s what we ultimately want. The problem with sin is that it only makes us happy in the short term and makes us miserable in the long term. Even good things only make us happy temporarily. You’ll eventually finish that meal and get hungry again, and that movie will end, and that boat will need repairs. Only God can make us truly happy for all eternity, because he made us to be in a relationship with Himself. There is a God-shaped hole in our hearts, and only God can fit in it. So, never stop seeking God. Don’t let any obstacle stop you, and know that God will never put anything in your path that you can’t get through with His help. St. Augustine wrote the first autobiography, and I’ll finish with his own words about his search for God. In The Confessions, he wrote, “Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you! Behold, you were within me, while I was outside: it was there that I sought you, and, a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. You were with me, but I was not with you…You have called to me, and have cried out, and have shattered my deafness. You have blazed forth with light, and have shone upon me, and you have put my blindness to flight!”
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Fr. Bryan Howard
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 7 October 2018 I may have told you this story before, but it’s worth telling again. In 1947 the Fort Lauderdale Hurricane, also called the Hurricane of 1947, struck the coast of Florida as a category 4, killing 17 people. It passed over Florida into the Gulf and made a bee line for New Orleans. It passed right over the Business District downtown as a strong category 2, killing 34 people along the Gulf Coast. As the eye passed over the city, a young man named Bob Peyton left his house and walked, through the flood waters, to the other side of the city to check on a girl he liked, Jeannette Hudson. When her father answered the door he took one look at Bob and turned back, calling, “Jeannette, that Peyton boy is here, he’s either insane or he’s in love.” They would get married about 3 years later and eventually have 5 children, including my mom. People sometimes ask me how I knew I was called to be a priest. If they’re married it’s easy to answer; I just ask them how they knew their spouse was the one for them. It’s something that’s hard to explain, isn’t it? But you know, just the same. Both the priesthood and marriage are vocations. The word “vocation” comes from the Latin word vocare which literally means “to call,” as in to call someone from the other room or call someone on the phone. They’re called the sacraments of service. You see, all the other sacraments give you grace so you can grow in holiness: baptism makes you a Christian, confirmation stirs up the grace of the Holy Spirit in your soul, confession forgives your sins, Communion unites you to the Body of Christ, and anointing of the sick brings healing to your soul. The Sacraments of Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony give you a grace to help you serve someone else. In Holy Orders, deacons, priests, and bishops are called to serve God and His Church, and in Holy Matrimony, and man and woman are called to serve one another. Christ won the grace of the sacraments for us on the Cross by pouring out His life for us. Married people are called, in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, to live out the love that Christ gave us through His Cross and Resurrection: a love that is complete and unconditional, that is freely given as a gift, and that is fruitful, bringing about new life. When Jesus talks about marriage in the Bible, He points us back to the book of Genesis, to the creation of Eve and the marriage of Adam and Eve. That passage recounts how Eve was created when God cast Adam into a deep sleep, took a rib from his side, and formed the rib into Eve. This says something about the type of relationship that Adam and Eve are supposed to have. What does the rib cage do? It protects the heart and lungs. The ancient Hebrews thought of the heart not as the center of passion, like we do, but as the source of life, so Eve’s job is to guard Adam’s life, and Adam’s job is to give of his own flesh and blood, his own life, for his wife Eve. That is God’s original plan for marriage. Unfortunately, sin enters the story to tear apart the relationships between Adam and Eve and God, but Jesus points us back there to understand what the purpose of marriage is. In a natural sense, the purpose of marriage is to have and raise children. We’re not like ants who can start working as soon as we’re born; we need love and care to grow in maturity, and the best way for children to get that is with the father and mother. But Jesus raised marriage from natural to supernatural when he made it a sacrament. Spiritually, the reason for marriage is for husband and wife to reflect the love of God in the world by the love they share with one another, and thus help one another to get to heaven. To put it simply, your job, as a husband or wife, is to get your spouse to heaven. This is why praying together as a family and coming to Mass together as a family are so important and so powerful. It shows your family, and especially your children, that spending time with God each Sunday is important and is worth making sacrifices for. If the love of God is unconditional, then husbands and wives shouldn’t put conditions on their love for one another. I know that’s not realistic in our fallen world, but that why the second and third most important phrases a husband and wife can learn, after “I love you,” are “I’m sorry,” and “I forgive you.” If the love of God is faithful and never abandons us, then husbands and wives are called to fidelity. They promise to be faithful to one another in their vows when the promise to be true to one another “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.” If the love of God is fruitful, then husbands and wives are called to be fruitful, not only in having children, but in raising them in the faith and in being a witness in the world to the love of God. The one thing that gives me the most joy and encouragement in my priesthood is seeing families who are really trying to live out the love of God. Being generous with your spouse and children is the best way to show the generosity and fruitfulness of God. Today is Respect Life Sunday, where we focus on the dignity of all human life. I’m convinced that the best way to increase the respect for life in our countries is through strong, healthy, holy families. So, as you pray for an increase in respect for life this month, also pray for holy families.
Fr. Bryan Howard
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 30 September 2018 Today is the memorial of Saints Victor and Urban. Victor and Urban were Roman legionaries. A Roman Legion was a Roman army consisting of 6,600 soldiers. This particular legion was recruited from Egypt, every member was Christian, ad every member is today considered a saint, even though we only know the names of 17 of them. They are called the Theban Legion. Around the year 287 AD, Emperor Maximian lead an army, including the Theban Legion, to suppress a rebellion in modern day France. Part of the preparation for battle was to offer sacrifices to the gods asking for victory, but the Theban Legion refused. The Emperor ordered all of them to be executed. These 6,600 legionaries, including Saints Victor and Urban, gave an example of faith, hope, and love that is still speaking to us today. Giving an example is important because it is the highest form of teaching. You can try to teach someone the highest and most revered principles and values but if you don’t strive to live them, then your words don’t mean anything, because your very live is speaking a different message. Of course, we all consider martyrdom to be the highest example you can give, because it means that you consider this thing to be more valuable than even your own life. For a Catholic, a martyr is someone who shows that they are ready to accept death out of love for God and who is killed out of hatred for the faith. This is what the members of the Theban Legion did. We also talk about White Martyrdom. If dying for the faith is the definition of red martyrdom, then white martyrdom means to live the faith in a heroic way in love of God and neighbor. Think of saints like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St. Padre Pio, and St. Louis IX, King of France. They didn’t die for the faith, but they certainly lived it heroically. If giving an example is so important, then we should pay close attention to Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I way to you, will surely not lose his reward. Whoever causes one of these little one who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to go into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” I’ve quotes this section at length to emphasize the words of Jesus. When we use the words scandal we’re usually talking about some celebrity who did something outrageous and ended up on the cover of some tabloid. When the Church talks about scandal, we mean doing something that gives a negative example, and therefore leading someone else into sin. Jesus doesn’t mean that you should literally cut off your hands and feet and pluck out your eyes. In fact, the Church considers self-mutilation to be a serious sin. No, Jesus means that you should cut out of your life anything that leads you away from love. Love of God and neighbor is the highest law, therefore, sin is anything that’s against love. The highest act of love is to give your life, as Jesus Himself said, “Greater love than this has no man, to lay down your life for your friend.” That’s just what Jesus Himself did on the Cross. He didn’t have to die; He’s God. He chose to allow Himself to be killed to give us an example, a witness of the love of God, and to show us that God loves us so much that He came down to be with us and even to give His life for us. Sts. Victor and Urban and their companions gave an example of love in willingly giving their lives for God. Soldiers, first responders, and many other people give us an example of love by putting themselves in harm’s way for other people. They don’t do it because they want to die, but because they love. You may never get the opportunity to lay down your life for love of God or neighbor, but you have an opportunity every day every day to show God’s love in the way you treat the people around you. When you come up to receive the Eucharist remember that the Eucharist is the memorial of the Cross. In it are all of the graces that Christ won for us on the Cross, and those are the graces that God greatly desires to pour out into your soul. Ask God for the strength to give a good and holy example, not for your own glory or so your name is remembered hundreds of years from now, but for the greater glory of God and out of love for Him and for all of His children, both those here on earth and those already in heaven. St. Victor, pray for us. St. Urban, pray for us. All you holy men and women, pray for us.
Fr. Bryan Howard
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 23 September 2018 Probably one of the most common prayers that people have is for peace on earth. All right thinking people desire peace, right? We don’t want to fight and argue and kill; we just want to get on with our lives. You see this even when you study military history. One of the great secrets of war is that most people can’t bring themselves to intentionally try to kill another person. In 1947, following World War II, the US military did a study and interviewed thousands of soldiers. They found that only about ¼ of front line soldiers even fired at the enemy and only about 2% aimed to intentionally kill. The rest, the other ¾ would fire over the enemy, or into the ground, or off to the side. Most soldiers just wanted the enemy to go away, a firing a gun in someone’s general direction is a very good way to encourage someone to go away. Similarly, 1% of fighter pilots account for about 50% of fighter kills, and the other 99% account for the other 50%. There are many firsthand accounts from throughout history of soldiers, perhaps on patrol, coming across a group of enemies, and the two groups shout insults at each other and maybe put down their weapons and throw sticks and rocks at each other until one group or the other goes away. The instinct for peace is a very strong human instinct. So, why is there so much war and violence in the world? St. James explains, in his epistle, that wars come from our misplaced passions. He writes, “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?” It takes a very strong force to overcome our desire for peace, a force like anger, jealousy, greed, lust for power, or some other very strong passion. St. James tells us that these passions, when they are misplaced or disordered, can lead to conflict and war. He continues, “You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war.” Entire wars are fought over these reasons. Most wars start over competition for resources, land, and power. Again, World War II is a good example. Part of the reason for the war was Hitler’s lust for power, but that wasn’t all of it. He had to convince most of Germany to go to war. He did that by stoking their anger from the aftermath of World War I, their jealousy, especially at the Jews, and their desire for more land and resources for Germany. He called it lebensraum, or growing space. The same forces that are behind most of the wars in human history are inside each one of us. Most of the conflicts, the arguments and fights, in our lives are caused by disordered passions. Think about some of the arguments and fights that you’ve been in, with your spouse or other family members or friends or ever strangers. How many of those can be traced back to anger, jealousy, or greed. One person wants something and they perceive the other person to be an obstacle to getting it. It can be as simple as a man coming home from work after a long day and all he wants is to sit down and relax and decompress, but maybe his wife’s been home alone all day and she really feels like she needs to talk. He gets annoyed that she’s won’t leave him alone, she gets annoyed that he isn’t listening, and pretty soon they’re fighting. Here’s another scenario else that’s all too common. Someone in the family dies and it comes time to divide their stuff. How many times have arguments over inheritances divided families for years, and sometimes they never reconcile. Most of the time, if you talk with the two sides latter neither will think it was worth it, but they let the emotions of the moment get away from them. We know that complete and lasting peace will only come when we’re in heaven. Our job now is to seek peace and strive to minimize conflict and violence in the world, starting with ourselves and in our own hearts and souls. Pray for peace, but also work for peace. In today’s Gospel we hear that the apostles were arguing about which one of them was the greatest. Jesus tells them, “’If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and the servant of all.’ Taking a child, he placed it in their midst, and putting his arms around it, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, received not me but the One who sent me.’” Jesus calls us to give and not to take, to serve and not to desire to be served, to strive for innocence, not influence and power. No matter what you do, whether you’re a CEO of a company, a manager, an office worker, a factory worker, a farmer, a fisherman, a housewife, or a member of the clergy, Jesus is calling you to use that position and any authority you have to serve, and to serve especially those who are most in need. That is how we promote peace in the world, and that is how we live in the peace of Christ.
Fr. Bryan Howard
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 2 September 2018 Throughout the Bible sin is compared with a disease, most often the disease of leprosy, and there are a lot of parallels between what diseases do to our bodies and what sin does to our soul, and about the strongest comparison I can make is with cancer. Cancer can take many forms, some that are easily treated and some that are deadly. Our chances of getting cancer can be increased by the way we live and the things are us. If we live in an unhealthy way or spend a lot of time around things like asbestos, then we have a much higher risk of getting cancer. Ultimately, though, cancer comes from inside us, from our cells mutating out of control. Similarly, our chance of falling into sin can be increased by surrounding ourselves with bad influences, but it comes from within, from our own free choice to do something that we know is wrong. That’s also where the main difference is. It’s impossible to sin on accident; it always starts with making a choice to pursue the bad instead of the good, wrong instead of right. As Jesus says in the Gospel, “From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” When you get cancer, it doesn’t always make you sick immediately; it’ll start to spread from one tissue to another and one organ to another. Then, you’ll start to get weaker, to get sick, to feel the effects of the cancer, and if you don’t catch it early enough, it’s too late. Sin is often the same way. It pretends to be something good and to give us something good, like influence, power, wealth, or simply pleasure. That’s how it spreads, slowly taking over, unless we’re fighting against it. Then, we start to notice the effects. It starts in the will, as we find it harder and harder to control our choices and our desires. Then it affects our minds, our ability to reason, making it easier to make excuses for actions. Finally, we see the sin is not just broken rules, but broken lives and broken relationships, as sin will eventually damage or break our relationships with the people around us, with our family and friends, and with God. Once you know that you have cancer, you have to treat it. First, you have to find out how far it’s spread, and once you know that, you can remove all of the infected tissue, either through radiation therapy or through surgery. If we want to be rid of our sins the first thing is to be honest with ourselves and admit the extent of the problem. This is what confession is for. People always ask, “Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest? Why can’t I just confess directly to God?” One reason is because, it usually doesn’t work. The Sacrament of Confession is given to us by God for the forgiveness of sins and it has the power not only to forgive our sins, but to strengthen us against them and begin to bring healing to our wounded souls. With cancer, the treatment isn’t finished until all of the cancer is gone, and even then, you have to keep track of it for the rest of your life to make sure it doesn’t come back. Well, we’ll never be completely rid of sin in this life. It’s a constant battle against it, but we can make progress and push it back, but only if we truly desire to be free of it. Finally, as the saying goes, “ An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” With our physical health, there are certain things we do to combat a specific disease, and other things we do to just generally stay healthy. For example, you don’t need to take antibiotics unless you have an infection, but you always need to eat healthy and stay physically active. The same thing is true in the spiritual life. To stay spiritually healthy, that is to strengthen our relationship with God, we need to go to Mass and confession regularly, pray and fast, do spiritual reading (especially the Bible), and practice charity, as St. Paul says in our second reading, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Doing these things will give you a healthy spiritual life, keep you close to Jesus, and help you to avoid sin. For most things, we accept that there’s a right and wrong way to go about things. There are only a few right ways to paint a house, but there are a lot of wrong ways, and if you take short cuts in preparing the wall, then you’ll get an inferior product. There are only a few right ways to swing a golf club, but there are a lot of wrong ways, and you know immediately which one you’ve done. For some reason we find it hard to accept that the spiritual life is the same way. Living by these principles, given to us by Jesus, worked out by the Sacred Tradition, and seen in the lives of the saints, gives us a trajectory that will get us to heaven. If you veer off course you may not see the results right away, it may look like everything is going just fine. It’s like the time my uncle was cooking some okra and he wanted to get rid of the slime, but he used baking soda instead of vinegar. You’ll eventually figure out that you made a mistake somewhere, and hopefully it’s not too late to save the okra. In case you couldn’t guess, the okra was ruined. I’m posting links for two different files this week. During all of the Masses this week, after my homily, I addressed the clerical sex abuse scandal and the recent news stories about it. Since some people might want to listen only to one or the other, I’ll post my homily first, titled “August_19_2018,” and the message second, titled “Message_on_Clerical_Abuse.”
Today the Lord invites us to realize the importance of the virtue of gratitude and to ask ourselves if we are truly grateful for the gifts that we have received. Gratitude is so important in life. It comes from humility, because we have to realize that we didn’t earn any of the best things in our lives, our existence, our families, and our rights and freedom. But today God is calling on us to recognize an even greater gift, our salvation, the gift of the Son of God Himself and the grace He won for us on the Cross.
Our first reading happens just after the Exodus. The Israelites have spent hundreds of years in slavery in Egypt, forced to work at hard labor, whipped or killed if they won’t work, and their children killed. God hears their prayers and sends Moses to free them. Just days after they’re freed and escape Pharaoh, they begin to complain that they don’t have enough food and water, saying, “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!” Instead of going to Moses to ask what the plan is, or praying to God to send them enough food, they immediately start to complain and say that they were better off in Egypt, where they were slaves! So, God gives them the manna, bread that came down from heaven. The gospel today follows last week’s Gospel, which recounted the multiplication of the loaves and fish, when Jesus fed over 5000 people with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish. This happened on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and during the night Jesus and the disciples crossed over to the other side, but the crowd see that Jesus has left and many of them get into boats and cross over to the other side as well. Jesus says to them, “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” Jesus is trying to explain to them that He has better things to give them. He’s trying to teach them about the ways of God, to share God’s love with them, and, ultimately, to give them His own life. He’s talking about spiritual realities, but they’re not quite ready to believe yet. They ask Jesus to perform a sign for them, saying, “Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from to eat,” and Jesus responds, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” This is the Eucharist. Do you know what the word Eucharist means? It’s actually a Greek word, Eukharistia, meaning thanksgiving or gratitude. As the priest takes the bread and wine that were brought up for the Mass, he lifts them up slightly and prays, in a whisper, showing that this prayer is for God, “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.” Then, the priest are deacon prepares the chalice by pouring a little water into the wine, and prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” Then the priest lifts the chalice and prays over it, “Blessed are you, God of all creation, for though your goodness we have received the wine we offer you: fruit of the vine and work of human hands, it will become our spiritual drink.” The Eucharist is thanksgiving because in it we thank God for the gift of His Son, who nourishes us with His flesh. We thank God also for the gift of our relationship with God and all of the graces He’s given us, and we thank God for teaching us how to worship Him, which we do, more than any other time, in the Mass. So what is our response, in gratitude, to this great gift of the Eucharist that God has given us. It’s only ourselves. God doesn’t ask the impossible, and He doesn’t ask us to give anything that we don’t have. Just like Jesus gave Himself to us in love and compassion, we God wants us to give ourselves to Him in love and gratitude. We give ourselves to Him by following His commands, by showing Him respect, and by putting Him first. We give ourselves to God in our prayers and in the Mass. We also give ourselves to God in the love we show our neighbors, especially those who are most in need.
Fr. Bryan Howard
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 8 July 2018 I was born November 14, 1983, at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. At Charity, they didn’t let anyone go into the delivery room, so my family, including my dad and grandparents, were waiting in the waiting room. Eventually, the doctor came in to announce that I was born, and that I’m a boy. Apparently, my dad said that he was so excited that he could scream. My Maw Maw told him that he couldn’t scream in a hospital but, if he really wanted to scream, he could stick his head out the window, and that’s what he did. He stuck his head out of the window and screamed something unintelligible. I remember another time, just a few years ago, sitting in a waiting room in Flagstaff, AZ, waiting for news about my second Nephew, Cameron. His dad, Jeff, was allowed in the delivery room because he’s a nurse, but my mom and I were in the waiting room with my oldest nephew, Caleb, who was 5 at the time. Later that day I would get to hold Cameron for the first time, to see Caleb hold his little brother, under the watchful eyes of their father. Life in any form is beautiful, but there’s something especially precious about a newborn. Today, I want to speak about abortion. It’s well known that the Church is against abortion, and there are many reasons why it is, but it all comes down to the precious gift of life. Life is a gift from God. First of all, God created everything there is, so nothing would exist at all without Him. But more than that, God created each one of our souls individually. At the moment when you were conceived, God directly created your soul, thus giving you not only physical life but also spiritual life, and he’s done the same for every person who’s ever existed, or will exist in the future. Abortion advocates try to use many different arguments for why abortion should be allowed, but it usually comes back to denying that it’s really murder. The definition of murder is deliberately taking the life of an innocent human being. They’ll say that the unborn babies aren’t really alive, or that they’re not really human yet, or, worst of all, that they’re not really innocent, that they’re invaders in their mother’s womb. If life doesn’t begin at conception, then when does it begin, at birth? Does the location of the baby either inside of the womb or outside of it make that much of a difference? Does my location change the nature of what I am? If I leave this building and walk into another one does that change the fact that I’m alive or that I’m human? Or the claim that an unborn baby isn’t human? Well, what is it then? The unborn baby, even as a single-celled zygote, has human DNA and will develop, if allowed to, into an adult human being. Finally, it all comes down to whether the baby is wanted or not. But that’s not really true either, is it? Many women who have abortions, especially young women and teenagers, want to keep their baby but feel like they don’t have any choice, either because they’re being pressured into having an abortion, or because they’re convinced that they’re life will be ruined if they do give birth, or because they just don’t know what to do. Abortion advocates say they want abortions to be available, safe, and rare, but abortions are anything but safe. In a successful abortion, there’s always at least one life lost, and a lot of times the mother suffers as well. There are the physical effects of the abortion on the mother, the pain, sometimes the loss of the ability to get pregnant again, and, admittedly rarely, the mother dies from complications or botched abortions. There are also the psychological effects. In 2011, Psychology Today reported that women who have an abortion are 81% more likely to develop mental health problems. Some of the problems they are at high risk for are anxiety, depression, and suicide compared to women who haven’t had an abortion. If you’re in this position, I urge you to seek healing. Come talk to me or another priest, call the Women’s New Life Center, or reach out to a friend; you aren’t alone, and you don’t have to bear this burden alone. God loves you, and wants to help you find healing. If you’re wondering what you can do, we have an unprecedented opportunity right now. Recently, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court. In the 1992 case on abortion, he had switched his vote at the last minute, thus keeping abortion legal. If the Supreme Court Justice who replaces him is pro-life, then we may be able to end legalized abortion in this country. So, the first thing we need to do is pray and fast for an end to abortion. Not this Wednesday, but next Wednesday we have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament form 8:30 am to 7:00 pm. Please make a point to stop by the Church and offer prayers for that goal. On the last weekend of this month, the Knights of Columbus will lead a pro-life rosary before each Mass. Finally, you may want to write you our Senators to encourage them to support a pro-life nominee to the Supreme Court. There have been over 60 million abortions in the US since it was legalized in 1973, and there are thousands of abortions every day in the US. May we always remember that we are all God’s children, we are all made in His image and likeness, and every life is precious.
Fr. Bryan Howard
The Nativity of St. John the Baptist – 24 June 2018 This is only the second time in my priesthood that this feast day has fallen on a Sunday; the last time was in 2012. The Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist celebrates the birth of the man who was called to help prepare the way for the public ministry of Jesus. What we want to look at today is how we can prepare the way for Jesus in our own lives. Do we take the time to listen to God? St. John’s father, Zechariah, was a Jewish priest. The priests would take turns serving at the Temple and when their rotation was done they’d go back home. During his groups rotation, Zechariah was in the Holy Place putting incense into the incense bowl when an angel appeared to him, the Archangel Gabriel. St. Gabriel told him that his wife, Elizabeth, would become pregnant, even though she was past her childbearing years, and that the child would be filled with the Spirit of the Lord. It was clear that John was special, even before he was born. When Gabriel the Archangel came to Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of the Messiah, he also told her that Elizabeth, her cousin, was pregnant. So Mary went to visit Elizabeth. When she went in, John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb, because he recognized that Jesus was there, even though He was still in Mary’s womb. If we want to prepare ourselves and the people around us to receive the Lord, the first thing we have to do is recognize that He is with us. We know that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, in the words of the Bible, and in the Church, but do we see that Jesus is present in our own souls? At Baptism we receive the indwelling of the Trinity, which means that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, comes to live in us, and God is even present in non-Christians, because He created them. It’s so easy to forget that God is right here, with us, all the time, but we can learn how to be more aware of God from St. John the Baptist. John needed to prepare that people of Israel for the Messiah, but how did he do it? Did he go to the Temple, where all of the Jewish people go at least twice a year? No. Did he go around to all of the cities and towns, like Jesus Himself did? No. He went out into the desert. He wore animal skins for clothes and eat locusts and wild honey. If we could ask John one thing, it would probably be, “Why?” Sometimes you need to get away from all of the distractions of daily life in order to be able to hear what God is trying to tell you. The people went out to see John because they knew that he spoke the word of God, and out there, in the desert, it might have been just a little bit easier to listen. Between tv, radio, the internet, cell phones and smart phones, and social media. Think about this. There’s nowhere that you’re out of reach. Before the telephone became common, once you left work, if you’re boss needed you back before your next shift, he would actually have to send a person to get you. But it’s not just that we’re never out of touch, it’s that we’re constantly being bombarded with information, with advertisements, and with entertainment. Sometimes we find it difficult to just sit and be silent, without talking or thinking or doing anything. I’ve blamed this on technology, but that’s not really true. Over 150 years ago a philosopher named Kierkegaard said, “If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.” The world has gotten a lot noisier since the 1800s, and it’s gotten that much more difficult to hear the people around us, but we’re also very good at ignoring the things we don’t want to hear. We have to be good at it or we’d probably go craze. The problem is when we ignore the really important things. Have you ever been driving somewhere and realize that you don’t really remember the last few minutes? You were just driving by memory and not fully paying attention to the road. That’s a scary feeling. Sometimes, we do that with life. We just do things by memory, not really paying attention, but just doing what we’ve always done. We need to shake ourselves out of our routine to really appreciate what’s going on in our lives. I want to invite all of you this week to silence. Go sit on the front porch with a glass of ice tea, or go for a walk, or visit the adoration chapel at Prompt Succor, push everything out of your head, work, school, family and friends, your to-do list, give all of that to God to take care of for 15 minutes, and just sit with God in the silence. Ask God what He wants to tell you, and just listen. God is always talking to us, but usually we’re too busy to listen. If we just stop every once in a while it might help us to hear what He’s saying the rest of the time.
Fr. Bryan Howard
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B – 17 June 2018 Today’s readings teach us that appearances can be deceiving, and that the Lord can take something that seems to be small and insignificant and make something great come out of it. We are that small and insignificant thing, and the Lord wants to make something great happen within us, but He can only do it if we cooperate with His work. If we are full of ourselves, then we won’t have any room left over for the Lord, so we must empty ourselves and ask God to fill us back up. In the first reading, the Prophet Ezekiel is talking about the Kingdom of Israel. At the time He’s speaking, the 10 Northern tribes had been conquered by the Assyrian Empire, the people taken into exile and scattered, and foreigners settled on their land. Now, the two tribes that are left have been attacked and defeated by the Babylonian Empire and are on the brink of defeat. Ezekiel says that right now, they are like a little branch that’s been torn off from the tree, but the Lord will plant that branch and make a large Cedar grow from it, thus restoring the Kingdom. He says, “And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the LORD, bring low the high tree, lift high the lowly tree, wither up the green tree, and make the withered tree bloom.” In the Gospel Jesus uses something even smaller, a seed, a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all the seeds. The mustard seed grows into a great plant and all the birds of the air find shelter in its branches. The seed represents the Church, which started out small and insignificant, just 11 apostles, Mary, and maybe a few others. They had no money, no power, and no important people, as the world counts it, but God made the Church grow, underground, as it were, and today it’s the largest religion in the world and all peoples are welcomed under her roof. In many places the Church still seems weak and insignificant, like the Middle East, China, Vietnam, and many other places where Christians are persecuted. Remember, there have been many times throughout history when the Church seemed on the brink of defeat from tyrants like Nero, Diocletian, and Emperor Henry V, and the various Muslim invasions of Europe. Those tyrants and their regimes are now nothing more than footnotes to history, but the Church is still here, not because the leaders of the Church were so wise and good, but thanks to the grace of God. The idea of the little seed that becomes the great plant might remind you of something else that Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jesus is the seed. Jesus was born as the son of a poor carpenter, who couldn’t even get a room at the inn, not the son of a wealthy nobleman. He lived His life in obscurity before starting His public ministry. He didn’t seek fame, in fact He told people not to tell anyone about the miracles He performed. He didn’t try to overthrow the government, but He allowed Himself to be crucified with common criminals. He emptied Himself and was planted, or buried, in the ground, but He rose again on the third day in glory. He showed us that we must also empty ourselves by making ourselves small and humble, then one day we too will arise in glory, the glory that only God can give. If we try to take it for ourselves, then we will lose it forever, but if we follow Him, and take up our crosses, then He will bring us into the Kingdom of Heaven. I recently read something that illustrates my point. This story was recorded by St. Justin Martyr, who was born about the year 100 A.D. and lived just 20 miles or so from Nazareth. He knew the descendants of people who knew Jesus before He started His public ministry. The story was passed down that Jesus was a carpenter and He specialized in making yokes for Oxen. For a poor farmer, an ox might be the most expensive thing they own, like a piece of heavy farm equipment today. If the yoke wasn’t fit just right then it would rub on the ox’s shoulders and create sores, which might get infected and kill the ox. Jesus had the reputation of being the best with animal collars and yokes, and people would come from all over the region of Galilee to have their animals fitted for collars by Jesus. This is how we empty ourselves. In whatever you happen to be doing, in how you treat your family, how you treat strangers, how you do your job, how you pray, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, do it to the best of your ability, do it with love and compassion, and do it so that it makes a worthy offering to the Lord. |
AuthorFr. Bryan was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes from July 3, 2017 to June 2022. Categories
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