))
Breaking open the Word of God …Applying it to the lived experiences of daily lifeIn the busyness of modern life, it is sometimes difficult to see and experience God in our lives. Through his homilies, Fr. Brendan challenges and invites us to take a break focus on what the Lord is saying. God is not only present but is opening up the divine story in each of us.
…
continue reading
And now comes Advent. Now comes the busiest season of the year, when our regular business goes into high gear. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we add shopping, decorating, parties, concerts, and celebrations to our already overflowing calendars. It seems almost impossible to stay awake and attentive when we are running on empty, exhausted by hu…
…
continue reading
1
Homily for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe - We Are Not Numbers
13:01
Today, we celebrate the Feast Day of Christ the King and the readings bring us back to the foot of the cross. It seems like an odd place to bring us back as we enter into the end of our liturgy year and now enter into to the Advent season as we prepare for Christmas. Yet, that is where it does brings us, to the foot of the cross. (Read more…) Here …
…
continue reading
In the cultural view, time is a scarcity. It is an asset that is a diminishing, that we are going to lose some day. In this cultural view of time, time is running out. We have this sense of everything must produce something. A view of productivity. You are running out of time, so therefore you need to use your time well, and you need to stop wastin…
…
continue reading
We have to be mindful of how we are serving others in our world today. Because we, you and I, are the church. Today we celebrate an unusual Feast day called the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome. We might say, "Why are we celebrating a dedication of a building?" It is a pretty significant building. First of all, it is the See of the B…
…
continue reading
Every one of us will take that final journey home someday. But until then, we are called to live this circle of life well. We are called to live it fully, embracing every moment and savor every moment for what it is, whatever part of the journey or the stage of this circle we are on. To never to embrace the next too soon, nor to resist it too much.…
…
continue reading
Today we are honoring our 70 year history. This place was a orchard of apricots. And that is why we have honored it with the very apricots we have here as a reminder of our roots. The soil that produced so much fruit for so many years then became the soil for this parish. Now look at what we have done with the seeds of faith of 70 years of believin…
…
continue reading
When Pope Francis was first elected, you might remember, one of the very first interviews he ever conducted, was from an Italian journalist. The journalist asked, "Who is Cardinal Bergoglio? Who is Pope Francis?" The pope bowed his head and said, "I am a sinner." It was really humbling to hear the pope remind himself that he is a sinner. As he had …
…
continue reading
What is most important for today's celebration, is that Luke was a physician. Dr. Luke, as I always like to call him, had a particular view that is seen in his gospels and we see it even today. That view is an incredibly compassionate way to look at everyone he meets. His gospel and his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, portray Jesus as the …
…
continue reading
My friends, you see, we have to find a way to tune in to God's grace each day. Here is the thing to be very mindful of. Our senses are always at work, whether we am having a good day or a bad day. So we can be grateful to God for those no matter what is going on. (Read more…)توسط Fr. Brendan McGuire
…
continue reading
توسط Fr. Brendan McGuire
…
continue reading
It is humbling to be reminded that we are trying to learn that we are all equal. That that we are all children of God, whether rich or poor, whether we are Catholic or not Catholic, whether we are straight or gay; nothing matters except we are his children. We are all, in the eyes. (Read more…) Here is my homily email from the Twenty-Sixth Sunday o…
…
continue reading
We have to be wise about what gifts that we have. It is not just about what how much money we have, although that is a gift for sure. But if we can realize that our time is our gift, that we all have only so much time. We are stewards of our our eighty five years that we might get, maybe if we are lucky 90. But for a lot of us, we do not even get t…
…
continue reading
We do not need to be scarce about God's love to others. Why? Because there is an abundance. We have an ocean of God's love. And when we have this ocean of God's love, we are called to give it away to everyone. Not just our family and our friends, but indeed, maybe most especially, those who are not pleasant. (Read more…) Here is my homily email fro…
…
continue reading
When I say yes to the Lord, I am be promising to become what I already am, the body of Christ. I am committing to “the way” again each and every week. And we see each other to recommmit that same thing again. It is not as much hard work as it is a decision. Once you have made that decision, then we live by that decision. Christ, is the way, the tru…
…
continue reading
We come to this table every week. We come humbly, every one of us equal at this table. Myself, you, all the same. Men and women, boys and girls, children of God, coming to the savior to see the same thing. To receive what we promised to become. The body of Christ. Humble servants. Humble tools in the hand of God. (Read more…) Here is my homily emai…
…
continue reading
The exercise of free will comes with consequences. In other words, when we choose to do bad things and we harm ourselves, these are the consequences of free will. We do silly things, silly things happen, and we pay the price for it. But also on the other hand, when we choose to do good things, and not only good for ourselves, but good for everyone …
…
continue reading
It is a sense of “all in” that Jesus is talking about in today's gospel. That he wants to set our hearts on fire. He wants us to set our hearts on fire about God and about his message of love for this world. And he says that I wish the whole earth was ablaze with a sense of passion that we could understand what he is trying to say. Now, Jesus is no…
…
continue reading
We have an internal fairness scale that measures that. And it is true in in life too. That is why I suppose that we have higher standards for those who hold higher places in office. Especially the way we we regard our politicians, we have high expectations for them. Regardless of what party they are in, we have a certain sense of violation when the…
…
continue reading
1
Homily for The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - God Does Not Call the Qualified, He Qualifies the Called
8:41
We are all called to go, and we are sent not to be just disciples, but missionary disciples to go forth into the world to proclaim it through our words and actions. I sometimes fear that we are a little insecure, and we think that we need theology degrees or we need to be qualified as professionals. That that you need to be somehow more trained tha…
…
continue reading
Today is the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, two towering figures in the church. They literally laid down their lives in proclamation of the faith. But you know, Peter and Paul were not perfect people. We remember Peter's famous threefold denial. There he was, the closest of the apostles, and he himself denies Christ. And then Paul, who was once ca…
…
continue reading
Today is the feast of Corpus Christi as we used to call it, the Body and Blood of Christ. It gives a particular reverence to what we do at this table and at the Eucharist, our primary purpose for gathering us in thanksgiving. I am grateful for all of you being here, but it is hard for me to know there are so many more who are at home choosing not t…
…
continue reading
The Trinity, this sacred symmetry, is all about the flow of love, love from the father to the Son and the Son to the Father. The love that flows between them is the Holy Spirit. It is a beautiful sort of understanding. It is about this sacred symmetry and the the rhythm of life. (Read more…) Here is my homily email from the Solemnity of the Most Ho…
…
continue reading
There is a certain freedom to how wild geese fly because of the unity that the goose brings to it. A goose never flies alone, they always fly in formation. And when geese fly, they fly in a “V” formation. Those who are at the front expend 70% more energy than the ones on the wings. They will readily get pretty tired, and then they move to the back …
…
continue reading
In Celtic Christian spirituality, we believe, that when we are born, we become a traveler. We move from the invisible into the visible and then journey through this life. Then when we die, we complete the circle and move from the visible back to the invisible and our soul continues the journey. (Read more…) Here is my homily email from the Feast of…
…
continue reading
The challenge is that we often do not want to listen to the Holy Spirit. We want our own opinion, and we want to what we want to do. What makes us as a church and institution different is that we promise that we are going to listen to the Holy Spirit. But this institution is more than just an institution. This church we do, we live. It is we, the b…
…
continue reading
Jesus is talking about how they will know us by who we are. They will know that you are followers if you love one another, or if you see this constant behavior in your life. They will recognize in your behavior that you are a follower and a believer in me. You see, it is not enough just to believe in Jesus Christ. We have to become followers of Jes…
…
continue reading
We all just know our mother's voice. It is not that we are not unfamiliar with it. It is just that we may not always be paying attention to it. In the same way, we all know God's voice in our own life. We may just not be paying attention to it. We may not be hearing what we are called to hear. And here is the interesting thing, we can be busy about…
…
continue reading
The reality is in all of our lives, we sometimes wander from the trail of life, in this journey of life, we do miss a sign or two. We get thrown off, and we follow a path that takes us to a place where we may sometimes take us a little time to figure out that we were down the wrong path. But then all we have to do is work our way back to that sign,…
…
continue reading
No matter what, it is always better to be a person of the truth, and if you make mistakes, to tell the truth, to hold yourself accountable to that. It is not always easy to tell the truth or be a person of the truth because there is a certain amount of shame. But believe me, there is greater shame that comes from a lie when you do not tell the trut…
…
continue reading
Pope Francis called the whole church with that sense of calling us back to the roots of who we are. He kept on bringing us back to Jesus. He kept on calling us back to primarily God’s mercy, his love, and his joy. I always remember his first letter to us, the Gospel of Joy. He talked about how important it is to be men and women of joy. And he has …
…
continue reading
We are called to let the light of Christ shine not only on us and within us, but from us, so that others can see that they have the grace, the gem of grace within them. These luminous minerals that we have in rocks are like the luminous grace of God within us. We are called to shine the light of Christ on others. It is not enough that we just celeb…
…
continue reading
To watch a hopeless death is one to be avoided at all costs. But Christianity has a response. It may not be the answer we want, but it does have a response. Let me offer it to you because it is about what happens today. This is the response: it says first of all that not only God recognizes the suffering and the pain, and he does not remain at a di…
…
continue reading
1
Homily for Holy Thursday Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper - New Perspective: New Model to Follow
9:56
My friends, tonight is about service. Can we find a way to serve some other person in our community who feel completely left out? Some neighbor who feels estranged, maybe have lost a spouse, there is nowhere else to go. Can we love them where they are and get down low and serve them and realize that this is a new perspective for us. (Read more…) He…
…
continue reading
The scriptures are a collection of defining moments for the Jewish and the Christian people. They have been put together for the most defining moments of our history. The Gospels are collection of defining moments of Jesus' life. And today's Gospel is a bevy of collective and of defining moments. We have multitude of them, not only just for Jesus, …
…
continue reading
Today, more than ever, we need to be people who are willing to show up, to show up and not save people, not to rescue them, but to be present to them in the midst their suffering. Whether it be from a divorce or whether it be from a rejection of their family, or whether they are immigrants and they feel no longer welcomed, or whether they feel left…
…
continue reading
All of us have made mistakes. We have all done something that was wrong, whether a little thing when we were a child or something older. We will always remember how we were treated in that moment of shame, that moment of being caught. That moment can shame us and maim us, or it can transform us into something much better, something more profound. (…
…
continue reading
Our lives have become so busy and even about the good things, we can be so busy, we miss God speaking to us at these liminal moments where God is trying to say something different than what we want to hear. It might be saying something challenging that we do not want to hear. It is those moments when we are called to pause like Moses and approach i…
…
continue reading
Sometimes the darkness in our lives can be in fact our friend, because it allows us to focus only on what we need to focus on.Today we have this reading, this classic reading of the man born blind in his blindness. Here is the irony. Here is a man who is born blind, who cannot see, and yet he sees Jesus for who he really is and calls him the son of…
…
continue reading
Sometimes we find it hard to accept that God would forgive us for our mistakes. Sometimes when we hurt somebody who we really love and we know we have hurt them and we ask for forgiveness from the Lord, we ask in a sense why did I do that? And we want almost to be punished a little bit because we know we were wrong. So we find it hard to sometime a…
…
continue reading
We are called to take the living waters, take the bread of life that we receive from here, and to share it with those who so desperately need that fresh living water. You and I might be the only person this week who offers it to them. If you get an inkling to be kind and gentle and not judgmental to someone in any of those categories, then this is …
…
continue reading
“Who do people say that I am?” The apostles first say, you are Elijah or John the Baptist, or one of the other prophets. But then he asks them, he says, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter, the one who confesses says, “You are the son of the living God. You are the Messiah.” Jesus must say, yes, finally he gets it. He must be delighted after all …
…
continue reading
How we refocus ourselves this Lent is not about our will. It is not us trying to will ourselves back and pushing away the devil in some dramatic fashion. Just come back to who we are. Come back to the fact that we are children of God and that God is our father. (Read more…) Here is my homily for the First Sunday of Lent. Our own Lenten journey has …
…
continue reading
What we do today is put ashes on our forehead. Not to have a badge of honor that says, “Look at me. I am one of the Catholic ones.” We put ashes on our forehead to remind us to say, “I am a sinner. I am a hypocrite.”But we do not stay there. We do this at the beginning of this Lenten journey. Then the rest of this Lenten journey, we focus on turnin…
…
continue reading
Jesus reorders life. He quotes the golden rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That was in the Book of Deuteronomy as one of the laws of the Lord. But he takes it a step further. He deepens it and calls his disciples, the ones who call themselves Christian, to have a higher standard, a deeper reality. He says it is not enough,…
…
continue reading
Pope Francis has declared 2025 a Jubilee Year of Hope, a timely reminder that even in the face of immense suffering in our world, we are not abandoned, Jesus always accompanies us and most especially in our times of suffering. The cross stands at the center of our faith, not as a symbol of defeat, but as a sign of ultimate hope. (Read more…) Here i…
…
continue reading
You can hear a sense of frustration in today’s gospel with Peter. Peter has been working hard all night with his friends, he says they were up all night and caught absolutely nothing. Then here comes Jesus. Remember, Jesus is a carpenter and he is telling the fishermen what to do. You can see how outrageous this sounds. So you can imagine what Pete…
…
continue reading
Mary watched her son suffer greatly. This prediction by the prophet Simeon is very real. The climax of that suffering for her was at the foot of the cross. We have to examine this because it is very important how Mary suffered. It was not just that she suffered but how she suffered and gave witness to us. (Read more…) Here is my homily for the Pres…
…
continue reading
Jesus is the fulfillment of the scripture. Jesus is the bright light that leads us to see all other lights. He is the one who enables us to see what God is fulfilling in our lives. So Jesus, in a sense, God becomes our north star, if you would, that we look to seek in this sky of lights. (Read more…) Here is my homily for the Third Sunday of Ordina…
…
continue reading
In today's Gospel, Jesus turns everything around. He takes six stone jars fills them with water and turns that water into wine. These jars would have held 20 to 30 gallons each. Just to give you an understanding of how much wine we are talking about. He produced 600 to 800 bottles of wine! That is a lot of joy! (Read more…) Here is my homily for th…
…
continue reading
We need to hear this message of delight because we hear all the other messages, all the other negative messages, the competitive ones on online, how good everyone else is and not how good we are. Let’s combat it with a message of love. Let’s say to one another “You are my beloved one, with whom I am well pleased, with whom I am delighted.” (Read mo…
…
continue reading
