Anchored In The Lord

Ascension Sunday Happy Mother's Day to all mothers!  This weekend we celebrate Jesus' Ascension into heaven - that after rising from the dead and appearing to His disciples for a number of days, Jesus ascends to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.  The ascension is not a one-and-done event, though.  We are the Body of Christ still present on this earth, so His ascension is still happening in us.  As we follow Jesus, as we run faster and jump higher, as we overcome the obstacles of life and refuse to give up in our pursuit of a more meaningful relationship with God, we also ascend!  

6th Sunday of Easter Love requires both intention AND action: a good action without good intention is not love; the best intention without action is not love.    Our readings today challenge us to love if we are to remain in God.  But how can we remain in love all day long in the midst of our many different obligations and mundane duties?  The good news is that every daily, ordinary action we do can be transformed into an act of love when we attach it to a good intention by offering it up with a short prayer!  In our faith life, too, love is intention AND action.  Intending to love God isn't enough: we actually have to act on it!

5th Sunday of Easter All day, every day, we are making decisions.  Ultimately, what we do and don't do, how we respond or don't respond to different people and situations, is our decision.  I believe everyone WANTS to be a good person: a good mother or father, husband or wife, family member, friend, worker and coworker...but it's our daily decisions (regardless of what we say we want to be) that determine whether we actually ARE any of those things.  In the Gospel today Jesus challenges us to remain in Him always.  God never stops being with us, but we often, on account of our many obligations and pressures and duties, choose not to remain in Him.  But those things are only excuses, because our decisions are entirely ours.  What will I decide to do this week to remain in God just a little bit longer each day?

4th Sunday of Easter Peter says in our 1st reading today, speaking about Jesus Christ, "There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved."  If salvation is only in Jesus, then who can be saved?  Can non-Catholics go to heaven?  Can Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims go to heaven? And what part do we have to play in it?  Listen and find out!

3rd Sunday of Easter When Jesus appears today to His disciples and says, "Peace be with you," they at first think it might be a ghost.  Ghosts and the supernatural are not talked about very much in our current Church culture.  What do we believe as Catholics about ghosts?  What if we or someone we know claims to have experienced a presence beyond this physical world?  Should we be afraid?  Can they hurt us?  Or can we help them?

2nd Sunday of Easter In our Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples behind locked doors and rather shockingly (since most of these people deserted Him during his arrest and crucifixion) He says, "Peace Be With You."  Then He shows them His wounds - His hands and His pierced side, still present even on His resurrected and glorified body.  God wants to give us a deep, abiding peace in this life.  The path to that peace, however, is counterintuitive: it involves admitting and confessing just how much we have wounded others and God along the way - our sins - because to the extent that we admit our sinfulness, we experience God's amazing mercy; and to the extent we experience God's desire and love for us even in the midst of our brokenness, we experience God's peace!

Easter Sunday And I will raise you up And I will raise you up And I will raise you up on the last day. What does God want to do for you?  How does He want to raise you up?  What does He want to do in your life right now?

Palm Sunday We are entering the holiest week of the year: we celebrate the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!  Easter can be a beautiful time filled with family and travels and preparations and celebrations (and I hope it is for you), but I encourage you, in the midst of all the preparations, to set aside some special time for the Lord.  This Holy Week, for you, will only be as "holy" as you make it - so let's make it a good one! (The Triduum is the Church's liturgical celebration beginning on Holy Thursday with the Mass of the Lord's Supper, continuing on Good Friday with the special veneration of the cross, and concluding with the Saturday night Easter Vigil - one of the most ancient and beautiful liturgies the Church has to offer.  If you have never tried to attend the special Triduum liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil, I would highly recommend you put that near the top of your bucket list.  Have a blessed Holy Week!)

4th Sunday of Lent I can name plenty of ways that I would be able to grow and improve; I know plenty of  areas in my life that could use some more attention and strengthening; I am a work in progress.  And Lent is about opening myself to be changed and transformed by God, because God wants to work on me as well!  God wants to make me a better me, to make me into the person He has created me to be - both for myself and others.  Paul says in our second reading that we are God's "handiwork".  May our Lenten practices and resolutions open us up to the ways that God wants to work on our lives and transform them for the better!

3rd Sunday of Lent Every time we say "yes" to something, we're at the same time saying "no" to lots of other things.  When we say "yes" to someone in marriage, we're saying "no" to all of the other people we could possibly spend our life with.  When we say "yes" to having kids, we're saying "no" to lots of our freedom and comfort...and sleep.  When we say "yes" to God, when we decide to enter into a relationship with God, that means we are also saying "no" to lots of other things.  But for the sake of that relationship, those "no's'" are entirely worth it!  I'd invite you today to rethink how you see the rules, regulations and practices God asks of us in the Bible and through the Catholic Church.  Maybe all these little  "no's" are actually beautiful (sometimes inconvenient and difficult, but beautiful) ways that we can live out our big "yes" to God.

2nd Sunday of Lent In our first reading this weekend we hear the seemingly troubling story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son.  Certain situations in our lives, too, can make it seem like God is distant, cruel or mean.  Yet, in the end, this story proves God's trustworthiness and faithfulness.  Jesus believed in the Father's trustworthiness and faithfulness, even it led him to crucifixion and death...but that crucifixion and death led to the resurrection and eternal life for all of us!  Today let us thank God for his faithfulness to us, and ask that we might, through this journey of Lent, become more faithful to Him and more trusting of His ways.

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time We are about to enter into the Lenten season.  Lent is an opportunity to encounter God in a new way, to pause the distractions in life and focus on those things that matter most.  As you consider what your Lenten resolutions will be, I have a few suggestions: ADD something to your days for the Lord, do something POSITIVE that will provide you with opportunities to encounter Jesus, give God the space, time and attentiveness He needs in your life to speak to you.  Don't just give up chocolate this Lent.  DO something that will bring you closer to Jesus; GIVE God the time to transform you!

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Paul felt an obligation to preach the Gospel...but he can't be the only one.  Every Christian, as a follower of Jesus, is called to be a light in the world, to share with others what God has done for them.  So how?  How do we share our faith in a way that is attractive but not pushy, engaging but not offensive?  I have a few ideas, and I'll share them in this homily.  Today's young adults and students are a different generation who require a different way of hearing and experiencing the Gospel - let's be willing to speak a language they will understand!

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Paul says in our 2nd reading: "I should like you to be free of anxieties."  That would be pretty nice...but how on earth are we supposed to do that?!  Paul's life gives us an answer.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time God speaks to us every day.  Yet, if we're not careful, we can miss the Lord's voice or mistake it for someone or something else.  The Mass is a particular hour each week when God speaks directly to us - do we know what His voice sounds like?  Or are our minds sometimes distracted by all the other things going on in our lives?  Samuel is being called by God in our first reading...but he mistakes the voice of God for the voice of another person.  It's not until the fourth time God calls his name that Samuel finally says, "Speak, Lord, you servant is listening."  It might take us a few tries, too, but let's start making Mass a time when we spend our energies not on daydreams, but focusing on what God has to say to us that week: "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."

Epiphany Today three wise men/three kings/three magi arrive at the place where Jesus was born after following the sign of a star.  The presence of these three non-Jewish kings reveals that God is not only calling the Jewish people but ALL people of the world to believe in and follow His Son Jesus.  God's sign was a star; presumably everyone could see it.  So why is it only these three wise men who followed that star?  Was everyone else just too busy?  Were they so caught up in life that they didn't even notice the sign?  We encounter three different kinds of people in the Gospel today: those who don't notice the sign, those who notice the sign but don't follow it, and those who notice the sign AND follow it.  This week: What are the signs God is placing in your life (what are the stars)? And when you see a sign, do you follow it?  

Feast of the Holy Family In today's readings we get some very practical advice about how to live as Christians: put the wants and needs of others before your own...as Christ did.  Paul gives us a very concrete example of how this looks in one of the most fundamental sets of relationships we find ourselves in: the family.  Before getting up-in-arms about how Paul could write, "Wives, be subordinate to your husbands," let's look at the reading in context and see how Paul is challenging everyone to stretch their hearts and love others the way Christ loved us.

Merry Christmas! What child is this, who, laid to rest, On Mary's lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, While shepherds watch are keeping?

4th Sunday of Advent God made a promise to King David, that He would establish a house and kingdom for him that would last forever, and that an heir of his would rule in this kingdom.  1,000 years later, that promise came true in a little baby born on Christmas - Jesus.  God gave us, in Jesus, the greatest present of all: a savior to be present with us always, so that we would never be separated from God.  This Christmas our Father wants a special present from us (in fact, the only thing He ever wants from us) - our presence with Him!

3rd Sunday of Advent Christ is Coming!  Amidst all the preparations for Christmas - food, shopping, cleaning, gifts, cards, travel plans - it's all because Christ is coming!  The most important preparations we make, then, aren't the externals of the beautifully cleaned and decorated house or the delicious food we've prepared, but the internals of how we've cleaned and made room in our heart for Jesus, how we've prepared a meal for Him in our souls - through prayers and actions - when He comes at Christmas.  All the preparations are necessary, but the most necessary ones are the preparations that no one else can see but God.