Homilies - Fr. Joe
God Loves Us First
One of the best Catholic novels written in English is Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. It follows the character Charles Ryder in 1920 England who befriends a Sebastian Flyte and his family. The story goes for twenty years following the characters of Sebastian’s family—his father who left the family and lived in Italy, his mother dealing with that loss, Sebastian himself dealing with his own alcoholism. Really it follows the life of a rather dysfunctional family and ends twenty years later when Charles is an officer fighting in the Second World War. He returns to that mansion and after all this drama plays out, he walks in the abandoned house into the private chapel and notices the sanctuary lamp still lit. The story of Brideshead Revisited is really a story about divine grace—silent, consistent, attached to us like the sanctuary lamp is in every Catholic Church around the world. More...
The Last Stump of Faith
Elisabeth Leseur was born into a well-to-do Catholic French family in 1866. She married a Catholic French doctor in 1887. But before she married him she found out that he had fallen out of the practice of the faith. Soon after marriage the falling out of faith developed into animosity towards the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church. Dr. Felix Leseur eventually became highly anti-clerical, anti-Church and joined an atheistic group. He began to write against the Catholic Church of the time. Although he told Elisabeth that he would respect her religious beliefs and convictions, pretty soon he started to ridicule her faith, her prayer, her God. More...
How God Knows Us
I have a question for you young Catholics: Who in this Church knows you the best? And why would your parents know you the best? Yes, because you’re their children. OK, what do they know about you? They know everything about you because how long have they known you? So that’s a pretty long time. They know everything about you both good and bad and you’re still here so that means they haven’t kicked you out yet. They love you a lot. They love you even though they know that maybe that there isn’t some great parts of you. Their knowledge of you is not just up here (in their head) it’s in here (in their heart). More...
Proof of the Divinity of Christ
The great 19th century novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, posed a very provocative and disturbing question: “Can a cultured man, a European of our day, believe, really believe in the divinity of Christ, the Son of God?” Perhaps we can extend that to the 21st century and ask the same question: Can the scientific man, the technological man, a modern man, an American of the 21st century believe, really believe in the divinity of Christ, the Son of God?More...
In Touch with the Body of Christ
Hopefully none of you have ever had the experience of having your fingers accidently sliced off. I have a friend who that happened to her and she was told that the finger can last about twelve hours in regular temperature. In fact, actually, if you put it in ice it could last three days before it becomes non-viable and cannot be reattached to your hand. How long can we last apart from the Body of Christ? More...
How Young Are You?
I’m very used to being young, I’m the youngest of my family, there’s always been someone older than me. So whenever my sisters wish me a happy birthday I remind them that I’m younger than they (as all younger brothers should do). This gets me to think, “At what point do we become old?” Is it when our hair changes color? (I have three white hairs). Is it when we get tired walking around or running and doing our things? At what point do we become old? Perhaps that’s not the right question to be asking. Perhaps the question to be asking is, “How do we become young again?”More...
The Light is Better than the Darkness
Pedro grew up in a tough area of town, East L.A. He grew up with a lot of anger and resentment and the way he dealt with his anger and resentment was in very unhealthy ways so that eventually he needed to go to rehab. And while he was sent to rehab Fr. Greg, who recounts this story, got a call from his family that his brother also going through the similar things of anger and resentment and dealing with it in very unhealthy ways had ultimately fell into despair and took his own life. Fr. Greg had to go to rehab to tell his brother, Pedro, about his brother who had died. So he’s going to the hospital thinking about what to say and finally decides just to tell his brother. So Pedro comes out to Fr Greg and Fr Greg just tells him. Pedro looks at him with all the sadness and grief and takes it all in.
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For You
Stanley Rother was a young priest in Oklahoma City when he got a call from his Bishop at the time that there were openings to be a missionary out in Guatemala. He had not been a been a priest very long, yet he had this urge to go and so he went. He was out there during the years of great civil strife and difficulties between the Church and the government began to grow. As years progressed his love for the people grew more and more within him. The conflicts between the Church and the government grew to a point where the priests themselves were threatened and he was asked to leave because his life was in jeopardy.More...
Prove Your Thesis
One of the quick ways to get through a book that maybe you have really little interest in reading is to read the introduction and then to read the table of contents then read the conclusion. And hopefully if you get the beginning and the end you’ll get everything in the middle as well. I think that is the greatest thing about abstracts. Abstracts condense hundreds of dense pages into one paragraph where there is a thesis and its supporting arguments. It saves you a whole lot of time. This is what we all learned in fifth grade. Every paper, every argument needs to have a thesis or else all your arguments will be floating in the literary air and there won’t be anything that holds it together. More...
The Hour of Transformation
For many of us our New Year’s resolution was to get in shape and by the looks of it looks we’re still working on it. (I’m just kidding.) The first time we got out and started to run or do the exercise we felt really good but then the burn started to happen, wherever it was. If it was running it would be in the lungs and in the legs. Then the couch really seems very appealing and all these questions and doubts might come up to our mind—“Why exactly are we up at five in the morning, what exactly are we really doing here in the middle of the street?” Pretty soon we long for the hour when it won’t hurt anymore. When getting up at five in the morning wouldn’t hurt, when running uphill wouldn’t hurt anymore.More...
