Ash Wednesday

What is Lent about?  Is it about giving something up?  Well…not exactly. Is it about sacrifice?  Well…not exactly.  Lent is about Jesus Christ.  Lent is about us intentionally following Jesus and growing closer to Jesus.  If we forget that, then anything and everything we do during Lent – all the practices, all the sacrifices, all the resolutions – in the end, mean nothing.  The deeper presence of Jesus Christ in our lives is the meaning of Lent.  In our Gospel Jesus gives us three rich Biblical practices for that presence to become a reality in our lives: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  Done with Jesus and for Jesus, these have incredible power.  Done purely by our own strength of will or just because “that’s the rule”…then we’re just spinning our wheels.

5th Sunday of Lent

This weekend one of my deacons, Deacon Brian McCaffrey, preaches the homily.  During this unique time of COVID-19, I will be recording and uploading my deacons’ homilies onto my website and podcast as well.  While nobody is able to see us preach in person, I pray that being able to at least hear the homily will help us feel connected in these very unique times of “Safer at Home” which Wisconsin has instituted.

This weekend Deacon Brian considers the sin of anger, how it often goes unnoticed as sinful, how it takes root in our lives, how we give into and feed it, and how it prevents us from being the person God is calling us to be.  Like Lazarus in the Gospel who, after coming out of the tomb, Jesus orders to be unbound from his burial cloths, God desires to untie us from the sin of anger in the ways that it still binds us.  When we give unrepented anger over to the Lord, the power of the Son can transform us into something spiritually new and incredible!

4th Sunday of Lent

We are certainly in a unique and unprecedented time in our country (and world) with this response to COVID-19.  In the Gospel today Jesus opens the eyes of a man born blind.  He smears a muddy mixture of saliva and dirt on the man’s eyes – not a clean or comfortable experience – then asks the man to go wash in the Pool of Siloam.  The man does…and is healed!  This time of COVID-19 and our nation’s response is an experience of a muddy mixture being smeared in our eyes and into our lives – it’s neither pleasant nor comfortable.  But Jesus invites us in this time, like He did the blind man, to go wash in the Pool of Siloam – trying new and different ways of prayer and service and learning to unite to God in this unique time.  If we don’t, this will all just be a muddy experience.  But if we do, this mud might also become an opportunity for incredible spiritual power in our lives!

For some great resources (whether that’s daily Mass, daily rosary, Stations of the Cross,  or other prayer or learning opportunities) please visit our St. Joseph Church Website Resources Page.  For the most up-to-date information in these constantly changing times concerning schedule, events or changes at St. Joseph, Hayward or St. Ann, Cable, please visit our website.  Finally, my Letter to Parishioners (which all parishioners should be receiving in the mail early this week) is also available on our website.

2nd Sunday of Lent

Temptations come from 3 main sources: the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Movements of God within us start with a thought, and temptations also start with a thought.  As these various thoughts and reasonings fill our mind, we eventually come to a fork in the road – we have to decide which thoughts to hold onto, and which thoughts to set aside…it’s not as easy as it sounds.  Those thoughts of temptation are so subtle, and so mischievous, they’ll do whatever they can to draw us away from the one thing God is calling us to in that moment.  They’ll even tempt us with good things, actions and thoughts that are noble and virtuous, so long as those actions and thoughts are NOT what God is asking of us in that moment.  God calls us, His children, to an incredible glory, prefigured in Jesus’ transfiguration that we hear of in today’s Gospel.  This week: how will we resist the temptations that come from the world, the flesh and the devil, and resolutely follow the impulses of  God within our hearts?  One path leads to glory, the other to fleeting pleasure followed by lasting emptiness.  Which thoughts will we decide to hold onto this week, and which ones will we decide to throw away?

1st Sunday of Lent

Our readings today present us the with tale of 2 men:  The 1st man – Adam – and the New Adam – Jesus Christ.  Both are tempted by the serpent.  The Old Adam falls and turns away from the Father; the New Adam stands strong in faithfulness to His Father.  This Lent is a journey into the desert with Jesus.  It will be a time of testing and temptation for us just as it was for Him.  In the face of the temptations to come, will we be like the Old Adam, or the New Adam?

5th Sunday of Lent

This weekend I helped with a High School Discipleship Retreat – we have some incredible young men and women in northern Wisconsin who love Jesus Christ and want to know our Lord more and more!  It’s truly inspiring to be a part of these retreats!  Both our first reading and Gospel speak of situations where some people are trapping and others are being trapped: in both readings God sets His people free.  God has the power to free us from whatever situations are weighing us down, even if they seem impossible to get out of or be gotten rid of.  Our God is a God Who saves and sets free!  How has God set you free in life?  How does God want to free you more right now?

4th Sunday of Lent

“Pain’s there for a reason.  It lets your body know something’s wrong and it needs to be fixed.”  These words are true of our body, but they are also true of our emotions, heart, soul, and spirituality.  Pain is there for a reason – it lets us know that something is wrong and needs to be fixed – as both of the brothers in our Gospel this weekend experience, and as we have and continue to experience in our own lives.  Pain is often coupled with an invitation from God to come home, to come to the fullness and wholeness that our Father wants to give us!

Thank you for your prayers last weekend as I brought not 10 but 11 young men on a college seminary visit to Winona.  It was a great opportunity for these young men to see the life of a seminarian and be inspired by how these seminarians are listening for God’s call in very intentional ways.  We were able to join in prayer, sports, classes and fun.  Our high school men walked away with a deeper desire to follow Jesus Christ in whatever path HE might lead them.  Thanks again for your prayers and support, and please continue to pray that all of our youth might hunger to know Jesus Christ more deeply in their lives each day.  And my homily for this weekend:

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

“But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”  Strong words from Jesus in our Gospel today – very strong words.  Repentance is turning toward God and admitting our sins…and it’s not easy for us as humans.  We’re sinners.  That’s not meant to be depressing, but freeing.  We are sinners, we’ve messed up, and Jesus came to free us from our sins, to take that weight off of our shoulders so that we can get on living.  Jesus tells us today that this path to freedom, however, starts with repentance – turning toward God, admitting our mistakes, and allowing His forgiveness to enter our lives and lift us up.

This weekend I will be taking 10 high school men from our diocese on a seminary visit to Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona, Minnesota.  Please keep us in your prayers, both for safe travels and that these young men might be open to discovering God’s will for their lives. 

Because of this seminary visit, I will not be preaching this weekend.  Lucky for you, however, I have a Throwback Homily on our readings this weekend for the 2nd Sunday of Lent!

1st Sunday of Lent

Lent is a great opportunity for us – an excuse to slow down a bit, a time to shake us out of our daily routine (through fasting and no-meat Fridays, with our personal resolutions: giving something up or adding healthy spiritual practices). Lent provides us more chances to LOOK UP to our God and ask for His help in our lives.  The Israelites were led by Moses out of Egypt, they were tempted in the desert and failed three times by not turning to God and trying to fix the issue themselves.  In our Gospel today, Jesus is led into the desert for forty days and forty nights, tempted by the devil, and Jesus wins three times!  How?  He LOOKS UP to the Father for help and doesn’t try to do it alone.  This Lent you will be led into the desert (some things in your life will be hard and difficult), and you will be tempted (like the Israelites, like Jesus).  Will you try to do it alone, or will you LOOK UP?