03/30/14 The Mark of Adulthood

Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

"If I don't take responsibility for my actions, somebody has to take responsibility for me. And here is God Himself, in Jesus Christ, who does what? He says, "You carry a shame that you can't bear. I will bear your shame. You carry a weight that you can't endure, I'll carry this weight. You have sins that you can't pay for, therefore, I will carry your sins Myself. Here is Jesus, the Anointed One, who is actually saying, 'I am willing to shoulder the blame.' It is Someone who is saying, 'It's not my responsibility. But I make it My responsibility.'"

Mass Readings from March 30, 2014:
1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

To download the 40 Days of Lenten Mass Readings (now a ONE-page handout!), click here!

03/09/14 Really?

Homily from the First Sunday of Lent.

"All of us, every one of us at this Mass, we have experienced maybe some light, but we will all experience the darkness of just not being able to see God, being obscured from God's sight, maybe feeling differently. And that's when we have to realize this truth: that we cannot, that we do not have to doubt in the darkness what we knew was true in the light. Because in darkness, the facts haven't changed. How I feel about the facts, that's the only thing that's changed."

Mass Readings from March 9, 2014:
Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

To download the 40 Days of Lenten Mass Readings (now a ONE-page handout!), paste this address, http://www.umdcatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LentReadings2014.pdf, into the address bar of your internet browser (ie Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.)

03/05/14 Branded

Homily from Ash Wednesday.

"The depth of what the Cross means is actually 'I am such a mess that in order to make me not a mess, this Cross had to happen.' But here is the amazing thing: this Cross is a sign of your worth. That brand is not just a sign of how great God is, that's a sign of how much you are worth. Sometimes you own the brand, and sometimes the brand owns us."
Mass Readings from March 05, 2014:
Joel 2:12-18
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

To download the 40 Days of Lenten Mass Readings (now a ONE-page handout!), paste this address, http://www.umdcatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LentReadings2014.pdf, into the address bar of your internet browser (ie Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.)

03/02/14 This is Good. God is Good.

Homily from the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

"Worry is useless and it is debilitating. But we know this, this is the great news, this is the really good news: worry is not determined by external circumstances. What I mean is that you can have two people going through the exact same stuff. The same sunny day or the same rainy day. The same employment or the same unemployment. The same crises and the same joys. And one person can say, 'This is terrible, I hate this!' I am worried about it and I am filled with excessive anxiety. The other person can say, 'No. This is good. God is good.'"

Mass Readings from March 02, 2014:
Isaiah 49:14-15
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6:24-34

To download the 40 Days of Lenten Mass Readings, copy the following address into the address bar in your browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.): http://www.umdcatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2014LentReadings.pdf