Ascension Sunday
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 just a one-and-done event of history, though: creation is called to follow where its Master has gone before. The ascension is still happening – heaven is waiting for it to be complete in three distinct ways! Can you name them?
5th Sunday of Easter
Every Christian, by their baptism, is anointed priest, prophet and king. Peter challenges us this weekend to that first anointing: “be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” There is the ordained priesthood by which priests in the Church offer to God the sacrifice of Christ and offer to God’s people the sacraments, but there is also the priesthood of the baptized by which every Christian, in Jesus, is called to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. Every day we can offer these spiritual sacrifices, and at Mass we have the opportunity to collect them all from that past week – our thoughts, words, prayers, actions, and intentions…even our anxieties, worries, concerns, hopes, and dreams – and place them on that altar as our sacrifice to God in the power of our baptismal priesthood! And like He does with the bread and the wine, He can take what we offer to Him and transform those sacrifices into something even greater.
Note: At the beginning of the COVID-19 response when public Masses were cancelled I was recording and posting the homilies of my Deacons on this podcast as well to help everyone stay connected with the weekend homily. Now that we are live streaming weekend Masses and you can both hear and see our deacons preach right on our website (www.stjoseph-hayward.org), I will no longer be posting the audio of my Deacons’ homilies on this podcast.
3rd Sunday of Easter
On the road to Emmaus Jesus walks up alongside two of his disciples, though He’s not recognized for who He is but thought to be a stranger. This Stranger begins to unpack for them the Scriptures and how they foretell and prefigure the Christ. The hearts of these two disciples are set on fire as Jesus teaches them, though they don’t fully realize it in the moment. It’s only at the end of the day, in the breaking of the bread, that they recognize Who was with them, and then Jesus vanishes from their sight. Take a walk on the road to Emmaus, let Jesus draw close, even if you don’t recognize Him at first, let Him teach you about the Scriptures and Himself, let Him set your heart on fire!
Pentecost Sunday
The coming of the Holy Spirit CHANGED the first followers of Jesus. We received the Holy Spirit in baptism, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus at every Mass…but how much are we CHANGED by these experiences? Do you ever long for more in your faith but just don’t know why you aren’t getting it? If that’s ever been you, listen to this homily, and most importantly – remember to breathe (spiritually)!
Ascension Sunday
In the new parishes I am serving – St. Joseph in Hayward and St. Ann in Cable – we have three gifted deacons. It is the custom in this cluster that the deacons preach every 1st and 3rd weekend of the month. As a result, I will be preaching less often. Lucky for you, I have homilies from previous years that I will continue to share ; ). This is last year’s homily from Ascension Sunday: (Enjoy!)
6th Sunday of Easter
Have you ever heard one Christian teach one thing about Jesus, and then heard shortly thereafter another Christian teaching the opposite? Who’s right? How do we find out the truth? In our first reading we see where the first followers of Jesus turned to find the truth in the midst of disagreements and controversies over what they should believe…and where they turned then is still where we as Catholics turn now!
5th Sunday of Easter
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead turned everything we thought we knew completely upside down! God showed that He has the power to bring good out of anything…even evil, and even the difficult and painful moments of our lives. This weekend I celebrated my final weekend of Masses in the Superior area. I have been asked to assist in covering the Masses in the Hayward and Cable Catholic Churches effective immediately. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly into your hearts and lives. Though this time of change and transition will be difficult, I know that God has the power to bring good out of all things. Please welcome whatever priest comes to this area next with the same warmth and love as you did me, and he will be one lucky priest!
4th Sunday of Easter
Jesus says today in our Gospel, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” What does God’s voice sound like in your life? What happens when you follow it? What do we and others miss out on when we don’t? Often God’s voice/invitation doesn’t give us the whole story or plan He has, just the next step in the process…so we can easily dismiss those thoughts, that voice, because it might not seem, from our perspective, to make sense in that moment. But I challenge you this week: listen for that voice, and the next time you hear it (even if it doesn’t seem to make sense or takes you out of your comfort zone), follow it! God has something special in store!
3rd Sunday of Easter
Our Gospel story today is one of the passages we as Catholics point to in the Scriptures where Jesus sets Peter apart from the other Apostles, in which we read the beginnings of the papacy and the pope! God gave us a great gift in our pope, a leader and figurehead meant to keep Jesus’ Church united as ONE body. Jesus’ great prayer was that all of his followers might be one, as He is in the Father and the Father is in Him, that we would all be ONE…at present there are over 40,000 different Christian denominations. Thanks be to God for our ONE Catholic Church, united throughout the whole world, for the gift of the pope to keep us united (even in the midst of struggles and difficulties and disagreements – kind of like the head of a family), and for the gift of the Eucharist where we become what we are: ONE in the Body of Christ!
2nd Sunday of Easter
Is it wrong to question God? Is wanting to know how or why something happened considered a weakness or lack of faith, or even a sin? In the Gospel today Jesus appears to His apostles, but Thomas isn’t there. When Thomas comes back and all of the others are claiming that Jesus is risen, he refuses to believe unless he sees it himself. Is that wrong of him? I think not!