tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12104914152700525082026-06-04T10:12:16.161-04:00BIG C CATHOLICSUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3720125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-51142585413006328882026-06-04T10:12:16.133-04:002026-06-04T10:12:16.161-04:00Homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 14, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66HCLo57l2st9V1anjlJIrswaXSq1IwLdYr5JcAFr86ZufeiddwEv_CyrdKOXkDo9vPA8mYc1wAYro-8bHb2xsX_tjjEnXoSfPw0B_gfNUdM1TmI3gqaAYRFF5tdcZt1Hxn1WgYUVWF6bI1lVDvRV5D79b55awIN4aV4D_obuIglgE9GytfE9fvfgFVXq/s400/The%20sending%20of%20the%20Twelve%20Duccio%20di%20Buoninsegna%20COMPRESSED.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The sending of the Twelve, Duccio di Buoninsegna" border="0" data-original-height="311" data-original-width="400" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh66HCLo57l2st9V1anjlJIrswaXSq1IwLdYr5JcAFr86ZufeiddwEv_CyrdKOXkDo9vPA8mYc1wAYro-8bHb2xsX_tjjEnXoSfPw0B_gfNUdM1TmI3gqaAYRFF5tdcZt1Hxn1WgYUVWF6bI1lVDvRV5D79b55awIN4aV4D_obuIglgE9GytfE9fvfgFVXq/w640-h498/The%20sending%20of%20the%20Twelve%20Duccio%20di%20Buoninsegna%20COMPRESSED.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061426.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">At the sight of the crowds, as we heard moments ago, Jesus was moved with pity; He had compassion for the crowd of humanity in front of Him. They were lying prostrate with exhaustion.<br />
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Jesus of course saw that they were not just physically exhausted. More importantly He saw they were spiritually flattened and empty. Lost and leaderless, they were like sheep without a shepherd not knowing where to find what they needed to sustain them in the life of God’s Spirit.<br />
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Our spiritual world is much the same as theirs. Even though science and technology along with our transportation and communications industries have moved us much closer together in what we’ve come to call “The Global Village”, we are as divided and fragmented as ever… as lonely and as isolated as generations of humans who have lived before us. Our fragmented and divided world, our violent inhumanity toward or fellow humans, is the constant report of nightly television news broadcasts. No one can realistically deny that we are dislocated and divided as a human community.<br />
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The intellectuals tell us that we live in what the philosophers call “The Post-Modern World.” They’ve labeled us as post-modern men and women living in a culture and a society that is beyond what we used to know of as Modernism.<br />
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Modernism challenged the wisdom of the classics and replaced it with the scientific method, the ideas generated by Sigmund Freud, and the belief that science and technology were the only routes to true human progress.<br />
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Post-Modernism tells us that there are no absolutes, no principles that run through history, no constants. The only reality is found, they say, in episodes. The governing force of the universe, they claim, is chaos. There are no laws of nature; no laws of physics… in fact there are no laws. Everyone decides for themselves what is true, what is right, and what is wrong. Each person is his or her own universe. Only the experiences of each person govern their private and individual lives.<br />
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In Post-Modern life, consumerism and pragmatism govern our decisions and direct our energies. The religious quest is one in which we enter a church much like we enter a shopping mall. Our search is for “what works for me” rather than for what the bible tells us is the pearl of great price. Truth? What is truth? It’s the same question Pontius Pilate asked before he had Jesus Christ crucified on the Cross.<br />
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What do you and I as Catholics mean by the word “true”? We believe that what is true is true in it’s own right… true in itself, not simply what I declare to be true in my own arrogant self-definitions of reality. The Post-Modernist, however, cares only for what is here and now, and declares all thoughts of eternity, and universals, and life beyond death, are irrelevant.<br />
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In the Post-Modernist culture that surrounds us, we are living like sheep without a shepherd, wandering around without direction in an era in which we are all privatizing that which we used to hold in common, particularly morality and religion. We are sewing the seeds of our society’s destruction when we privatize morality and our religious values. We no longer live in a society that has any shared commitment to the common good; we no longer hold to a certain core of moral values. Even the curricula of our nation’s schools, we are told, are supposed to be “value free”.<br />
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If what is moral is simply that which individuals privately declare to be moral then there is no morality. Post-Moderns reject any absolute ways of speaking of truth or of moral norms. Everything is relative; there are no universal truths that we as a people hold to be self-evident as we declared in our Declaration of Independence. Everything is subjective; there are no objective, unchanging things that exist in certainty. Jesus, they declare, is simply an idealist, not a realist.<br />
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The consequences are apparent — all too painfully so. If there are no points of reference, no objective realities beyond my self, outside of my own tiny little egocentric universe, then reason and law are things that are only to be exploited by the powerful, the elite, and the influential. Legislative majorities have all the power. The weak have nothing left to protect them. That point is dramatically demonstrated when you consider what is happening to human life at its conception and at its ending. How else can one account for the popularity of abortion and euthanasia in the Post-Modern mind?<br />
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We, like sheep, have been flattened. We lie prostate in our own exhaustion; rudderless and without direction we run after anything and everything. I believe it was the great Russian novelist, Dostoyevsky, who told us that when human beings no longer believe in God they will believe in anything. And believing in anything and everything is the certain road to exhaustion and emptiness, the road to cynicism and individual arrogance.<br />
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The great and defiant battle cry of our time is Freedom of Choice. The crushing answer of the universe in response is the one answer we can’t stand to hear and yet at the same time the answer that confronts us daily, namely that in so very many respects we are not free to choose. In so many areas of life we have no choices; we are powerless. Individual choice, as a matter of shattering fact, is severely circumscribed. Divided as we are by individualism, we are powerless over people and so many of the things that happen to us in life. We once stood united; as privatized individuals we now fall.<br />
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A more fundamental awareness is now dawning upon us, the awareness that post-modernism has left us wandering and lost, like sheep. It leads us nowhere and nourishes us with nothing. It, too, among all of the other philosophies of mankind, will seduce us for a while and then ultimately betray us and then abandon us, leaving us ravished and in spiritual death.<br />
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At the sight of the crowd, we were told in today’s Gospel, Jesus was moved with compassion. That vast crowd of humanity was lying prostrate with exhaustion, like sheep without a shepherd. Thereupon Jesus called twelve of His disciples and commissioned them to be His Apostles. Go out, He commanded them, into this ravished and famished world and announce to all who will listen that God’s Kingdom is near to them. Point out to them that God Himself is near to them. Give them Living Bread come down from heaven that they may recover their strength. Give them eyes to see and ears to hear that they may encounter God’s living and loving presence within them. Give them the refreshing waters of God’s love and grace. Tell them they need no longer hunger and thirst for that food which will give them happy lives.<br />
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And so I repeat to you what we just heard St. Paul write to the Romans in today’s second reading:<br />
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Christ, while we were still helpless,
yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person
one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood,
will we be saved through him from the wrath.
Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life.<br />
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No human philosophy can ever do that! We cannot save ourselves… only God can save us. And we can be certain of that.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-37435135609772795022026-06-04T10:01:32.047-04:002026-06-04T10:01:32.075-04:00Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), June 7, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObfJxgcPB0PGJ3wvF0-LSCIHu_TGPK8T-THkWcVSLdym6E6U5AajU3tN3K-W-Gescu3chbuW4gr2Pb53OzAFmvxtiowrek36h8Nnlrf4cQkwbKj7hcuAPMUcthO3LRfewFGgpS5Tyb6mn4yieq7HX5yfh_fX6_uF9phg4tkc7Bz7oE4-jFgfO3rXAqw/s873/Corpus%20Christi%20new%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="873" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjObfJxgcPB0PGJ3wvF0-LSCIHu_TGPK8T-THkWcVSLdym6E6U5AajU3tN3K-W-Gescu3chbuW4gr2Pb53OzAFmvxtiowrek36h8Nnlrf4cQkwbKj7hcuAPMUcthO3LRfewFGgpS5Tyb6mn4yieq7HX5yfh_fX6_uF9phg4tkc7Bz7oE4-jFgfO3rXAqw/w640-h372/Corpus%20Christi%20new%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060726.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">All of us gathered here have approach Holy Mass (and indeed the Church and all of her Sacraments) in different ways. Hopefully we are here with the same agenda and the same expectations, but to be realistic we are here with differing views as to what we are doing.</div>
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Each of us came into church moments ago bearing our own personal histories, both near term and long term, carrying our own burdens of personal problems, hungering and thirsting in our own personal wants and needs. We are all here with multiple expectations.<br />
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Many of us arrived here with overburdened, complex lives filled with intractable problems, simply seeking the comfort and peace of Christ. Many of us hunger for the humble little flock, and want to experience the close and intimate family of faith, seeking out the faces of friends whom they know, feel close to, and whom they admire and love. All of us hunger for closeness with others and the comfort of being among them.<br />
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Then there are those who come here seeking fellowship, a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves, seeking a greater extension of themselves, and an actualization of social concern for others. The crushing burdens of human poverty and deprivation cause them to want to be part of the answer for the world’s malnourished, oppressed, and forgotten. We know we are all part of the problem; we want to be, as a Church, a part of the answer.<br />
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Others have come here seeking the orderliness, the regularity, and the lasting structure of the Church. They seek inspiration and a portion of courage in order to go out in the forthcoming week and do what is morally right, humanly decent, and good in the transactions of business and in the affairs of the public square.<br />
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Then, too, we have folks among us who are personally floundering, who have issues that hold their hearts and minds in an unforgiving bondage. Such folks are likely to come to Mass with ultimate questions, questions such as: Who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing what I am doing? They hunger and thirst for reconciliation with God, seeking personal authenticity, integrity, and responsibility.<br />
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The symbols, the gestures, the music, and the form of our liturgy are all here to unite us. We are Republicans, Democrats and Independents, we are liberal and conservative and indifferent, we are old and young, male and female, traditionalists and innovators, saints and sinners, single and married, guardians of the past and social revolutionaries. All of us are here forming the Body of Christ, by receiving His Body and His Blood. We are here to be sent out those doors and be Christ’s very presence here on earth. “Ite, Missa est” were the final words of the priest in the Latin Mass. Go! You are sent. You have a mission to accomplish in our world.<br />
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So why am I here?<br />
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First of all, we need to see that the prayers of the Mass are directed to the Father. We are here giving praise and thanksgiving to the Father. In Jesus Christ we are addressing our Father in heaven, His Father and your Father and my Father. In Christ, we are praying to the Father. Those prayers are all prayed in the setting of the Lord’s Supper. We are joined into what Jesus did at the Last Supper.<br />
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You and I are also here to receive Christ, the whole Christ, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ. You and I are here to receive Him not in a passive receptivity but in an engaging activity. It is extremely important that we recognize that fact. we am here to receive in order that we might give, to receive Christ in order to give His love and concern in His real presence to those whom we will encounter throughout the days of this coming week. We receive Christ in order that through Him, with Him and in Him we can reveal the presence of God’s kingdom out there in our world.<br />
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God the Son, Christ Jesus, is a God of compassion, concern and love. All that He is stands in stark contrast to all our world is in its separation from Him. I am here to receive His real presence and then take it into that part of the world in which God is not present. What do I get out of coming to Mass? I receive the self-emptying, self-sacrificing Christ so that I might be like Him and give my life and my love in His to those around me who are lonely, alienated, cast aside, hurting, and forgotten. In a world that gives them bad news, I am here in order that I might be, in my living, good news for them.<br />
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Jesus Christ came among us to reveal His Father and to do His Father’s will. Not only that but Jesus gathers us all up into Him taking us into Himself and bringing us back home with Him to our Father in heaven.<br />
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Today the Church causes us to focus on the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. But why? Just so that we might passively adore Him? Obviously not! The Real Presence of Jesus Christ is given us in the Blessed Sacrament so that we might recognize His presence in the Sacrament of the Church, in the Mystical Body of Christ. Christ did not come among us in order to be contained. Christ came among us in order to be emptied out into the whole world, in order that we might bring His Presence in our presence to the world in which He is not found, into that world that contains His absence, not His presence.<br />
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Down through 2,000 years of human history the spatial, material, sacramental Presence of Christ in Holy Communion has upbuilt, encouraged, supported, sustained, and energized countless millions of souls. It has inspired artists, musicians, and intellectuals to reach down deep within themselves to find new levels of the Presence of Jesus Christ within them who is there to sustain us in being, to inspire us in living, and to call us into further becoming. Jesus Christ has suffered for us, died for us, and risen from the dead for us in order to bring to us all that His Father and our Father had in mind for us when He created us in the first place.<br />
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There is only one thing I can tell you about Corpus Christi: All that the Father has He finds in His Son, Jesus Christ. And all of that, including His only-begotten Son, He gives to you in Holy Communion, so that He, our Father, can see it all, and love it all, in you, in me, and in all of us who are cells in the Mystical Body that is His Church. Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament and in the Eucharist so that we can, with Christ, be sent into the world not to condemn it but to save it. I cannot understand Corpus Christi in any other way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-32633465368677789042026-05-18T08:27:53.260-04:002026-05-18T08:27:53.290-04:00Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday), May 31, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img alt="The Holy Trinity" border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="473" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0LNrw0NsvTzfKQj2eYc0TWX5-xALZdkP7X8QelUPh5qjGk7vOy4pDzyvjjNzlrEk2kJEM6H43cfW8gjFKPlXrI4lmalzG8_nPWnEdX5XfLH3B0UQV38nCKNoSF30eYaJDledHQzc7jAzj/w640-h394/The+Holy+Trinity+%255BWide%255D.jpg" title="An icon depicting the three men who visited and broke bread with Abraham at Mamre. (Genesis 18:1-15) The three visitors are understood to represent the Holy Trinity." width="640" /></div>
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Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053126.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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There are three paths to knowledge that we frequently walk… thinking using concepts, thinking using pictures or images, and thinking using our experiences. They are all routes to truth even though experience seems to be the favored route these days. This is curious to me because learning through experience gives us some of life’s harshest lessons. We learn the hard way along that route. The other routes are not so harsh.<br />
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From its earliest days, the Catholic Church has relied on images — pictures found in stained glass windows, statues of saints and holy people, and glorious mosaics found in so many of our churches. Television, movies, and computer images have surrounded us during the last century. As never before in human history our children are learning via images.<br />
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Today I am going to share some thoughts with you about the Holy Trinity using mental images. It’s better that way. The history of art is rich because artists have a way of expressing what is otherwise inexpressible using the mediums of paint, plaster, stone, and other materials.<br />
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St. Patrick went to Ireland to bring the message of Jesus to the Celtic people living there. We all know that when it came to teaching them about the Holy Trinity he used the three-leaf clover. How can three persons be one? He showed the people of his day the three-leaf clover and used that image to teach that God is Three Persons in one Being.<br />
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It is of course impossible to picture God using humanly created images. In fact attempting to do so is to fall into what is called idolatry… the worship of man made idols. But there is one way of imaging God that really does work, and God has given us that image. It is Jesus Christ, the Icon, the Image of God, found in a human person who is both Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God at one and the same time.<br />
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When God made us in the first place, in our origin, in our genesis, God created us in His own likeness. The Book of Genesis tells us: God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. Being human we are called by God to see our Godlikeness. That was, of course, before humans sinned. After we sinned that image was scarred and disfigured. We know that is true even in our day. Not very many of us live God-like lives and that has negatively affected how we see God?<br />
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But God would not allow His plan and purpose to be frustrated. In the fullness of time He gave us His Only Son, born of a sinless woman. Jesus lived to perfection what it means to be a human being.<br />
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All of this means that we find God and “see” God in our relationships with other persons. To be a person means to be a creature of God who can both know and love. Those are the two powers that constitute what it means to be a person. We can know others and we can love others. In doing so we can catch glimpses of God who knows and loves infinitely.<br />
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The reality of the Holy Trinity is, of course a mystery. But mysteries can be talked about. They can be described. Mysteries have clues that our minds can grasp. But a mystery remains a mystery unless and until we grasp it in its totality. But when it comes to God we simply cannot comprehend the total reality of God.<br />
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Mysteries make up a good portion of our lives. Science has its mysteries, as does philosophy, as does psychology, as do other intellectual disciplines. They all have much in them to challenge our minds and our intellectual capacities. All of them contain unknowns within them that move us to seek out their answers.<br />
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As a matter of fact, human beings need mystery. We need to be aware of that which is mysterious in life. We need to see that many times mysteries are to be lived; they are not problems to be solved. Husbands and wives who are truly in love unite themselves in the mystery of each other. Loving husbands and loving wives learn more about each other every year, but they also learn that there are hidden parts in their inner selves that only begin to be recognized after many years of deep love. Husbands delight in the mystery of “her,” and wives delight in the mystery of “him.” They have been ushered into the intimacy of the person whom they love even though it is impossible for them to describe the essence of her husband or the essence of his wife. When they treat each other as problems to be solved they get into a whole lot of trouble. The mystery of true love is something that you who are married know experientially and that I can only contemplate. And all of this is true in the relationships that parents have with their children.<br />
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For all of our efforts to find individuality and uniqueness as distinct persons, we still have an overwhelming need to belong. Belonging is stamped on nature. Belonging is found in everything that exists. Even atoms have protons, neutrons and electrons that seek to belong to each other. It is in their belonging that they cause the atom to be what it is. It is likewise true in all of nature. Unity is the goal and is good. Fracturing is always bad.<br />
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It’s hell not to belong. It’s heaven to belong. It’s hell to live with nobody to love us other than our own isolated selves. It’s heaven when we love and are loved by others. God made us to belong. The inner nature of God, in whose image and likeness we are made, is Persons who, however distinct they are, totally belong to each other.<br />
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We humans are made to belong in a special kind of belonging. We belong as free persons, persons who freely choose to live in inter-dependency. While there is a belonging that enslaves (possessive belonging) there is also a belonging that gives us freedom, the freedom to be who we are as persons.<br />
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Sin isolates us. The first thing we lose when we sin is the sense of joy, the joy of knowing that we are living while doing what is decent, right and good. Sin tears apart the fabric of our living together, living in that network in which we belong to each other in love and goodness to others. Sin attacks living in inter-dependency; sin destroys our belonging to others in genuine love.<br />
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The concept of the Holy Trinity is a mystery, but not a total mystery. Mysteries, after all, are made up of clues. In a mystery story we pursue and piece together clues in order to see the whole picture. So it is with the Holy Trinity. We have lots of clues about the Holy Trinity. And when we pursue them and then piece them together we get a good glimpse into what kind of a God God is.<br />
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God is all about love. When we live in love we live in God, and God lives in us, St. John tells us. Living in love, however, does not mean we must be the same. There’s a great deal of confusion about this in today’s surrounding culture. Some advocate that so-called “civil unions” should be the same as marriages. Boys and girls are moved to dress the same ways. The “androgynous look” is favored in Hollywood. If we hold to values that differ from others we are often told that we are mean-spirited hate-mongers who are intolerant and prejudiced.<br />
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Persons, however, cannot be the same as other persons. The Father is a distinct Person; the Son is a distinct Person; and the Holy Spirit is a distinct Person. Distinct though they are, however, they exist in One Being of infinite love; they exist in one unbreakable bond, in one infinite union of being together.<br />
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While all of that remains a mystery to us, it is not so mysterious that we cannot live with each other in a reality of life that reflects and shares in the reality of God’s life. To live a God-like life we must forgive rather than condemn. We must build-up and affirm rather than tear down. We must see the best, not the worst. We must be self-sacrificial and not self-centered. We must be giving rather than grasping. We must offer hope, not despair. We must heal rather than wound.<br />
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All of this is best affirmed and nurtured in what we know of as a family. There is nothing in life that more closely reflects the reality of the Holy Trinity than genuine family life. For it is in living in a family that we not only belong to each other but also where we discover, nurture, and affirm our own unique and individual personalities. It is a family that makes us individuals, and it is we as individuals who constitute our family. It is the “family” of the Holy Trinity that constitutes God. It is in living the reality of being truly a family that we have a glimpse into the life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.<br />
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So while we do not know God in and of Himself, we know a lot about God the Holy Trinity when we live in love.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-72921649208572406102026-05-10T12:18:00.000-04:002026-05-10T12:18:14.097-04:00Homily for Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxDQn-Vxb2DrG-tcvgZzFSqroJR_uzU1CjpI-OkqjAA8XsvC_DKye5UMDfKsPWOniqR3Ai3meolicSh4eyL2HdLEfs6bHKSHTC8dCa-fWHd9VsmeRlPx1SBrkDHKecxz8r-oLfvo6GVJzyrm0iXJb80dlM3hm64nG26bV4bKi_0y0YxtvCQnL6Izi7g/s542/Pentecost%20Sunday%20Icon%20(3).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="542" height="596" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxDQn-Vxb2DrG-tcvgZzFSqroJR_uzU1CjpI-OkqjAA8XsvC_DKye5UMDfKsPWOniqR3Ai3meolicSh4eyL2HdLEfs6bHKSHTC8dCa-fWHd9VsmeRlPx1SBrkDHKecxz8r-oLfvo6GVJzyrm0iXJb80dlM3hm64nG26bV4bKi_0y0YxtvCQnL6Izi7g/w640-h596/Pentecost%20Sunday%20Icon%20(3).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052426-Day" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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In speaking with you about Pentecost I must speak of what cannot be fully explained. All we can do is reverently gaze into the mystery of God’s final movement toward us, the alienated and distant men and women who, with Adam and Eve, have broken off relations with God. Words cannot capture the enormity God’s merciful love for us; they buckle under the weight of it. So Scripture and the Church employ symbols to try to carry Pentecost’s meaning to us. Sometimes symbols are more effective than words in conveying the truth of stupendous events.<br />
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Essentially Pentecost is the final movement of God’s journey toward us. The initial movement begins in Genesis with God in the Garden of Eden. Note that it is God who makes the move. It is God who initiates; God who offers; God who loves us first. He chooses us. We do not choose him. He chooses us first because He is the superior. If it were otherwise, and indeed when people think they first choose God, then men and women in their pride would fancy that they are in control.<br />
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The story of the Tower of Babel is the story of the prideful people who thought they could build a tower to God. But in doing that they were usurping God’s role. They were the initiators, they were trying to be in control, they were setting the specifications, they were going to discover God and then they would determine His existence. What they forgot is that it is God who discovers man; it is God who determines our existence; God who speaks first. It is only when God speaks that things come into existence.<br />
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And so the story of the Tower of Babel is a recapitulation of the story of Adam and Eve. Once again man is filled with pride. Once again man tries to be God. And once again reality is fractured, nations are shattered, and destruction, disunion, misunderstanding, along with a total breakdown in communications occurs. Mankind now speaks in different languages and even people who so speak the same language are no longer able understand each other.<br />
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But in spite of human arrogance God continues to move toward us. God pursues us in His everlasting search for those who have strayed from the sheepfold of fundamental truth and reality. He sends us prophets, kings, and priests. The message of His love and truth flashes across the pages of human history and human religions. Finally, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ is born in the womb of humanity; a child is born to us, a Son is given us. He is named Mighty Counselor, Prince of Peace, the Anointed One who can heal those who are alienated, shattered, and miserable. God utters and sends His Word in a language that everyone can understand.<br />
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In the Incarnation God’s Word becomes flesh and God lives and moves even closer to us. On the Cross God’s Word hands over His Spirit and thus inaugurates God’s final movement toward us. Actually, in the context of the cosmic vision that we are seeing here, the death, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost are events forming one unitary whole. In that context Pentecost becomes the completion of the Annunciation. The Word of God becomes human flesh and blood. Thus God enters not only our history, not only into our temples and holy places, but into human hearts and souls and all that it means to be human.<br />
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It is all so marvelous, all so universal and huge, all so beyond our comprehension, that mere words buckle and only symbols can hope to carry the precious freight. So we speak of the Dove, of the Wind-Breath of God, of the Paraclete, and of the tongues of fire. We are into the deepest part of the Mystery, namely that God created us not just to follow rules and regulations but in order that He might be intimate with us deep within us, in the deepest meanings of the word love, so that we can now live our ordinary lives in extra-ordinary ways. We are empowered now fill all that is ordinary with the extra-ordinary love of God.<br />
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The work of Christ in giving us His Holy Spirit is the work of bringing us into a language that we can all understand. It is the work religion, of re-ligamenting, of bringing our bare bones, dried up because of lack of love, back into one Body filled with the Blood of Christ and the life of God. The work of Christ in sending us His Holy Spirit is that of making us His blood brothers and sisters. The work of Christ and the Spirit is that of reconciling and forgiving, the work of loosening that which holds us in our own isolation and our sterile self-centeredness. The work of Christ, now raised in power by the Holy Spirit, is the work of bringing a holistic communion to a people that are alienated, fractured, shattered, and divided in the desert of not loving when they could have loved. The work of Christ and the Holy Spirit is overcoming sin. Sin is the name of all that has caused us to ignore our chances to be better persons. Sin is the name we put on all that hurts, divides, and separates us from each other and from God. But Christ has given us the power of the Holy Spirit to forgive and overcome sin.<br />
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The Church speaks in the tongues of all men and women of every race, culture, and nationality. She speaks with a common language because she utters God’s only and unitary Word. Of all the diversities in humanity the Church makes one inter-dependent unity. She is the opposite of the Tower of Babel because she is built by God, not by men and women. We call Pentecost “the birthday of the Church” because she is animated and ensouled on this day to speak and utter the Word of God and bring common understanding and common union in every language in a way everyone can understand.<br />
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Our task, therefore, is to be that source of healing for others. Ours is the mission of speaking God’s language where we work, among our colleagues, associates, friends and neighbors. Ours is the ministry of healing that which is divided, of inspiring those who have become jaded and cynical, of animating those who have lost hope, and of telling all who have missed their chances of being better persons that there is a second chance, because there is a Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is at work in the mysteries of life — in death, love, suffering, and beauty. Because of Pentecost God is to be found in the mystery of insight, those insights that turn truth into wisdom. He is present in the mystery of our self and in the mysteries of those round us. Anytime we struggle with these mysteries the Spirit of Pentecost is moving in us crying out: “Abba, Papa, Father” and our struggle becomes the question or questing of God’s meaning and purpose in our lives.<br />
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May the Holy Spirit become the Person whom you quest and the Spirit of your lives. And may you find moments in His presence… moments snatched away from the ordinary busy-ness of our daily lives, moments when you receive Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Strength, and Reverence for God’s mysterious presence and purpose in your life and in our shared lives.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-25549456833150597352026-05-03T12:09:00.000-04:002026-05-03T12:09:58.189-04:00Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 17, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUT3RPoxyaWsbo_7ziLrVJrlFbKA2g2QAUyTX054fH5ftqma0olsBQbMTHIASRsiO3KJuv5rKD9QjTH-VHMWbrMePbVJcxDAg89Jft6IOfvR0P_6Fhn0LTWwlFntCscyutmVBbwFOohq9zZta-d3NCTaVt2_L15aKDyBtLM4zr1uWHmpzFqjecjHROtY4O/s800/The%20Ascension%20of%20Jesus%20Christ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Ascension of Jesus Christ" border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="800" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUT3RPoxyaWsbo_7ziLrVJrlFbKA2g2QAUyTX054fH5ftqma0olsBQbMTHIASRsiO3KJuv5rKD9QjTH-VHMWbrMePbVJcxDAg89Jft6IOfvR0P_6Fhn0LTWwlFntCscyutmVBbwFOohq9zZta-d3NCTaVt2_L15aKDyBtLM4zr1uWHmpzFqjecjHROtY4O/w640-h352/The%20Ascension%20of%20Jesus%20Christ.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051726-Ascension" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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God the Father inaugurated His presence among us when Abraham responded to Him in faith. The Nativity of Our Lord inaugurated God the Son’s presence among us when God’s self-expression became flesh and was born among us as one of us. This Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven inaugurates the time of God the Holy Spirit’s presence among us. Jesus Christ ascension into heaven opens the door to the Holy Spirit’s dwelling within those who have been baptized into the Body of Christ.<br />
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Our Blessed Lord’s Ascension into heaven challenges us to see God in a new way. Christ’s ascension is not an ending, it’s a beginning. On the surface in appears that Christ’s Ascension is a departure, but actually it is not. Spirit-filled in His resurrection, Christ now comes to us in a new way – in His Holy Spirit.<br />
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It is a new beginning. Christ in His humanity is now taken to a new status, the highest of all states of being. Now at the right hand of the Father in the fullness of divinity, Christ comes to us in the power of the Holy Spirit — particularly in His Sacraments. He will always be with us, He will never leave us.<br />
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The cycle has now come full circle. God has come to us in Christ; God has given Himself to us in Christ; God is now at work among us again, sweeping us up into Christ’s glorious, resurrected, and Spirit-filled humanity. Through Him, with Him, and in Him we are now in Christ’s ascended humanity returned back home to our Father. The scope of this panorama is stupendous, awe-inspiring, and really beyond human comprehension or mortal human words. It is Mystery in the full sense of the word mystery – mystery not in the sense of reading a “Who Done It?” novel, but mystery in the sense that we are gazing into a reality that far exceeds the scope of our ability to depict it or put into words.<br />
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To be honest with you, if I were standing in that group of apostles and disciples at Christ’s Ascension I would have been dismayed. I would have been quite intimidated. I would have thought: “Are we to lose Him again?” Timidity would have engulfed my heart and soul. But Pentecost would follow and my timidity would have been erased.<br />
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To confess the truth, at times I feel some timidity even now. Our Church in recent years has been racked by scandals. Some priests have abused our children and some bishops have not done their duty. Furthermore, in our highly secularized culture, Christianity is on the defensive. Additionally, as Americans we stand betrayed by our basic institutions, having in recent years faced betrayals from government officials in high office, corporate executives, and accounting firms that have not accounted. We have suffered betrayals from those in our legal and medical institutions, a divorce rate that seems to know no limits, and so on. Everywhere we turn we face losses of varying sorts and degrees of depth.<br />
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Will terrorism ever end? Is our economy truly recovering? Will there ever be an adequate supply of jobs? Will our sources of energy dry up? Will there ever be peace between Arab and Jew, Palestinian and Israeli? Will there be an even greater increase in prejudice and hostility toward believing Christians? These and other worrying factors eat away at our courage, our sense of well-being, and our hope for lives lived in peace. We have been intimidated — made fearful and timid.<br />
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It is into this sort of world that God sent His only begotten Son, not to condemn us but to save us. The post-resurrection message, repeated so often by Christ, is: “Fear not! I am with you. I am with you even to the end of the world.”<br />
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The infallible sign of His Presence among us is love. We can love even in a world such as ours. We do, in fact, love in a world such as ours. The power of God’s love is being made manifest among us. You are making that powerful presence felt in your lives and in the lives of those whom you cherish. You are making the presence of the resurrected and ascended Christ real in the lives of those around you.<br />
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If there is one sentence I want you to take home with you today it is this: <i>Everything and everyone you love is being redeemed</i>. Those whom you love are being redeemed not just by your love, but by Christ’s love within you that reaches them. Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven is at work through you, with you, and in you. He has not left us orphans – He is here. Because of His ascension He is here!<br />
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To be sure I face intimidation, as do you. To be sure we all have our moments of being shy and even afraid. But soon, and very soon, Pentecost will burst upon us. God’s powerful and life-giving Holy Spirit will come roaring upon us like a mighty wind from the heights of heaven. The fires of your passions will be re-ignited. For we, you and I with you, have a fire in our bellies, the fire of God’s great and Holy Spirit.<br />
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And when He comes we will be enabled to throw off our timidity. We, filled with Christ’s gift of courage, will be able to go out in public and boldly live in the face of whatever challenges life and the people in it throw at us. For Christ Jesus, now at the right hand of our Father, is at work in us bringing order out of chaos, meaning out of absurdity, good out of evil, and life out of death.<br />
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The days of Pentecost and all of the days thereafter are at hand. We have a Savior who loves us, a glorious Redeemer who at the right hand of the Father intercedes for us, and the Spirit of God at work in us. By your faith, in your hope, and because of your love, all of the God’s gifts are at work in you, and our world has the promise of being made into a much better place. Because of the Ascension of Christ we are given the task of revealing God’s kingdom here on earth. Christ has established the kingdom. Ours is now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the task of revealing God’s kingdom in all that we say and do.<br />
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"Behold," declares God, "I make all things new."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-52683677871219771922026-04-26T11:42:00.000-04:002026-04-26T11:42:39.659-04:00Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3wjKERCDWyFyszZzJfhlSKuKStKGjOrFn9HRwO6yvViQ2UIajqu1sY6u764BoPU0tLggQ54QATA-KO0Q7_37Yqmrqfe3jf1G6xnYwUipQpQhDpnyWwvCigO2fD_9rcmMaC2pZHXRKxbt/s1600/Holy+Spirit+%255BBest+pic%255D+%255BWide%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Holy Spirit" border="0" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf3wjKERCDWyFyszZzJfhlSKuKStKGjOrFn9HRwO6yvViQ2UIajqu1sY6u764BoPU0tLggQ54QATA-KO0Q7_37Yqmrqfe3jf1G6xnYwUipQpQhDpnyWwvCigO2fD_9rcmMaC2pZHXRKxbt/w640-h357/Holy+Spirit+%255BBest+pic%255D+%255BWide%255D.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051026.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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The readings of this Mass impel me to reflect with you upon two things which are interior within us, two things that are mysterious and can be known only in their expression. One is love and the other is the Holy Spirit. Both cannot be really known in themselves; both are made real for us in their activity, in their expression, in their external manifestations that we bring into our lives in our responses to God’s love for us.<br />
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As we all know so very well, talk is cheap, and words are without meaning unless expressed in deeds. Love is not simply a nice feeling, a sentiment, or merely a warm emotion. Love becomes real in the decisions we make and in what we do. It is in its actions, actions that result from our choices, that love is realized.<br />
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Don’t get me wrong, the words of love are of extreme importance. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I love you.” In fact those three little words can be the most beautiful and powerful of all the words in a person’s life. It is vital for husbands to tell their wives that they love them. It is vital for wives to tell their husbands that they love them. It is vital for children to hear words of love from their moms and dads. But while the words are important the deeds are even more important, even of the essence.<br />
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And for friends, too. Friends should not be ashamed to openly declare their love for one another. When you’re told that you are loved a redemptive force is let loose inside you – a powerful force lifts you up out of feelings of depression, loneliness… feelings of being unappreciated and merely used. Probably more lives have been changed by those three little words than by all of the sermons ever preached.<br />
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Jesus did not discount the value of the verbal communication of love. He went beyond it. He knew that love is much more than mere words. In fact, He knew of love’s power to change the whole world, telling us even to love our enemies, and that if we truly did, the world would be radically changed. And then Jesus went on to prove it in the way He died for us, in the way He died to redeem our world, to buy it back from this world’s loveless miseries.<br />
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What a realist this Jesus is! We, however, are the ones who tend to make love unrealistic. We tend to make love into something soft, dreamy, and cheap, merely a feeling. If you think we don’t, then just take a look at what television does with love, and how Hollywood treats it. Jesus, on the other hand, defines love in terms that are strong, concrete, self-sacrificial, and very real. Love is action; love is a way of living; love is an attitude toward others that expresses God’s attitude toward others. And then Jesus went on to cry out: “The one who hears my words and keeps them is the one who loves me.” That’s how we know that we live and have our being in love.<br />
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The Holy Spirit, the Person of the Holy Trinity who is Love personified, acts internally within each one of us. The Holy Spirit is present within our hearts and souls, animating, vivifying, and inspiring us. We can never see the Holy Spirit as separate and apart — standing alone. The Holy Spirit lives and breathes within our souls. We see the Holy Spirit in our actions and in the actions of others.<br />
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The Bible assigns several different names to the Holy Spirit, identifying Him as the Consoler, the Advocate, the Sanctifier, and the Paraclete. As the bible presents Him, the Holy Spirit protects and defends us against our Ancient Enemy. He is our Advocate, the One who stands with us particularly when we feel worthless, useless, and of no value in God’s eyes. His consolations strengthen us when we feel weak, inadequate, and powerless.<br />
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The word “Paraclete” in Greek translates into English as “to be beside one”. The Holy Spirit stands beside us; He is our Advocate, our Counselor, and our Guide. Jesus bids us to look to the gifts of the Holy Spirit to work within us – Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, and Reverence for the Lord, Strength, and so forth. For us, He is the Empowering One given to us by the Risen Christ. The Evil One seeks to weaken us; the Holy Spirit strengthens us.<br />
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The Holy Spirit vivifies us and animates us, that is to say He enlivens us; He gives us a sharing in God’s life. He is beside us to defend us when we are depressed. When the sacraments of the devil beset us the Holy Spirit is our Advocate, our Counsel in order that we might defend ourselves.<br />
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And what are those sacraments of the devil? Well, they all begin with “d’s”, just as does the word devil. His sacraments (and there are seven of them) are doubt, disillusionment, discouragement, depression, defeat, despair and death. We need our Advocate, our Consoler, our Defender, our Paraclete, the “one called to be beside us” when we face doubt, disillusionment, discouragement, depression, defeat, despair and death, those works of the devil.<br />
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And just like love, we discern the Holy Spirit’s presence within us when we cause external things to happen – when we act and engage with the world around us. The Holy Spirit comes to us so that we in turn will stand beside others and console them with our deeds. <br />
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Love and the Holy Spirit – both cannot be known in and of themselves. Both are made present to us, made real for us. Both are realized in acts, in deeds, in things that are done. Both animate and vivify us, filling us with their special life. Both are expressions of God. God makes Himself real for us, expresses Himself, and becomes present to us in both love and in His Holy Spirit.<br />
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And so as we approach the Ascension of our Lord and the great Solemnity of Pentecost we should look to God with expectant faith while seeking for His great gift to us — the sending of His Holy Spirit into us, that same Spirit who raised the humanity of Jesus Christ from the dead and who can, if we respond to God, raise up ours also and the world around us.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-87296114025755513982026-04-20T11:40:00.000-04:002026-04-20T11:40:25.994-04:00Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyWAgCYNcmyfRB2pBec8yjimNFsOZTo_ZTfG-UPhHCkSkXX_SjkzbSaVmp8PpBpLqdmj_wIDmC29Q9ohTg_3oHZac6hqVf4M9-plmSfMQvvVY0opKtXxhVWx_hG-bSMRaDlzGyFYpLoNM3vwOZw3QTEjfLL-za4NAsjhFWBqgS6cS4KCyCaKZM24LAl0Y0/s736/Christ%20the%20vine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="736" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyWAgCYNcmyfRB2pBec8yjimNFsOZTo_ZTfG-UPhHCkSkXX_SjkzbSaVmp8PpBpLqdmj_wIDmC29Q9ohTg_3oHZac6hqVf4M9-plmSfMQvvVY0opKtXxhVWx_hG-bSMRaDlzGyFYpLoNM3vwOZw3QTEjfLL-za4NAsjhFWBqgS6cS4KCyCaKZM24LAl0Y0/w640-h392/Christ%20the%20vine.jpg" title="Christ the vine" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050326.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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Many people believe that living the Gospel message is unrealistic. Numerous times people have begun a conversation with me using the phrase: “Father, out there in the real world …” Their unspoken assumption is of course that because I am a priest I am somehow not in the real world.<br />
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History has given us a number of philosophers and thinkers who have told us that Jesus was a beautiful man, possessing tenderness of heart, infinite sweetness, and universal charm. In other words they are saying that Jesus was an idealist who saw and lived life in an idealistic dream world, not as it really is. They like to talk about Jesus, admiring His ethical code and His moral standards while at the same time they are locating Jesus out of this world, out of touch with reality.<br />
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I suspect there are some here in church who are here just now for a few moments of relief in order to get out of this world and enter a dream world of sweetness, vague poetry, and universal charm, a place of refuge from the world that is cold, hard, greedy and overly competitive. But the truth is that we are here in order to enter into the world. The truth is that God has sent His Son into the world with the purpose and mission of transforming it and redeeming it from within it and that in Christ God is sending us to do the same. How else do we understand the prayer: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?”<br />
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Just before He died we hear Our Blessed Lord telling His disciples: “I am the way, and the truth and the life.” This phrase was based on Christ’s understanding that He is utterly a realist. For Him, religion wasn’t a quiet side street, a sort of lovely garden or park in the middle of our metropolitan world. Oh, no! Christ was asserting that His way, His truth, and His understanding of life is the main road.<br />
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In fact it is the only road in this world that’s going anywhere. All other roads lead us into blind alleys and dead-ends. Christ’s declaration was not vague poetry, a beautiful novelty to be applauded and admired from a distance. It was the real thing; the only kind of living that ultimately works and has a true destination, one beyond even death itself.<br />
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As a matter of fact, Jesus believed His way was the cornerstone for all living. A cornerstone, we must remember, locates the site upon which a building will be constructed. It orients the direction toward which the building will face. It sets the characteristics of all the other stones that will surround it, along with their texture and their quality. All other stones are measured against the cornerstone. It is the essential stone which grounds the reality of the entire structure.<br />
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The worst thing about sin is not what it does to God, even though it put God’s Christ, God’s Anointed One, on the Cross and into the tomb. No, the worst thing about sin is what it does to the sinner. It brings pain, suffering and ruination to the sinner. Jesus told us the story about the young man who, in total prodigality, threw all restraint and responsibility to the winds, went out on his own willful way, and ended up in the pig pen of life. Jesus then went on to give us the only realistic thing to do with sin, namely to face it, acknowledge its existence, see it for what it is, repent of it, and then to accept healing forgiveness.<br />
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Anyone recovering from any sort of addiction, anyone who has found the only realistic way out of the hellish jail of compulsive addiction or alcoholism, will tell you about it only in the utter realism of recovery. There is no hope of recovery without realism, without ruthless and courageous honesty, without a total grasp of reality. Ask yourself this question: Are people living in successful recovery living in the real world or a dream world?<br />
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The Twelve steps for recovery are all radically grounded on the way, the truth and the life of Jesus. So are the fourth and fifth steps which require that we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and then admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. As a matter of fact, when you take a look at the fundamental process of psychiatric therapy you will recognize right away the fact that the road to recovery involves the taking of responsibility for one’s actions and then seeking a healthy resolution for what we’ve done. And in what do we find that resolution? We find it in taking ownership of our decisions and in seeking forgiveness.<br />
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Years ago <i>TIME </i>magazine published an article in which Dr. James Tucker Fisher, an esteemed American psychiatrist declared: “If you were to take the sum total of all the authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists, if you took the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these bits of knowledge concisely expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount.”<br />
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Let me suggest now that if you were to make a short summation of the way and the truth and the life of Jesus Christ you would speak of living together as members of His family. He gave us His Father. He died on the Cross giving us His mother. He declared that we are His brothers and sisters. And He asked us to live each day in a conscious decision to live out our lives in the relationships that are those that are proper to living in His family and under the care of His Father and His mother.<br />
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In this fragmented, hostile, and broken world of ours, a world filled with broken hearts, broken promises, broken trusts, and broken families, in this world that is more and more littered with damaged human hearts and souls, in a world with an ever increasing culture of destruction and death, what is more realistic, to live as Hollywood TV producers depict us in their so-called “reality” shows, or to live in the family in which Jesus Christ invites us to share life?<br />
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When anyone declares to you that Jesus was an idealistic dreamer, a man of “infinite sweetness, vague poetry, and universal charm,” when anyone talks to you about religion as if its purpose is only to mold us to live politely and to have good manners, then realize that such a person is only fooling you. He is himself “utterly unrealistic about life.” God expects much more from us than that.<br />
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Jesus told it like it really is: “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” Living in truth and living in love make demands on us, demands that require the courage of faith and the sacrifices of love.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-42706847822342190922026-04-17T09:31:00.001-04:002026-04-20T11:39:19.711-04:00Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter, April 26, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNek_NOYITp5OFn_4_wgv28K46pGox_7P_asHD_TRdO5ZNEk9nFDV68iHavAa-Mp-seq-_3k_OUTiIpf4PnHoJNn5W3CMjx1zeUWjhyXrZO649IF_pxMWtkr9XmFH848bnGARcF6hxn34CW-RxQzCB8qBLHsc4MEbHcO4sdQhQiqGylYNhwVh5Gqa8tMEd/s660/Christ%20as%20the%20Good%20Shepherd%20%5BMosaic%5D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="660" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNek_NOYITp5OFn_4_wgv28K46pGox_7P_asHD_TRdO5ZNEk9nFDV68iHavAa-Mp-seq-_3k_OUTiIpf4PnHoJNn5W3CMjx1zeUWjhyXrZO649IF_pxMWtkr9XmFH848bnGARcF6hxn34CW-RxQzCB8qBLHsc4MEbHcO4sdQhQiqGylYNhwVh5Gqa8tMEd/w640-h340/Christ%20as%20the%20Good%20Shepherd%20%5BMosaic%5D.jpg" title="Christ as the Good Shepherd [Mosaic]" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042626.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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Back in Jesus’ time everyone knew about shepherds, their sheep, and how they interacted with each other. The dynamics between them were well known. Not so today. Few of us have watched shepherds tending their sheep. So to understand the full impact of the imagery that Jesus used we need to take a look at a few points.<br />
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During nights back then shepherds kept their sheep in sheepfolds that were large circles of stones that both penned in the sheep while at the same time protecting them from predatory animals such as wolves. There was a narrow opening to let the sheep in and out. At night the shepherd would spread his bedroll across the base of the opening and would sleep there. Predatory animals could enter the sheepfold only by crossing over the body of the shepherd and so of course they would not.<br />
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Additionally, there were times when the sheep belonging to differing shepherds would get mixed in with each other. But that didn’t pose much of a problem because the sheep of each shepherd recognized their own shepherd’s voice and would follow only him. No need for painting-colored dyes on the sheep — voice recognition was enough.<br />
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Shepherds knew of verdant grazing fields and so they would walk ahead of their sheep and lead them to pastures where the sheep would find good food. In the movement, however, sometimes a sheep or two would go off on their own and become lost. Being out on their own they would be easy kills for wolves and other predatory animals. So long as they stayed in the flock, however, they were safe. So the shepherd would leave the flock for a while and go in search of the sheep that strayed and was lost.<br />
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Now let me repeat the teaching Jesus was giving to His disciples.<br />
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Jesus said: <i>“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, </i><i>he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them. So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”</i><br />
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We should ask ourselves: “Whose voice am I following?” Some of us listen to only our own inner voice. Nobody, we tell ourselves, can tell me what to do or what to believe. Others of us listen to the seductive whispers of the world. Still others pay little attention to any call other than their urges, drives, or desires. We all know that many voices call us and we need to be aware of them, where they are coming from, and where they will lead us.<br />
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Today I want to give some attention to how we can discern and listen to the voice of our Good Shepherd. How does God speak to us?<br />
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First of all, you need to expect that God can reach you. Many don’t. But how can God communicate with you if you don’t think He can? Nevertheless, He is trying to!<br />
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Think of the good things that have come to you, the good things that you have experienced. Aren’t they from God? On the opposite side, if you have experienced remorse, have you ever considered that it may be God whose voice is reaching you in your remorse? Conscience, after all, literally means “to know with.” Remorse is knowing that you have done something that displeases God and that He is telling you that you can do better. Cannot the voice of penance and regret deep within us be inspired by God?<br />
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Prayer is essential. Prayer places your soul at the disposal of God. Prayer can bring us to be reflective, to contemplate, to see and hear the actions and whisperings of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we are reflective we gain insights – we see things and we see people as God wants us to see them. Is that not God calling us, God speaking to us?<br />
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The Holy Spirit is quite capable of inspiring our imaginations and inner thoughts. If we don’t accept the Holy Spirit’s power and ability to inspire our inner thoughts and dispositions, then we are saying that God cannot or will not reach us. In our silent attentiveness the gentle whisperings of the Holy Spirit can be heard deep within us.<br />
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God also speaks to us in the beauty and majesty of creation. Moments when we are filled with awe and wonder over nature’s beauty are moments when God is speaking to us. We ought not to be deaf to what God is sharing with us.<br />
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Then there is the example of good people along with their words, their attitudes, and their dispositions. These, too, are ways in which God speaks to us.<br />
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Much depends upon your basic disposition toward God. Do you really believe that God is angry with you, that He wants to inflict punishing pain and suffering upon you, or do you believe that God loves you, knows you can do better, and wants to free you from guilt and lead do to do better, even wonderful, things? Your basic dispositions control what you hear and what you do not hear. Is God really silent or are you deaf to His voice?<br />
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To be sure, each one of us has been like a wandering and lost sheep. If we’re fixated on that and feel totally lost, then we will not see our Good Shepherd coming after us to carry us on His shoulders back into the fold from which we have wandered.<br />
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Do you think God cares for you? Do you think that God can reach you? If so, then you will understand what today’s Gospel is telling you. But understanding is only the beginning. What is necessary is for you to let God find you, tell you of His love for you, and then let Him carry you back to where you belong.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-32015664949263100192026-04-06T09:14:00.000-04:002026-04-06T09:14:37.025-04:00Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwSJR_FJbP2iGCNwgbRJ3WVbtb_6v6Z5L6wo6EEjDvZLAP71nCGKtryILOXtfRSPFYf6ehKBo0yYVrJbbfvHqkwL7ZbJVrq-IB8I-hJexFVHS5fiGg_ol85yb-yhzYNuAt6f6E1rgpzp9g/s1600/The+Breaking+of+Bread+at+Emmaus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Encounter with Christ on the Road to Emmaus" border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="753" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwSJR_FJbP2iGCNwgbRJ3WVbtb_6v6Z5L6wo6EEjDvZLAP71nCGKtryILOXtfRSPFYf6ehKBo0yYVrJbbfvHqkwL7ZbJVrq-IB8I-hJexFVHS5fiGg_ol85yb-yhzYNuAt6f6E1rgpzp9g/w640-h357/The+Breaking+of+Bread+at+Emmaus.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Fr. Charles Irvin<br />Diocese of Lansing<br />
<br /><div style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041926.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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Last Sunday’s Gospel account was about the disciples who were huddled in the Upper Room behind locked doors out of fear, and Jesus’ appearance among them. Today’s Gospel account is about another appearance of Jesus, this time with other disciples who were dejectedly walking from Jerusalem to a nearby hamlet called Emmaus.<br />
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St. Augustine along with others of the Fathers of the Church suggest that Jesus didn’t want the disciples to recognize Him right away, that He wanted them to recognize Him in “the breaking of the bread.” Moreover Jesus, they believed, wanted the disciples to see and understand what the Jewish prophets had foretold in Scripture about how the Messiah was to be recognized. Hence Jesus spent some significant time opening up the Scriptures so they might see them in a new light, His light, and then recognize Him.<br />
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We can easily overlook the importance Jesus placed on Scripture. He repeatedly spoke of it and quoted from it. We should recall that He was discussing it with the Jewish teachers and leaders when Joseph and Mary found Him as a boy in the Temple. Again and again He taught that He did not want to do away with the Jewish scriptures but rather wanted to fulfill all that was found in the teachings of the prophets.<br />
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We find Jesus in today’s Gospel account again fulfilling what was written in the Old Testament about the Messiah. It must have been quit enlightening because at the end of today’s episode we hear the disciples exclaim: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” [Luke 24:32]<br />
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As an aside I want to point out here that the Catholic Church is often accused of not relying on scripture. Catholics are told that their Church doesn’t feed them and nourish them with the bible. We should note, however, that each and every celebration of the Mass is divided into the two principal parts, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Liturgy of the Word always begins with a passage from the Old Testament followed by a reading from one of the Epistles and then a Gospel reading. How can it be said that the Catholic Church doesn’t nourish you with God’s Word from Scripture? Note, too, that there is always a thematic connection, a connection of ideas, between the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading.<br />
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To me, the thing that is the most important point in today’s account revolves around how the disciples came to recognize Jesus. We find this group of disciples at first failing to recognize Jesus and then in the end coming to recognize Him. What happened? Why did they at first think He was a stranger and later come to realize who He really was?<br />
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You and I have had the experience of hearing what someone is telling us but not really listening to what they are saying. Similarly we have had the experience of seeing someone, looking at them, but not recognizing them for who they really are. This can be due to our own inattentiveness, or it can be due to the fact that the one we are looking at doesn’t want to be recognized in the way we expect.<br />
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What we’re talking about here is God’s way of reveling Himself to us. This is not simply a matter of blindness vs. sight; it’s about revelation and understanding.<br />
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You and I are much like those disciples on the road to Emmaus talking as they were about all of the terrible events they had experienced during the previous days in Jerusalem, about the betrayal of Judas, the hatred the religious authorities held against Jesus, and perhaps even about Pilate’s question: “Truth? What is truth?”<br />
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We need to, as they needed to, pay attention to whether we are hearing what people tell us vs. really listening to what they are saying. Additionally, we need to ask whether we are seeing those around us without recognizing who they really are.<br />
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We are presently living in dark times. We are awash in changes. Tsunami-like changes are sweeping over us as we begin this new millennium, drowning us under a deluge of fears. On the economic side of things, globalization is taking away our jobs; the mortgage mess is eroding our economy while reducing our home values; our savings accounts are being depleted, and the value of the dollar is plummeting as energy costs soar.<br />
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All of these events have a major effect on our feelings and emotions, particularly the feelings of fear that can hold us hostage. In the social arena we face problems such as the wave of illegal immigrations, racism, major leakage from church attendance, and our changing understanding of what it means to be a family. We all need to pause, to reflect, and ask ourselves what we are really hearing and what we are really seeing.<br />
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We are much like those disciples walking along on the road to Emmaus, concerned over the events in our lives. What brought them to recognize Jesus was “the breaking of the bread.” Their minds were immediately taken back to the Upper Room and the Last Supper, connecting that with the broken and bloody body of Jesus hanging on His cross.<br />
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Can we learn to recognize Jesus in human brokenness? That’s the key; that’s what opens our eyes to His presence among us. When we encounter people with broken hearts, Jesus is there. When we try to offer comfort to someone with a broken spirit, Jesus is there. When we encounter someone who is experiencing loss, pain, and suffering, Jesus is there. Isn’t that what Jesus was telling us when He taught us about the judgment we will receive when we die? He will ask us if we recognized Him in human brokenness: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”[Matthew 25:35-36]<br />
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The mystery of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection isn’t something that simply took place long ago. No. It is on-going; it is going on in our days. True, we live in times when men and women have sinned, and our own sins have obscured the face of Christ. At times He is not recognized in our world and at times even when He is recognized there are many who seek to get rid of Him. Nailing Him to the Cross is something that is still happening.<br />
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But it is there that He reveals Himself. It is in suffering and broken humanity that He is present. It is there that He is to be revered. And it is from there that we receive the promise of Easter – resurrection and new life.<br />
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We are all walking our own roads through life. Can we — will we — like the disciples, recognize that Jesus is walking with us? Will we recognize Him in “the breaking of the bread”?</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-84729090914707072242026-04-06T09:04:00.000-04:002026-04-06T09:04:06.397-04:00Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday), April 12, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXGn1FuWzrhRHFV8mQFjBLsAr2CMHR0zu0qsiohLCjyw4UQ1Zd2pAQnRPRSctn-eegF49Asvi4D_wW3F6NWP4iLDgkXoSRsXJ4BBFAWhSR5DyQ8NeXsJQtV1-c3tDgF7o_lHmk1aieHWzJb2WCDBVijboYQACLa6lbNyWqKyvGgryDMJAdn76JzHnQP_T/s400/Christ%20appears%20to%20Disciples.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Christ appears to the disciples in the upper room" border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="400" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXGn1FuWzrhRHFV8mQFjBLsAr2CMHR0zu0qsiohLCjyw4UQ1Zd2pAQnRPRSctn-eegF49Asvi4D_wW3F6NWP4iLDgkXoSRsXJ4BBFAWhSR5DyQ8NeXsJQtV1-c3tDgF7o_lHmk1aieHWzJb2WCDBVijboYQACLa6lbNyWqKyvGgryDMJAdn76JzHnQP_T/w640-h474/Christ%20appears%20to%20Disciples.jpg" title="Christ appears to the disciples in the upper room, Duccio-di-Buoninse-1308" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041226.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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At the Last Supper, shortly before He suffered and died on the Cross, Jesus gave us the stupendous gift of His Body and Blood, now really and truly present to us in the Eucharist. He gave us this gift at the very core of His redemptive sacrifice for us. Then, when He rose from the dead, His very first act was to breathe out the Holy Spirit upon His apostles and into His Church. “Peace be with you,” He said to them. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” What does that mean for us? <br />
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Our Church leads us now into what we might call “The time of the handing over of the Spirit.” To examine the significance of that time let’s return to God’s first breathing forth His Holy Spirit, that life-giving creative act of God that we find in the first verses in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. There we find God’s Spirit “brooding over the waters” bringing light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and life to all of God’s creatures. Creation was brought about by God’s Holy Spirit. “Veni Creator Spiritus” we sing in the words of that famous hymn we all know. <br />
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In the fullness of time, Christ Jesus was conceived in the womb of the Virgin “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descended upon Jesus signifying that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Anointed One, the One anointed by God’s Holy Spirit. At the beginning of His public ministry Jesus was led out into the desert by the Spirit, there to be tempted by and to defeat the Devil. When He died on the Cross St. John tells us that Christ handed over His Spirit. Each one of us is now destined to be a temple of God’s Holy Spirit. <br />
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It can be fairly said that the reason why Jesus was born among us and the reason why He died on the Cross was to give us God’s Holy Spirit, God’s holy presence, a presence that was lost when Adam and Eve separated themselves from God in the Garden of Eden. In going to His apostles immediately after He rose from the dead, Christ Jesus was restoring God’s presence to us once again, God’s personal, life-giving, and loving presence –God’s special presence given to us now as His forgiven prodigal children. What was lost in the Garden of Eden is now restored in the Garden of the Resurrection. <br />
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What are the elements within that presence; what is the nature of that presence? Well, certainly it is not a passive presence. On the contrary it is a dynamic, creating, moving, and energizing presence. Above all it is a sanctifying presence – we are made whole again, made whole with God. We are once again made holy, holier even than Adam and Eve… holier because, through Christ, God’s Holy Spirit is not simply present next to us or around us but lives now within us. <br />
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Who among us has never asked for a second chance? Who among us has never said: “Give me a break, give me another chance”? Who has never asked God for another chance? That’s what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is all about. That is why God in Christ has given us a chance at starting over again, a chance given us when God restores us into the innocence we once had when we were baptized. <br />
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Theologians tell us that Jesus Christ was sent to us with the ministry of reconciliation. God comes to us again, this time not in the Garden of Eden but in the Garden of the Resurrection. Risen from the dead, God the Son goes to His apostles and confers upon us the power to start over again. Moments ago in the Gospel account we heard: The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them…”<br />
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St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians tells us: So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2Cor 5:17-19) <br />
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The passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us the account of God starting out all over again putting the Garden of Eden behind us and giving us a second chance and new life in the Garden of the Resurrection. <br />
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All of this is accomplished because God sent His only begotten Son to us in Christ Jesus to give us His life-giving and creating Holy Spirit, fashioning us as a new creation, making us over anew, answering all of our prayers for another chance. <br />
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The time of the handing over of the Spirit culminates in Pentecost. Dying on the Cross, Jesus “handed over His Spirit,” St. John tells us. The first act of Jesus after He rose from the dead was to give His Spirit to His apostles. At Pentecost they were confirmed in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit so they might put their fears behind them and go out into the world, into our world, and share God’s recreating, life-giving, reconciling, forgiving, and healing Holy Spirit with you and with me. <br />
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It is sometimes said that one religion is as good as another, that it doesn’t matter what religion one belongs to. I think it does matter. It really matters because I don’t find what Jesus did for us — giving us the power of forgiveness — present in any other religion. The handing over of the Spirit is for the forgiveness of our sins, it restores us to God’s life again. It is found uniquely in our wonderful Sacrament of Reconciliation. That matters… that really matters. In what other religion can you find that? <br />
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One final note. Since God has been so infinitely generous in giving us this gift, a gift that comes to us through the terrible suffering and death of His Christ, ought not we be generous in sharing our forgiveness with those around us who have sinned against us? <br />
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If we feel we don’t have the strength and power within us to do so we should remember that God has given us the strength and power to forgive. For the gift we have been given is not ours to keep, it is a gift God has given to us in order that we might share it with others. We have the power of the Holy Spirit within us to do so. May we offer the world around us the hope and the joy that, because of Jesus Christ, is found in the power to forgive. It is one of the greatest and most necessary gifts we have to share with all those in our world around us.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-15170116320723037862026-04-01T10:24:00.000-04:002026-04-01T10:24:16.334-04:00Homily for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHkwJzZ_GU906KQcft_ddD8mw3T42wlOMGEhw0P__6iJl2eaOphsYE7vItC0FkRoKkK_AgIMz8Grabp8TnFh_8fm7aOiUjZW95Q605_cLp8MJ1WfHIPHi8SaFdZwF2Fg_l0GhyphenhyphenxpSqV2JKVajtLl-pTJY47uZ-9pl-Z6iGPb3lttm_LceDzx7VFqorgfj/s800/Resurrection%20of%20Jesus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Resurrection" border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="800" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZHkwJzZ_GU906KQcft_ddD8mw3T42wlOMGEhw0P__6iJl2eaOphsYE7vItC0FkRoKkK_AgIMz8Grabp8TnFh_8fm7aOiUjZW95Q605_cLp8MJ1WfHIPHi8SaFdZwF2Fg_l0GhyphenhyphenxpSqV2JKVajtLl-pTJY47uZ-9pl-Z6iGPb3lttm_LceDzx7VFqorgfj/w640-h600/Resurrection%20of%20Jesus.jpg" title="Resurrection, Raffaellino del Garbo, c. 1498" width="640" /></a></div><br />Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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All of us have been hurt in one way or another. All of us have been held in the grip of pain… have been unable to rid ourselves of resentments. We have a sense of loneliness within us, the feeling of being isolated and that nobody cares. We feel separate, alone, and alienated. Added to these is a sense of fear for our future looming over us all. In the midst of all this we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead with its promise that our own Good Fridays will be followed by Easter Sundays. The Church presents us with that gift from God; she does not give us what is merely wishful thinking. <br />
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The story of Adam and Eve is constructed in such a way that immediately following their sin they recognized that they were naked. Their nakedness was something far more profound than mere physical nakedness. They recognized at a much deeper level that they were exposed — vulnerable, alienated, ashamed, isolated from God, stripped of the dignity of God’s grace. They were profoundly naked because they realized that they were no longer clothed in God’s good graces. It was in the nakedness of shame that they recognized themselves and saw themselves. They saw themselves as undesirable, unattractive – separated and alone like all of us who have felt the emptiness of loneliness, of being distanced from love; cut off from the warmth of friendship; isolated; having no one to love us… save only our own little and quite unsatisfying selves. <br />
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That’s precisely what sin does to us. It makes us miserable; it fills us with loneliness; it fills us with the awful awareness that we are quite inadequate; that we just don’t have the right stuff to be decent, that we lack moral courage and are not strong enough to pay the price for doing good. Sin makes us know the weakness, the inner weakness, of being inadequate to the task of doing only those things that are decent, right and good and give us self-respect. <br />
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During the liturgy of Good Friday, we were given a reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. The quote was taken from Isaiah 52, and it read: “We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way.” That, to my way of thinking, is at the core of our modern cultural sickness, our modern spiritual malaise… we have each gone off following our own individual way. We are victims of the delusion that we can do anything we want, anywhere we want, with whomever we want, and as often as we want. Furthermore, through our science and technology we have unlocked the secrets of the universe; we have almost unlimited power over nature, over the earth itself, over our world, and we are even projecting our power out into space, into the surrounding cosmos. It can be safely said that we certainly have power over our world and over nature to an extent never heretofore known to mortal men and women. <br />
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But to what avail — for what purpose? Are we not now more isolated and lonely than the men and women who have lived before us? Are we not more naked and exposed? Have we not rejected what used to be known as the Common Good in favor of asserting our own individual and personal rights over those we used to hold and share in common? Do not men and women today even claim a personal right over human life? As I understand it, that is precisely what the debate is over abortion and euthanasia is all about – the claim of personal right over human life, the projection of human will over the will of God. <br />
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“We have all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way”, Isaiah tells us. But we need no prophet to tell us that today. We ourselves know it to be true – we know it deep down, within. What we fail to see is that we are victims of our own making. <br />
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Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, victim no longer. His glorious, Spirit-filled risen humanity is no longer held in the tomb of shame, isolation and loneliness. He is risen that you and I might walk in the glorious freedom and dignity of the sons and daughters of God – clothed and no longer naked. Through the power of God’s Holy Spirit we can “put on Christ” as St. Paul bids us, put on the risen Christ. We can clothe ourselves in Christ’s way of living, in His truth, and in His Spirit-filled, resurrected life. We need no longer feel the shame and the nakedness of living with nothing but our own arrogance; of having nothing to clothe us more than our own self-will (which is transparently nothing other than our own self-delusion). <br />
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Christ’s victory can be our victory. He calls us, He invites us, He bids us to live anew with His risen Body and Blood mingled with ours. From His pierced side there flowed forth water and blood, which is to say that Baptism and Holy Communion came forth from his pierced side as He hung upon the Cross and emptied Himself, freely, of His own choice, giving over His life, for us. <br />
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“We have all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way”, Isaiah prophesied. And we know that we have. But we need no longer live each following his or her own way. We have a common union, a holy communion of shared human life in which we can live. We can live as living cells in a fantastically beautiful and powerful Mystical Body of Jesus Christ risen from the dead. We need no longer be imprisoned within the tombs of emotional darkness and spiritual death. We need no longer have our minds pierced by the excruciatingly painful crowns of thorns that we crush into our skulls and pierce into our minds. We need no longer live as victims in painful lives that we have, of our doing, fashioned for ourselves. We need no longer live as victims in moral relativism, in the tombs of subjectivism, in the absence of Truth, and in the painful isolation of our own self-declared omnipotence. <br />
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Jesus Christ is risen, victim no more, that you and I might be victims no more. We have His truth in which we can live, and we can live it together in a holy communion of life; we can live free of the hell of each following his or her own isolated way. <br />
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This is the great gift that the Church has to offer the modern world, the gift of freedom from the hell of our solitary confinement. We can receive Christ’s gift of living together in a common purpose, the gift of living together in shared meaning, in shared lives of caring for others; the gift of living together clothed in the enormous dignity of the sons and daughters of God, engaged in the glorious task of revealing the presence of His kingdom in our world. <br />
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Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, victim no longer. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and now lives in you and in me. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead in order that you and I might rise to a new and better and higher life. <br />
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Praise the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, <br />
both now and forever, <br />
the God who is, who was and is yet to come<br />
at the end of the ages. <br />
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May Easter’s victory be your blessing, a blessing you can share with your loved ones both now and forever.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-26372703965007462752026-03-23T10:44:00.000-04:002026-03-23T10:44:47.265-04:00Homily for Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBgg5-HhmsJG4YdAXt_SYGyCDtH-AjoXwuA5NILso7Cq1h53kOxbPoTsdY7ckiXpEjdgFh7J3bfTmysd8Gft8q7v2uZrRTwLLpVXHeVk6SPS7Hld_27YrsvrYpUPzwY94hiw30Q3iTcCC0aQp9ln0TwHw7OezNbq_47p9HojvT_2_gP0wLkbwA8wp762j/s546/Jesus%20enters%20Jerusalem%20up%20close.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jesus enters Jerusalem" border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="546" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFBgg5-HhmsJG4YdAXt_SYGyCDtH-AjoXwuA5NILso7Cq1h53kOxbPoTsdY7ckiXpEjdgFh7J3bfTmysd8Gft8q7v2uZrRTwLLpVXHeVk6SPS7Hld_27YrsvrYpUPzwY94hiw30Q3iTcCC0aQp9ln0TwHw7OezNbq_47p9HojvT_2_gP0wLkbwA8wp762j/w640-h466/Jesus%20enters%20Jerusalem%20up%20close.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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Blood is life-giving; it is the essential element in sustaining us in life. Babies the womb receive oxygen and nutrients from their mothers’ blood. When natural disasters occur the Red Cross appeals for blood donors. During surgeries it sustains patients in life. In many cultures the bonding of people is sealed in rituals that mingle blood. In all cultures blood has a deeply religious significance.<br />
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When God brought the Hebrew people out of their slavery in Egypt, the blood of sacrificed lambs marked their homes, and they were spared the punishment that fell upon their Egyptian captors. Later, on Mt. Sinai, when God bound Himself to His people, Moses offered animal sacrifices and then took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Moses then took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” (Exodus 24:6-8)<br />
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As we enter now into Holy Week, blood and the cup of suffering are the centerpiece of God’s saving and life-giving actions. In the blood of Christ which flowed from His crucified body we are liberated from the ultimate consequences of our sins if we follow in the way of Peter and not in the way of Judas. God offers, we respond, and everything depends upon our response.<br />
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The importance for us of St. Matthew’s account of Our Blessed Lord’s passion, suffering, and death cannot be overstated. Today and this week our Church takes us to the core of God’s forgiving and self-emptying love for us. At the Last Supper as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”<br />
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How will we respond to Him? Can we and will we accept God’s forgiveness? Judas did not. Peter at first could not but later he did. Pontius Pilate tried to wash his hands of it, denying responsibility. The Jewish leaders accepted responsibility. “His death is upon us and upon our children,” they declared. Many people in Jerusalem at that time simply didn’t care; they couldn’t be bothered. What about us?<br />
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When we drink of the cup, the cup of suffering, we have our own opportunity to drink of God’s life-giving force that empowers us to face this world’s unfairness and injustices. The harsh truth is that millions of innocent people suffer. The harsh truth is that Jesus Christ, God’s own Son, was innocent and unjustly suffered terrible rejection and pain. Instead of allowing himself to be imprisoned in resentment and hatred, he walked the path leading to redemption and resurrection.<br />
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What about us; do we enter into the passion and death of Christ? Or do we simply not care and not be bothered? God offers; what is your choice?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-29730491804716852772026-03-23T10:43:00.000-04:002026-03-23T10:43:20.638-04:00Homily for the 5th Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJp5Ht3dY1E653AXaDoGSnEZS8XcOsjaAk3EACMF1WYwOaBuy5JwmV9OJ43KS9_h3dQhxbakXw-Ob3ryYJ40DXfHwvV2jy8Xxnc4HfqDf2l4CNl5dKm722FB06doELOOXZXQy91kuPtMan-ydXCcAcfg_DwLqZ0naYgW9AJWrzDBdawhsVRxxCsTj9S2w/s586/Orthodox%20Icon%20Resurrection%20Of%20Lazarus%20Detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Orthodox Icon Resurrection Of Lazarus" border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="586" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJp5Ht3dY1E653AXaDoGSnEZS8XcOsjaAk3EACMF1WYwOaBuy5JwmV9OJ43KS9_h3dQhxbakXw-Ob3ryYJ40DXfHwvV2jy8Xxnc4HfqDf2l4CNl5dKm722FB06doELOOXZXQy91kuPtMan-ydXCcAcfg_DwLqZ0naYgW9AJWrzDBdawhsVRxxCsTj9S2w/w640-h610/Orthodox%20Icon%20Resurrection%20Of%20Lazarus%20Detail.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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All of us, I am sure, have read recent accounts about the decline of interest in religion among Americans. A recent survey reports that 20% of Americans have no religious affiliations at all and feel no need of God or belief in God. It seems they feel that they are self-sufficient; God is not necessary.<br />
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So why are we here? Our motives are many and mixed. Some are here in their need seeking God’s help. Some are here seeking God’s forgiveness, others out of love of God, others out of thanksgiving for all that God has done for them. Some are here simply out of a sense of duty and others out of mere habit. All of us are looking forward to everlasting life with God in heaven.<br />
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In the opening prayer of today’s Mass, we heard the words: “Help us to embrace the world that you have given us, that we may transform the darkness of its pain into the life and joy of Easter.”<br />
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In the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel we heard: “<i>Thus says the LORD GOD: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them…”</i><br />
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Well, what does this mean for us, living out our lives as we do in 2017 America?<br />
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To answer that I would pay some attention to what we frequently hear, namely the spirit of defeat often quoted in our newspapers and which sometimes infects our own hearts and thoughts. Fortunately there are words of optimism coming from many people who surround us countering those transmitting a spirit of defeat. Perhaps some of our own sons and daughters, nieces or nephews, relatives or friends, speak of how awful life is, or about how much they are life’s victims. They blame other people for being so mean to them, they blame their depression in the economy, they talk about their own lack of fulfillment, they tell us they’re getting nothing out of life, and so forth. Doubt, disillusionment, discouragement, and depression hold many people in bondage.<br />
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What are the causes of this defeatism? Well there are many of course. But here I would like to examine four of them and then turn to what we can do about them.<br />
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The first source of defeat for so many people is what I call extremism. It’s the sort of attitude that converts what is really happening only occasionally into something they claim is <i>always</i> happening. “I always goof. I never do anything right,” we hear them say. “People always take advantage of me.” These words and similar phrases are symptomatic of the spiritual condition such people are in. These thoughts come from a way of looking at life that is either extremely idealistic or else extremely pessimistic. They see life as either one or the other, not balanced. Defeat is guaranteed them because they do not have a balanced view of what really happens in life. Life isn’t “either-or,” “black or white,” “all or nothing.” In reality, life is a complicated mixture of many factors and forces.<br />
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The second source of defeat comes from the sort of mentality that continually makes comparisons. This outlook dooms one into never thinking that one has enough. This kind of person is forever comparing his or her lot in life with people who are better off. Someone else is better looking, has more money, lives in a better house, has a better job, and so on. Depression is guaranteed them; defeatism finally takes over. This is one of the major sources of defeat and frustration in our culture today. The entire advertising industry is built on the business of comparing yourself to others so that you will buy their advertised product and then be as wonderfully happy as others are.<br />
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A third source of defeat that infests many souls is what is called “passive resignation.” We simply surrender ourselves to our feelings and then call it “fate.” Phrases like the following are its telltale signs: “Well, that’s just my lot in life,” “I was never destined to do any better,” “That’s life, and I might just as well accept it,” “It’s God’s will that I suffer,” and so forth.<br />
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The final source of defeat which I’d like to point out is too much reliance on self and the things of this world, and not enough reliance on faith in Christ and the things of God. The underlying problem is a lack of real belief that God can or will do anything to help me. Either we think we’re not worthy because we’re too evil, or else we think that God really doesn’t care because He never seems answer our prayers anyway. The result is that we make the hidden assumption that if we’re going to be happy and successful in life, we’ve got to achieve it ourselves because God won’t take care of us until we get to heaven… if in fact we do get there.<br />
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In the face of all this, God’s Word in today’s readings comes to us with a challenging question.<br />
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That question hits each one of us. I want you to seriously listen now to God’s question and think about your answer to it. The question is this: “What is your heart wrapped around?” Put another way: “What is the thought that’s constantly on your mind? What continually absorbs your attention? For thus says the Lord: <i>“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See, I am doing something new!”</i> God wants us to see things afresh, not in our usual ways but rather in His renewing ways.<br />
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You see, we must begin to think now of what can be in our future and stop thinking about what has been in our past. All of the Sacraments are the acts of God in Christ. The Sacraments are not merely symbols, nor did men invent them merely to be pretty ceremonies. Sacraments are the acts of God Himself in Christ reaching out to make things fresh and new for us. Baptism is a Sacrament of beginning a new life for us. The Sacrament of Reconciliation gives us a fresh start, a new beginning, and a new lease on life. Matrimony, Ordination, Anointing of the Sick… all are opportunities for us to pick-up on life where we left off, if only we will let God do His work in us, if only we will do things with Him in His ways.<br />
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Really, then, what is defeat for us? When you get right down to it, nothing can defeat us except the spirit of defeatism. We recall that in the bottom of the Great Depression in the 1930′ s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt cried out: “We have nothing to fear except fear itself:” And we know Roosevelt was right. Once our national self-confidence was restored and once we shook off the spirit of defeatism and isolationism, those two great works of the devil designed to make us weak and impotent, we then began to come out of our depression.<br />
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The same is true in our own personal and individual lives. For Easter is the religious and theological statement that, for the Christian, there is really no ultimate defeat. To be sure we shall suffer temporary setbacks. And to be sure we shall suffer in the future. But defeat? We should see that because of Christ’s Easter Resurrection we can never be totally defeated. What is required is that we stop constantly feeling sorry for ourselves and let our faith in God replace our own lack of faith in our selves.<br />
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Am I preoccupied by my own failures and misfortunes? Is my heart wrapped up in the illusory comfort of feeling sorry for myself? Am I passively resigned to my fate in life? Well, now is the time to throw open the doors of that self-made prison. The stone has been rolled back from the tomb of poor Lazarus. Christ has commanded that he be released from all that bound him up, and then set him free.<br />
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The same is true for you. Christ has rolled back the imprisoning stones that entomb our hearts. It’s time to go free because God in Christ wants us, like poor Lazarus, to be free, to be happy, and to enjoy life. He wants to us walk in the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God.<br />
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Defeatism is the sacrament of the devil, along with his other sacraments of doubt, depression, and disillusionment. For if we walk with Christ and join our passion and suffering into His, then we can walk away from all in life that’s cold, dead, dreary, depressing, and all that which leads us into the hell of our own defeatism.<br />
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“Remember not,” your God says to you now, “the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See, I am doing something new.” This Easter, let God do something new within you. The Resurrection is God’s promise that we can have a new life.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-76543673033113646472026-03-23T10:40:00.000-04:002026-03-23T10:40:20.702-04:00Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent, (Laetare Sunday), March 15, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFHfgt2lXCL055C5-8whp_LKbQdXoLdR9Le6fj0auk-Zeyv6sQo0uUqlYOmCIC68WA6w526L-YerorQF0Esw0mHWAiTp__3a_lExT7wzUOypUQOBrIr6mq6pOtODzF3XC0Acvb59XK2-OWHJ6lW8k6gTUrYmBO1ypGe8lAlRnU4Of2QlNyKAr4OFllIvT/s956/the%20Blind%20Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jesus heals a man blind from birth." border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="956" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFHfgt2lXCL055C5-8whp_LKbQdXoLdR9Le6fj0auk-Zeyv6sQo0uUqlYOmCIC68WA6w526L-YerorQF0Esw0mHWAiTp__3a_lExT7wzUOypUQOBrIr6mq6pOtODzF3XC0Acvb59XK2-OWHJ6lW8k6gTUrYmBO1ypGe8lAlRnU4Of2QlNyKAr4OFllIvT/w640-h342/the%20Blind%20Man.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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We have all heard the phrase “Seeing is believing.” The idea comes, I suppose, from skeptical people who won’t believe anything is real or anything is true unless and until they see it for themselves.<br />
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In today’s Gospel account the phrase “Seeing is believing” is paradoxically both proved and disproved. It is proved by the blind man eventually seeing Jesus and acknowledging that indeed Jesus is “from God.” The blind man recognized Jesus for who He is. The Pharisees, on the other hand, men who were sighted, did not or would not see Jesus for who He is. The blind man could see, the sighted Pharisees were blind. Seeing, they would not believe.<br />
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In this Gospel account Jesus gives us some additional clues as to who He really is. You will recall that in the Book of Genesis we find God creating us from “the slime of the earth.” Here we find slimy mud formed from Jesus’ saliva bringing light into the blind man’s darkness. Bringing light into the darkness, we recall, was God’s first act of creation along with fashioning us from the slime of the earth.<br />
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A second clue as to who Jesus really is can be found in the fact that Jesus didn’t use water to form the mud. If He had used water some might say that the miraculous power that gave the man sight came from water. No. Jesus used His own saliva to demonstrate that the miraculous power giving sight to the man born blind came from Him and from Him alone.<br />
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Let me turn your attention now to the fact that the blind man’s recognition of who Jesus really is came about gradually… through a process. When first questioned he told his neighbors that “the man called Jesus” made paste, put it on his eyes, and told him to go wash in the waters of Siloam. When asked where Jesus was he said he didn’t know.<br />
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When brought to the Pharisees who questioned him as to the man who healed him the blind man said, “He is a prophet.” The Pharisees, as we know, refused to believe that Jesus was anything other than a sinner.<br />
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Finally, at the conclusion of the episode, Jesus searched him out and when He found the man he acknowledged that Jesus was the “Son of Man” and then worshipped Him, an act that one gives to God alone. Worshipping anyone or anything else other than God is blasphemy and idolatry. In short, the formerly blind man acknowledged the divinity of Christ. So for the blind man, truly, “seeing is believing.”<br />
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The Pharisees give us the skeptical side of the phrase. Sighted though they were, they were in fact blind and living in darkness apart from God.<br />
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At first they suspended judgment about Jesus. Doubting the blind man’s testimony they sent for his parents and questioned them. They gave their testimony but it didn’t help the Pharisees to see things at all. Their doubt only increased. They declared Jesus to be a sinner and sent for the blind man to testify once again. Quite forthrightly he told them that he had already given his testimony. He then bluntly asked the Pharisees why they wouldn’t listen. He went on to declare: “Now here is an astonishing thing! He has opened my eyes and you turn around and say you don’t know where He comes from!”<br />
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The blind man’s progress in gaining spiritual insight is matched by the spiritual leaders’ step-by-step journey into darkness and blindness. Even though Christ, the Light of the World, was standing before them their stubborn reliance only on themselves and their blind pride led them into darkness.<br />
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Once again we are dealing in this Gospel account with St. John’s major themes: order out of chaos, light out of darkness, good out of evil, and life out of death.<br />
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The question now presented itself to us here in America in 2017 is: Do we recognize what our real struggle is all about? Sure situation in Iraq vexes us, the war against Islamic terrorists continues, the economy is faltering, drugs and pornography beset us, and the cost of living has gone through the roof. But what about the presence of God in our lives?<br />
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Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear Him or do our many concerns blind us?<br />
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We don’t have to go to the trouble to try and find God. He has come to search us out just as He did the blind man who had miraculously been given sight. The basic movement is the coming of God to us. From the time God entered the Garden of Eden in search of Adam and Eve, to the time when He was born among us in a manger in Bethlehem, to the time He came upon us all in Pentecost, to this very day and this very Mass, God comes to us. The Light of the World has come and the darkness shall not overcome it.<br />
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There is only one darkness that can prevail, the darkness of our own lack of attention and our own lack of vision when it comes to His presence in our lives. It may be true that we do not willfully ignore God and are blind to His presence, but if “seeing is believing” how can we believe if we do not see?<br />
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Lent is time set aside when we try to see God in our lives. Lent is a time when we try to step away from all of our worldly concerns and give some time and attention to what’s going on in our souls. To strengthen our faith and our belief we need, along with the blind man, ask: “Lord, that I might see” and then expect a miracle, the miracle of seeing the Light of the World in our darkened days.<br />
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Our blindness is not the blindness of the Pharisees. Ours is being too busy for time with God, too worried about the cares of this world.<br />
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“Seeing is believing.” Oh, Lord, let me see your light, let me recognize your presence in my life; open my eyes because I know who you are and I know what you can do.<br />
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Oh, Lord, that I may see.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-91226509175180075822026-03-23T10:39:00.000-04:002026-03-23T10:39:03.086-04:00Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, March 8, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ir7Wn-KMDPjhe9udGPjGjEYQGURAWtA6M8pshX03fAJ5BLuwALR8Zmz64ugXwQ9QIbCsvBHYv43CvO3ybjWGvyWWzIHbLPvm8dY-CSKnFhlxM1H2BUQ01mPW4WRwWh0AYk3-J9mVLTdadCM5r6cfVkgnTmgDzUJR0tjDIjRJY3UfSwwHCdPcdK9zea1p/s1047/Christ%20and%20Samaritan%20Woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Christ with the Samaritan woman" border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1047" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ir7Wn-KMDPjhe9udGPjGjEYQGURAWtA6M8pshX03fAJ5BLuwALR8Zmz64ugXwQ9QIbCsvBHYv43CvO3ybjWGvyWWzIHbLPvm8dY-CSKnFhlxM1H2BUQ01mPW4WRwWh0AYk3-J9mVLTdadCM5r6cfVkgnTmgDzUJR0tjDIjRJY3UfSwwHCdPcdK9zea1p/w640-h442/Christ%20and%20Samaritan%20Woman.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030826.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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If you’ve heard the soundtrack for the Broadway show <i>Les Misérables</i> you may remember a song sung by Fantine that is a lament. She sings a sad song to her lost youth, her lost innocence, her lost beauty. It reflects a song many of us have in our hearts as she sings:<div><br /></div><div>"I had a dream that life would be</div><div>So different than the hell I’m living,</div><div>So different now than what it seemed,</div><div>Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." <br /><br /></div><div>
Once upon a time, way back in my early twenties, my heart was full of a song like that. I thought I wanted to die, my life would never be happy again.<br />
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What causes us to sing a song like that, to be filled with despair? What murders our dreams? And what, perhaps, is killing your dreams – or the dreams of someone you know and love?<br />
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The first reading in today’s Mass, the reading from the Jewish Testament’s Book of Exodus, presents us with a whole tribe of people feeling that burden, that depression, that despair. Only a little while earlier God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, protected them and saved them from Pharaoh’s pursuing armies by parting the Red Sea for Moses and swallowing up Pharaoh’s army in those same waters. Moses spoke to them of God’s love for them and pointed to God’s Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, that was soon going to be theirs. Yet here they are wallowing in self-pity, hurting and angry at God, and worst of all longing to return to slavery back in Egypt.<br />
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Back to Egypt? Back to slave labor? Back to a land of death? Unimaginable – yet true. It took God a few weeks to get these Israelites out of Egypt and it would take God forty years to get Egypt out of the Israelites. How could this be? And how is it that our own depression and despair can call and lead us back into the slavery of wallowing in our self-pity? For many it leads to the bondage and slavery of drug addiction, to alcoholism, to sex addiction, addiction to shopping, gambling, overeating and what have you. Self-pity is powerfully addictive.<br />
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We need to observe that these ancient Hebrews were remembering the past as better than it really was. Hindsight isn’t just 20/20 vision, it’s seeing things through rose colored glasses. If you don’t believe me then recall these same sort of memories you’ve heard expressed:</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>"When I was your age, I walked to school and back every day. It was six miles walking to school, and six miles back. And our teachers smacked us when we were out of line – they didn’t take any nonsense. And when we graduated from school we could read, we could write, and we could do our numbers. Kids have it too easy these days." </div><div><br /></div><div>"When I was a kid we never, ever, missed church on Sunday. And we always had a big Sunday dinner; the whole family was there. We didn’t run around all day on Sunday doing all sorts of stuff. We went to church, we stayed at home, and we were family." </div><div><br /></div><div>"When I was a kid, we worked four hours before sunrise doing chores, worked in the fields until after sundown, and studied by candlelight to midnight. Kids these days have it too easy – they don’t know the value of hard work."</div><div><br /></div><div>"I don’t know what’s wrong with women these days. I had my babies. I didn’t take drugs to dull the pain. And women went back out to work in the fields the next day."</div><div><br /></div><div>
Well, you get the picture. Memory cuts out all of the bad stuff that happened and magnifies everything good. The past is painted in colors of glory. School days were brighter, marriage was easier, kids behaved, and life was gentler. The Depression? The Second World War? The drunkenness? The family fights? The cheating on our wives? The cheating on our husbands? All of those things get washed down and painted in muted colors.<br />
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The other big cause for despair is to take the condition in which we presently find ourselves and then claim that life is always going to be this way. Things will never change, we say to ourselves. We’ll always be too fat, ugly, geekish, unattractive, unloved, lonely, trapped in our job, trapped in a bad marriage, trapped in whatever we find ourselves right now. That’s what the Hebrews were saying to Moses. Get us out of here and take us back into Egypt. At least there we had the Nile and Pharaoh provided us with food. Sure we were slaves, but things were a whole lot better then than they are now out here, even with our freedom.<br />
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Does the present look bleak to you now? Well, don’t repeat Israel’s mistake. The condition in which you find yourself now doesn’t have to be the situation in which you’ll find yourself in the future. The present doesn’t put handcuffs on you and imprison you. God still has His power and with that power your life can change. Remember, always remember, that without God you are powerless and can do relatively little. Without God you can accomplish nothing. But with God there is nothing you cannot accomplish. With God’s power there’s a whole lot about your future that will change. Are you lonely? Are you sick? Without a job? Discouraged with your marriage, with your career? With God, things change.<br />
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If God can produce water from a rock, he can provide you with all that you need to move on toward your own Promised Land. And always remember that with God, every journey moves forward, moves on into the future. With God things never stand still and just remain always the same. God is a God of change. All of the beautiful and great Sacraments of our Church are all moments of change. Think about it. Every sacrament is a sign of change, a moment of grace, a promise that looks ahead to what can be in our future. And remember, too, that God wants us never, never to go backward into Egypt.<br />
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Our Catholic Faith, our religion, is a religion about what can be, not what simply has been. And our religion is certainly not about celebrating only where we’re at right now in our present. Oh, no. We are here, processing in line to Holy Communion, because we are on a journey, a journey toward God and toward all that He dreams we can be. That’s why our churches have doors – so that we can receive here what God wants us to have and then take that out into our world to make it a better place, and to take that into our future so that we can be in a better place.<br />
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In the Broadway show, <i>Les Misérables</i>, Fantine sang her sad song of lament, her dirge to her lost past.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I had a dream that life would be</div><div>So different than the hell I’m living,</div><div>So different now than what it seemed,</div><div>Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." <br /><br /></div><div>
But Jesus Christ descended into hell and now is risen from the dead, victim no longer. He lives now in the life His father dreamed he could live. And God offers that all to you, right here, right now, in a life you can live in Holy Communion with him, a life that will take you into your future, into your Promised Land.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-5950454131307302392026-02-16T10:03:00.000-05:002026-02-16T10:03:11.293-05:00Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent, March 1, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4o-VgykjcBbnnBdPWXIUIxu1poeIeP7LCEzO76D4_3N2VL1GELyhL7j4tnMU1WQRIwEgn3fOCr9Y8-WNi0Cck1FLxU4_PaXAl6dCmgOqVg4el27uQEJmFVWOQewRdOtbc1o-nuY3MA96QK4WXCTMIJCCRsaHSaWzoo4iCV1m5-rUkNx8Ghj07yapLILd/s513/Transfiguration%20of%20Our%20Lord%20%5BWide%5D%20Comp%20Scaled%20image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Transfiguration" border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="513" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4o-VgykjcBbnnBdPWXIUIxu1poeIeP7LCEzO76D4_3N2VL1GELyhL7j4tnMU1WQRIwEgn3fOCr9Y8-WNi0Cck1FLxU4_PaXAl6dCmgOqVg4el27uQEJmFVWOQewRdOtbc1o-nuY3MA96QK4WXCTMIJCCRsaHSaWzoo4iCV1m5-rUkNx8Ghj07yapLILd/w640-h360/Transfiguration%20of%20Our%20Lord%20%5BWide%5D%20Comp%20Scaled%20image.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030126.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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God asked Abraham to leave his land, take everything and everyone with him and move to a new land. Later God asked Moses to take the Hebrews from Egypt into a promised new land. And Jesus? Well, He too had to leave Joseph and Mary back in Nazareth and begin his mission out on the road. Jesus once remarked: “The foxes have their dens and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” And when He was crucified and died, He didn’t even have a tomb of His own.<br />
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One of the hardest things I face as a priest is not having my own home, a place I can call my own. My only home is the Church. My only family is all of you… along with all of the other members of Christ’s family throughout the world.<br />
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Many people today experience homelessness. Lots of people, even young kids, live out in the streets. Many members of gangs belong to gangs because they are looking for family, for someone to belong to, for a “home” that they feel they never had with their moms and dads if, that is, they even know who their mothers were and know who their fathers are. A great deal of the trouble in the schools of our big cities comes from the countless numbers of children within them that have no place they can really call home, no family that they can truly call their own – except perhaps the gang that has accepted them and taken them in.<br />
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Many of us as adults and parents also feel like we are in a lot of ways strangers and exiles living in an alien and hostile culture, or environment, or world. Quite a few feel that it’s not possible to be a good Christian, or a total and complete Christian, or Catholic, and at the same time live in the sort of world in which we find ourselves. They feel like the standards of our culture are being “dumbed down,” that our laws and rules are being redefined so that people can do simply what they feel like doing. Many of us watch what we value as it is being de-valued in the world around us, a world in which we no longer feel at home, much less want to raise our children.<br />
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The feeling is not new; the feeling is, as a matter of fact, quite old. In a time when Christians were being hounded down, chased out of town, marginalized and even arrested and killed. St. Peter wrote in one of his Epistles that we must remember we are strangers living in exile, that our citizenship and our real home is not in this world but rather in God’s kingdom. St. Paul, too, wrote in one of his Epistles that “we have here no lasting city,” and that our citizenship is in heaven after our sojourn here in earth is ended.<br />
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Nevertheless, God wants us to have roots, to have a place, to belong. We all need a place in which we can find ourselves and a family in which we can belong. If we don’t have that we become very angry, act out, and engage in what is called “anti-social” and hostile behavior. In other words, in our rage at not belonging we end up attacking everyone around us.<br />
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One of the remarkable things about the Catholic Church is the fact that in it you belong no matter where you find yourself on the face of the earth. I have entered churches in many other parts of the world, participated in Masses in them, and instantly felt at home even though the language wasn’t English (or Latin, for that matter). It’s a wonderful feeling to enter St. Peter’s basilica in the Vatican and be able to say: “This is my church!” I’ve entered great cathedrals all over Europe and been able to say: “I feel at home here. This is my church. Jesus is here in the Blessed Sacrament. These people represented in statues stained glass windows are a part of my family and I belong to them just as they belong to me.”<br />
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Likewise we need to be able to respond to God the way others have when He called them to be about His tasks, to be about His purposes, to accomplish His work. Could you leave everything in back of you if He called you to make a radical change in your life? Like Abraham, you would have to leave your security and your familiar surroundings behind you. Sometimes God calls you to empty yourself in order that He might fill you with what He wants to give you. Could you do it?<br />
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There’s a story about a Sufi Master who was approached by a young man who wanted to be his disciple. To impress the Master the prospect went on and on and on about his academic achievements, his experience and about all of his accomplishments in serving and helping people. The Master listened in silence. Then while the young man was running on and on and on about all the he had done the Master began to fill a teacup with tea. When the cup was filled he kept filling it with more tea until it spilled all over. “Stop, Master!” cried the young man, “the cup can’t hold any more tea.”. To which the Master replied: “Neither can I teach you anything. You are too full of yourself now. Come back when you’ve made some room within you to hold a new thought.”<br />
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Abraham made new room for God. So did Moses. And Jesus totally emptied himself in order to be completely filled with God’s Holy Spirit.<br />
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We speak of Lent as a journey, a moving from one place to a new and better place. We follow in the footsteps of Jesus from Bethlehem where He was born, to Nazareth where He was raised, out into the desert, then to Jerusalem where He was crucified and died, and into the tomb in which He was buried, and then into the Garden of the Resurrection, the new Garden of Eden. One day we will follow in His path by joining Him in His Ascension into heaven along with the Assumption of His mother Mary who was also taken up from this alien world into the home God has prepared for us.<br />
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The tomb of Jesus is empty because the things of this world are all destined to turn into dust. Inside of them, all of the things of this world are as empty as the tomb of Jesus. Why? Because reality is something spiritual, not material. We are dust, and unto dust we shall return, along with all of the glitter of this world. Our citizenship and our home are elsewhere and our hearts will not rest until they rest in the home God has prepared for us.<br />
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Our hearts can experience some of that peace, some of that rest, right here in this church, in God’s house, in His Presence here in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. Why not stop in here to be at home for a little while with Jesus, here in His house? Why not give your heart the love it seeks, namely to be here at peace and in union, in love, with the One for whom your heart was made by God in the first place?<br />
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To whom do I belong? Where is my home? Here at least, here in God’s house in the Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, you will be strangers and exiles no longer. This is God’s house, and therefore it is your house, your home. This is where your family shares its Sunday meal and where, whenever we come here, we know at last we belong.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-46972422891560612852026-02-10T11:04:00.000-05:002026-02-10T11:04:06.936-05:00Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent, February 22, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rX0kgftLTkJq-ioFS1CWaGzibm8P2pM1OVPwvTZGF-z35r7U-1MPuf59iLXx3xbnBf7p7fchiIPhLG3nM1JgGHuDE7EErtLTtNpNu2BoMb3i2R0fCsqOc1MMwDwa3ZaN9jaxHxEeDFaR/s1600/Jesus+tempted+by+the+Devil+in+the+wilderness+%255BWide%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Satan tempting Christ in the desert" border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="639" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2rX0kgftLTkJq-ioFS1CWaGzibm8P2pM1OVPwvTZGF-z35r7U-1MPuf59iLXx3xbnBf7p7fchiIPhLG3nM1JgGHuDE7EErtLTtNpNu2BoMb3i2R0fCsqOc1MMwDwa3ZaN9jaxHxEeDFaR/w640-h360/Jesus+tempted+by+the+Devil+in+the+wilderness+%255BWide%255D.jpg" title="Satan tempting Christ in the wilderness." width="640" /></a></div>
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Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022226.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” I have often pondered over the meaning of those final words in the Lord’s Prayer, and I want to pay some attention to them with you today.<br />
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Throughout the centuries there has been any number of translations of the original Hebrew words that Jesus used when He taught the Lord’s Prayer. For instance, most of the original translations did not say “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Instead, the phrase was translated as, “And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” By the way, as an aside, just when or why the word “trespass” was substituted for the word “sin” is unknown to me. As for the phrase “but deliver us from evil” other ancient translations render it as: “And deliver us from the time of trial.” Still others render it “deliver us from the time of testing.”<br />
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That being the case, I want to pay some attention now to the time of trial or testing Jesus endured out in the desert when Satan, our Ancient Enemy, the Evil One, put Jesus to test with those three major temptations we just heard about in today’s Gospel account.<br />
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We should note that it was not God our Father who was testing Jesus. No, it was Lucifer.<br />
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Why would God want to “test” His Only begotten Son?” He knew all along what was in His Son’s heart and soul. The Devil, of course, did not and so was testing Jesus who was out there in the desert in the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the Devil who was doing the testing.<br />
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Satan claims that the world and all that’s in it belongs to him and is in his power. “I will give them to you,” he exclaims to Jesus, “if you worship me and acknowledge my power.” Note that he is setting himself up as God’s equal. This echoes the Serpent’s original seductive temptation offered to Adam and Eve, “Eat of this fruit and you will be as God!” From the beginning the Devil has been at work testing God’s work in his efforts to ruin God’s creations.<br />
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God, in His complete freedom, could I suppose “test” us. Lots of people think of God that way. Many times, when we face trials, troubles, and suffering we immediately tell ourselves “God is testing me.” Or in times of suffering, we tell others “God is testing you.” While that might be so, it’s usually a facile response that short-circuits a more insightful awareness.<br />
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Many trials and troubles beset us, not only in our lifetimes but daily. What or who causes them? Each and every day people will “test our limits.” How often is your patience tested? And who is testing the boundaries of your patience… of your love? You find yourself tested, tempted to anger and impatience, by members of your own family in your own home. Your children can test your limits. Your loyalty and patience are tried and tested in your place of work. We can easily see that while events and chance occurrences can test you and me, there is no greater testing than that which comes to you from other people.<br />
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Many such moments of trial and testing come to each one of us in each and every day of our lives. Which, perhaps, is why Jesus teaches us to ask for our daily bread, to ask for that heavenly sustenance that gives strength to our souls as we face the trials of our days.<br />
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Good people face suffering from others and are tested by others. In all such moments we are given opportunities… opportunities that are hidden gifts within those trials. The highest and best opportunity in every such trial is to enter into the heart of Jesus. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews wrote of Christ, “…because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.”<br />
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God came to Moses on top of Mt. Sinai. Jesus taught His Beatitudes from the top of a mountain, and He was transfigured on top of Mt. Tabor. Satan, in his arrogance, takes Jesus to the top of a high mountain, shows Him all of the kingdoms of this world, and then tests Him, tempts Him, to be a Messiah other than what God our Father sent Him to be for us. Satan tempts Jesus to be a false Messiah.<br />
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The Lord’s Prayer is composed in the plural, not the singular. It addresses our Father. It asks God to give us our daily bread. In all of this we need to realize that we are also collectively tested, tried, and tempted. We are tested as a nation of people. We were tested when we underwent the trial of the Civil War. World Wars, and may other wars besides, have tested and will continue to test our national resolve, our American ideals, our intentions and purposes in entering into conflicts, as well as how we conduct ourselves in them. Today our war against terrorism is testing our national soul.<br />
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Both individually and collectively our limits are being tested. Our resources, our civil liberties, our commitments to freedom, our adherence to the rule of law, and our faith in God are all being tested and put to trial. Do we respond to evil in the way that Jesus responded to Satan? Upon what are our responses based? In response to the Tempter, Jesus turned to His Father in heaven. Satan was offering Jesus an easy, spectacular, superficial and dazzling way of life. Jesus’ response was to remain faithful to His Father’s will.<br />
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Satan is also known as the Great Seducer, the one who seeks to remain in power and control by capitalizing on our human weakness. He hides his real agenda, his lust for power, behind our human weakness. “Oh, everybody’s doing it, so I can do it” is the sentiment that Lucifer puts deep within us all. But what about being faithful to what is right no matter how many people don’t care about what is right? The kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God… Jesus knew that and remained faithful to that. In Christ’s humility Satan’s pride was overcome.<br />
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Christ knows full well what’s deep within the human heart. He knows how easily we can be swayed and how powerfully the “easy way” tempts us. When, therefore, we are beset by trials and sufferings, when we are tempted to try any way but God’s way, we need to keep focused and to turn to our Higher Power, the powerful love of God.<br />
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May this holy season of Lent be an opportunity for you and me to take stock of what’s in our souls, to see what we’re really made of, to get in touch once again with God’s powerful Holy Spirit who abides within us, and then face life with all of life’s trials, temptations, and testings, nourished as we are by the Living Bread God puts here on our table for us each and every day.<br />
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Deliver us from evil, O Lord. But most of all, deliver us from our selves… for we do not belong to this world, or to the Great Seducer who roams through this world, or even to our selves. We are Christ’s, and Christ is yours, O Father in heaven.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-30117384513243049272026-02-01T11:47:00.000-05:002026-02-01T11:47:44.417-05:00Homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 15, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLK_tw9csR8VVm2tqT4gimyTaDZpXOE8AX-To824HJyC1tPw6i6u1xJE3vZhw1z-zcDmJawM9SMHBMfOUZpjbGXGdhA2Kzq1cZj0Fc7UKDNcFUd5nnb_pG5AP0d_B68F_1rFwXz2bXoxdZxuNHEucMaJeTrHAnw7jgPxeUT0U7PX14q3vGH4RAkQJPTw/s532/Christ%20preaching%20The%20First%20Beatitude%2014th%20Sunday%20in%20OT%20Poverty%20of%20spirit%20%5BWide%20Large%5D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="532" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLK_tw9csR8VVm2tqT4gimyTaDZpXOE8AX-To824HJyC1tPw6i6u1xJE3vZhw1z-zcDmJawM9SMHBMfOUZpjbGXGdhA2Kzq1cZj0Fc7UKDNcFUd5nnb_pG5AP0d_B68F_1rFwXz2bXoxdZxuNHEucMaJeTrHAnw7jgPxeUT0U7PX14q3vGH4RAkQJPTw/w640-h358/Christ%20preaching%20The%20First%20Beatitude%2014th%20Sunday%20in%20OT%20Poverty%20of%20spirit%20%5BWide%20Large%5D.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021526.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)<br />
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All of us know people of good character, people who have a reputation of being decent, respectful of others, law-abiders who lead good lives, or so they appear. We also know of some who, even though they enjoy a good reputation, turn out to be a whole lot less than we thought, some of them going on to bring terrible hurt to others and inflict real damage upon them. As the old saying goes, appearances are deceiving. Looking good does not mean that our hearts are filled with goodness.<br />
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The scribes and Pharisees had a certain kind of goodness, even holiness. Jesus did not condemn them for the goodness they sought, rather He condemned them for what they did not have in their hearts. They had no depth. They governed their thoughts and actions by their external observance of the Jewish laws and how they appeared in the eyes of others. The love of God and the love of others that flows from our love of God never filled their inner selves, never filled their hearts where they really lived. Sure, they did not murder others, but they allowed themselves to hate. Sure, they did not commit adultery, but they allowed themselves to regard women merely as objects for the pleasure of males. Wives were merely useful. That attitude adulterates genuine love and demeans women.<br />
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Lest we haughtily consider ourselves to be so much better than they were, we should take a look at <br />ourselves. Do we govern our actions on the basis of what others will think of us? That’s superficial; it governs us on the basis of appearances. That motivation is external, not internal. It’s shallow and doesn’t come from deep down within us — where we really live.<br />
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Jesus wants His Holy Spirit to dwell deep within us, in our hearts and souls. It’s from there that our actions should begin. It’s from there that our motives are formed, motives formed in generosity and in the unlimited love and care of God, for ourselves, and for others.<br />
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To be sure, most of us do not commit physical adultery, but who among us has not had lust in their hearts and looked with lust on others? Isn’t that a sort of divorce? Doesn’t it divorce us from loving only our wives or husbands? Who among us has not had envy and jealousy over what others have? Lust isn’t something that is limited to sex, but it can lead to a divided heart. Merely observing the Commandments only externally allows our hearts to go into wildness and wantonness.<br />
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Few among us have committed perjury while under oath in a court of law. But how many of us have said “yes” when we really didn’t mean yes and “no” when we really didn’t mean no? It used to be the case that when a man gave his word, or a woman gave her word, then everyone who knew them could rely on them. Living up to one’s word was a bond, a contract that everyone could take to be faithful and true. Is that true in our day? The scribes and the Pharisees are among us, here today. They did simply walk the face of the earth over 2,000 years ago.<br />
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Few among us will commit murder but how many times have we murdered the good name and reputation of others with our idle, gossiping and chatter? How many times have we murdered our relationship with others by hateful thoughts of resentment and revenge in our hearts, or with abusive language and contempt of others? Oh, to be sure, our external actions may be nice and even polite, but that’s not what Jesus really wants from us. He expects more than simple minimums and legal observance of the norms, rules, and laws of living in a social order with others.<br />
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On one occasion in another context Jesus was talking with His disciples about this. He said to them: <i>“But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”</i> (Mark 7: 20-23)<br />
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I am not suggesting that laws, rules, and regulations are of no value. They are very valuable. Many people observe laws because they fear the consequences of violating them. If a person thinks about committing a crime he may for a few moments think he can get away with it, but the thought of the punishment he will face if he breaks the law causes him to refrain. Breaking a contract has legal consequences even for those who, lacking self-respect, regard the giving one’s word as of no consequence. Because many lack respect for God and likewise lack self-respect we as a society must have laws. Laws have a good purpose and serve us well.<br />
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Jesus, however, is looking for something far deeper than legal observances. He wants us to be motivated by love, to live loving lives, to care and to unselfishly give of ourselves to others and to our Father in heaven. This is a way of living that no law can motivate or impose on us. This way of living puts greater demands on us.<br />
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Suppose we lived in a society where everyone strictly observed all of its laws. Everyone would behave well, but would such a world be filled with happiness? Jesus wants more from us. Living in strict observance of laws would be good, but would we be living in a world of love? Would it be a loving and caring world, or would it be simply a world in which nobody broke any laws? Jesus wants the best from us, not just our minimum performances.<br />
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God gave us a tremendous gift, the gift of freely choosing. This is because love isn’t truly love unless it is freely given – and freely received. After all, a gift isn’t a gift unless and until it is received. God has paid us a tremendous compliment in that He respects our decisions. That is why He never forces our decisions. He offers and then He waits for our response. His love for us is unconditional. His only law is love, a love within us that governs our choices and the actions that flow from our choices.<br />
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This is not something new. It is found in God’s Word given to us many centuries before Christ and is expressed in the first reading of today’s Mass, a reading taken from the Old Testament’s Book of Wisdom: <i>If you choose you can keep the commandments; it is loyalty to do his will. There are set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, whichever he chooses shall be given him. Immense is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power, and all-seeing. The eyes of God see all he has made; he understands man’s every deed.</i><br />
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We all know full well what we do or do or don’t do. And we all know what others do or don’t do. God, however, is more interested in what He finds in our hearts. Do we simply obey rules, or do we choose to live in love and concern for others? That’s a question the answer to which can only be found deep down in your heart – where you really live.
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-11287610648871332882026-01-27T09:49:00.000-05:002026-01-27T09:49:27.087-05:00Homily for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 8, 2026, Year A<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGztkwmGDydQpDT62dbkUW2vfv7rgBurgreZEDIrbhazU3ewnCcQN4BUzwvu65wAcRXF_7xDyMdhvzPYjkCLLKsucr6t5hcQAZztGXY9mueEaf0lE1Ai7q1KhNtBy5zCS8X06Rju6dtp0F/s1600/Sermon+On+The+Mount+Copenhagen.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sermon on the Mount" border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGztkwmGDydQpDT62dbkUW2vfv7rgBurgreZEDIrbhazU3ewnCcQN4BUzwvu65wAcRXF_7xDyMdhvzPYjkCLLKsucr6t5hcQAZztGXY9mueEaf0lE1Ai7q1KhNtBy5zCS8X06Rju6dtp0F/w640-h426/Sermon+On+The+Mount+Copenhagen.jpg" title="Sermon on the Mount, Henrik Olrik, c. 1880." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020826.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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To be successful in achieving a goal we must take care at the beginning to determine the correct route, which of course, is obvious. What is not so obvious is to ask the right questions, the questions that will accurately focus us upon the right path. If we do not ask the right questions, we will not obtain the correct answers.<br />
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When it comes to spirituality, we must ask some first questions. One is “Do we find God, or does God seek us out and then present Himself to us?” Another such question is “Do I construct the way to God, or do I accept the way God has given me?”<br />
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Surrounding us is a huge array of spiritualties — Tibetan prayer wheels, sacred crystals, Tarot cards, Foursquare Christian Fellowship churches, mainline Protestant churches, Confucianism, and many others, not to mention numberless spiritualties presented in a wide range of Christian churches. We find ourselves in a gigantic Wall Mart of Christianity in which we are invited to pick and choose what we want and then walk out, having paid the cashier via the collection basket; bearing our bagful of Christian groceries to sustain us until our soul’s cupboard needs replenishing again. This suits our American consumerist mentality – we “buy” what we want from our local church, take it home, and then consume what we want, when we want, as often as we want. It’s all based on what we want – not what God deserves from us, consumerist religion. The fallacy of this approach is as obvious as it is dangerous. The danger is that it can be minimalist – I buy and assimilate only the minimums necessary to allow me to consider myself a “good Christian.”<br />
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So when it comes to being a follower of Christ, when it comes to being one of His faithful disciples, am I my own guide? We know the answer, don’t we! A child cannot raise himself on his own. I cannot be a Christian on my own. We all need guidance. If we think being a Christian is a “do-it-yourself’ endeavor then we are self-deluded.<br />
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Jesus does not allow us to discover for ourselves what it means to be one of His followers. He tells us who we are and what we must be about to be one of His disciples — if we want to be a follower of Him in His way, in His truth, and in His life.<br />
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Jesus came from Isaiah’s people. Through Isaiah God let everyone know what He expected of them: <i>“This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall quickly be healed... “</i> (Isaiah 58:6-8)<br />
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Prayer and spirituality are not all about what we want God to do, they are about what God wants us to do. To be holy is to live united with the One who is holy, not simply to think nice thoughts about Him. Goodness and holiness are the result of love. Goodness and holiness consist in actively loving others as God loves us. One is holy because one lives with and acts with the One who is holy, Jesus Christ. It consists in actively living as He lived, in being salt and light for others. Love does not consist merely of nice sentiments. Love is realized in what we do. It’s good to ask ourselves “What would Jesus do?”<br />
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Jesus tells us: <i>“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”</i> These are God’s words, defining the way we should live, calling us to act with deeds of concern for others. Salt is active and light is active — not passive. Being salt and light for others is essential to being a follower of Christ.<br />
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Every Christian is called to strive for personal sanctification, but what we need to remember is that in order to be holy we must be about the task of bringing others to be a part of the One who is holy. Jesus teaches us this. In fact He commands it. St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower once wrote, “I see now that true charity consists in bearing with the faults of those about us, never being surprised at their weaknesses, but edified at the least sign of virtue. I see above all that charity must not remain hidden in the bottom of our hearts: nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.” Your love, she wrote, must be seen – not so that people may give you honor and glory but so that they may see your good works and give praise your Father in heaven.<br />
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Living for others and caring for others like Christ is the clearest expression of love. The Second Vatican Council emphasized the Christian’s duty to be apostolic. Baptism and Confirmation confer duties upon us because in Baptism and Confirmation one is anointed to be a part of the Body of Christ on earth and, like the Apostles, to bring His presence to those around us.<br />
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All of us have countless opportunities to be salt and light for others. The very nature of the Christian life consists in doing good things for others in a supernatural spirit, in the life and motivation of Jesus Christ. Which is why He told us, <i>“Let your light so to shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”</i><br />
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But what if your salt goes flat? How can you restore it? And what if your light is hidden under a bushel? Jesus knows how often we are tempted to be timid; how often we are motivated and controlled by concerns about what others may think of us, how often we are controlled by fear. So often we keep our faith and our religious values hidden. Additionally there are many voices around us telling us to keep our faith in private and away from the public square. They do not want us to “impose our values” on them even by expressing them in public. Faith, they say, is a private matter. What they are attempting to tell us is that people of faith are not supposed to make a difference in our society — that our faith isn’t supposed to be recognized in our secularized, multicultural society. In other words, we are allowed freedom of religion in our Sunday worship services but not when it comes to living out our beliefs in public.<br />
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Can we, then, give witness to an evangelical faith in our public lives? YES, I say, we can! But it requires that we have the courage to stand out in our crowded public square. Like salt, the flavor we can give to our society must be <i>sharp</i> and <i>noticeable</i>, not so bland and flat that we are hardly noticed at all. And our humility must be such that we realize that what we believe and say and do is not for our own honor and glory, but for God’s.<br />
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Jesus does not allow us to determine for ourselves what it means to be His followers – He tells what we must be doing and us who we are. Comfortable minimalism is something He will not tolerate. Our faith is Jesus Christ is not simply so that we can save our own skins. Our faith calls us to work with Christ to reveal God’s kingdom here on earth for the salvation of our world. Anything less serves only ourselves, not others.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-84584705335467282872026-01-20T09:23:00.003-05:002026-01-27T09:48:23.841-05:00Homily for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 1, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjpDcxnTgjN5GjCFNuUjsmGOzEchvrS_bDzskF2_fypDpyVIKOyR17pME1UgGDkb-FxTE51Jo7fuga_DAI27wHlrmmRzXSwioYj8cpizJ7rD-BsUQLpA4t6ny8t-f9Mles_RIEh9NYjpkszb0VGzRoN11VSdZzd2FDTePbSGItx1mdPZP_pov9dy0oLq6/s608/The%20Sermon%20on%20the%20Mount,%20Cosimo%20Rosselli,%201481-82.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="608" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjpDcxnTgjN5GjCFNuUjsmGOzEchvrS_bDzskF2_fypDpyVIKOyR17pME1UgGDkb-FxTE51Jo7fuga_DAI27wHlrmmRzXSwioYj8cpizJ7rD-BsUQLpA4t6ny8t-f9Mles_RIEh9NYjpkszb0VGzRoN11VSdZzd2FDTePbSGItx1mdPZP_pov9dy0oLq6/w640-h490/The%20Sermon%20on%20the%20Mount,%20Cosimo%20Rosselli,%201481-82.jpg" title="The Sermon on the Mount, Cosimo Rosselli, 1481-82" width="640" /></a><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020126.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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A critic once challenged me by declaring that my homilies were preaching a message of failure to a bunch of losers. He was suggesting that the Good News of Jesus Christ is directed at losers, not at winners. Today’s Gospel account in which we find Jesus giving us the Beatitudes provides us with a good background to take a look at winners and losers.<br />
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As in so many things, a lot depends upon your viewpoint, the angle from which you are looking at things. St. Paul puts that issue into sharp perspective in today’s second reading which was taken from his letter written to very cosmopolitan and sophisticated Greeks living in Corinth:<br />
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"Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters,” writes St. Paul, “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.'" <br />
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So much of our spiritual life depends on how we see things. I daresay that everything depends on how we see people and things. It’s all a question of having eyes to see and ears to hear so that we may rightly understand. Do we see things in God’s light as God sees them – from above? That’s hinted at with the Star of Bethlehem guiding from above the wise men to Bethlehem and the Christ Child.<br />
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It is no accident that Jesus teaches His disciples on the Mount of the Beatitudes. Mountaintop experiences allow us to see things from above, from God’s perspective. What the worldly see is not what God sees. What the worldly judge to be desirable, God does not.<br />
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The Beatitudes provide a dizzying new vision of the world, a perspective designed to turn upside down the political and social world of the Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus and of the Jewish religious elite of Judea and Jerusalem. Likewise it calls us to a drastic and fundamental reassessment of our own political and social affairs, a reassessment that will not be realized without our dependence on God. No wonder, then, that the worldly mock and scorn the Beatitudes. <br />
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Jesus describes those who are truly fortunate, the lucky ones of their day. But it is not emperors, conquerors, priests, and the wealthy who enjoy this favor. Rather, it is the common people, those whom earthly success has largely passed by: the poor, the meek, the persecuted, and the peacemakers. How can this be? The answer is that even though they may have been denied worldly success, what cannot be taken away from them is their potential to live rightly by one another. It is all too easy for those who enjoy the pleasures of this world from their hilltop mansions to float above such obligations. Jesus goes on to say that so long as ordinary people stand for the right things and do not retreat in their rightness before those who seem to have more power, what is right will prevail. It’s their kingdom — a kingdom organized not from the top down, but from the bottom up. In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers a description of the community of goodwill His teachings will build in this world – if we follow them.<br />
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<b><i>Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven</i></b><i>.</i> The poor in spirit are those who, no matter how much money that may have, realize they are relatively powerless without God’s power, an empowerment that gives them security in the face of all loss and disaster.<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted</b></i><b>.</b> It is the prerogative of God to bring good out of evil, light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and even life out of death. Mourning turns us back to God and calls down His love and compassion upon us, a love that empowers us to transcend our losses and rise again to meet new challenges. <br />
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<i><b>Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land</b></i>. Being meek does not mean being a wimp. It does not mean being a doormat upon which aggressors wipe their feet. Some of our strongest leaders were meek – they recognized that God was about His work and they wanted to be a part of God’s work and accomplish His purposes. Abraham Lincoln was meek. He lived the Beatitudes. The Founding Fathers of our nation recognized our dependence on God.<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness</b></i>, for they will be satisfied. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived in hunger and thirst for righteousness. So did President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. So did Nelson Mandela.<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy</b></i>. We would think we are merciful but often that is merely wishful thinking because while thinking we are merciful we cling to our grudges, won’t let go of our resentments while remembering in detail all that others have done to hurt us. Just how full of mercy are we? Yet every day we pray: “Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Well, just what is the length, breadth, height, and depth of our merciful forgiveness? Each one of us here has to answer that question in his or her own heart. We will be forgiven using the measure with which we have forgiven others.<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God</b></i>. Purity isn’t solely concerned with sexual sins. Having a clean heart involves a whole lot more, such as having a heart that is uncluttered, unadulterated, and focused.<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God</b></i>. We can become overwhelmed when we consider how we will ever bring peace in our world, a world hopelessly mired in hateful revenge. But let’s consider that we can all be peacemakers in our own spheres of influence. In family quarrels we can bring peace. In misunderstandings between friends we can bring peace. How can we bring peace to our world if we do not have peace in our hearts?<br />
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<i><b>Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven</b></i>. One thinks of Christians throughout the Middle East who are being bombed and driven out of their homes and countries by militant terrorists. Here in our own country, think of Christians who are being mocked and scorned because they are pro-life.<br />
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<b><i>Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.</i><br /></b>
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If anyone thinks that the Beatitudes are for the weak then they really don’t understand the strength that it takes to live them out. Doesn’t it take great inner strength to live up to the standards given us in the Beatitudes? Wimps couldn’t possibly do that, only people who have strength of character can. We are here to be nourished and strengthened by the Bread of Life so that with Christ’s love and values we can face what the world hurls at us while living in God’s blessedness within our hearts.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-80941811770481376502026-01-10T12:49:00.000-05:002026-01-10T12:49:50.641-05:00Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 25, 2026, Year A <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXNs9EF639LCRpJxXrGW8NnxOk42Jh6SlfUpKhkjBqr6_ID1aEyqi7srPIkBoQnsAeOZ3K-d2V3cIyBrPto_I7FrfwO32pVRuSEb84jr30dFqg3NaJY9ksVX4EL2IXxyxWCb5Z6HYj_0s/s1600/Christ+teaching+%255BLarge%255D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Jesus preaching" border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpXNs9EF639LCRpJxXrGW8NnxOk42Jh6SlfUpKhkjBqr6_ID1aEyqi7srPIkBoQnsAeOZ3K-d2V3cIyBrPto_I7FrfwO32pVRuSEb84jr30dFqg3NaJY9ksVX4EL2IXxyxWCb5Z6HYj_0s/w640-h426/Christ+teaching+%255BLarge%255D.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012526.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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When Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left His hometown of Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that the prophecy of Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."<br />
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In our times, what forms of darkness do we live in? The theme of light and darkness runs through the entirety of the Bible starting with the Book of Genesis all the way to the crucifixion and death of Jesus on His Cross. What is God’s word calling us to see in His light, not only in the history of our salvation that is presented to us in the bible but in our own particular and individual histories? What forms of darkness overshadow us in our own lives?<br />
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They are many — loneliness, rejection, betrayals of our love and our friendship, family feuds, the loss of the love we once knew, divorce, unfaithfulness, to name just a few of them. The threat of terrorism darkens all of our days. The depressed economy looms over us with its loss of jobs and inability to find work. Then there is violence and death on our border with Mexico, along with the darkness that covers our nation’s politics. In our individual lives we must so many times deal with loss, loss of our loved ones, loss of our ideals, loss of our hopes and our dreams. Loss is always a time of darkness – so very many times in our lives we suffer losses. We are members of the human family and too often we suffer the consequences that flow from decisions made by others. Human sins have their effects on us, sometimes directly, most of the time indirectly. Many times we suffer forms of darkness flowing not only from our own decisions but from the decisions of others. God’s will is that we be responsible. It is not God’s will that we act irresponsibly or sinfully or in ways that bring pain to ourselves and to others.<br />
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What is the importance of the light that comes from God, the light that shines in the darkness that surrounds us? When you look into the lives of great people you will come to discover one common golden thread that weaves throughout them all. They all did not allow adversity to flatten them, to drain them of their courage, to empty them of their faith and their hope. None of them were deadened by the dark spirit of defeatism, that evil spirit that is one of the devil’s most effective weapons. The Light of God of which I speak is God’s Holy Spirit, the One who was present in God’s creation when God overcame the darkness and uttered His creating command: “Let there be light.” Everything that exists originates in the energies found in God’s Light.<br />
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When one loses hope one thrashes around in real darkness. When one loses courage and simply gives up, one’s soul is deeply darkened. Our great heroes and heroines did not allow themselves to yield to defeatism. The stories of Washington, Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Pope John Paul II, Mahatma Gandhi, and the stories of our other greats all share one common theme – they never allowed the flame of faith and hope to be extinguished within them. In the face of total darkness there burned within them a fire that we Christians call the flame of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit that raised Jesus from His dark tomb into the light that was the dawn of God’s New Creation.<br />
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"Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen."<br />
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Am I distressed by the political warring going on in the halls of our Congress? Yes, I certainly am. But do I think the end of our Republic is at hand? No, I certainly do not. Am I distressed at the attacks launched worldwide by Islamic extremists? Yes, I am. But do I think they will bring about the collapse of Western civilization? No, I certainly do not. Can an alcoholic find recovery? Yes. Will our American economy return to full employment? Yes. Is there life after betrayal by a loved one? Is there life after divorce? Yes. Things may not work out exactly as we may have hoped and intended, but things will eventually work out.<br />
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On October 29, 1941, U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited his old Alma Mater, Harrow School, to speak to its graduating students. Churchill stood before them said, “Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”<br />
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Albert Einstein did not speak until He was 4-years-old and did not read until He was 7. His parents thought He was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He did eventually learn to speak and read, even did some math!<br />
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Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before He succeeded.<br />
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Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades He also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career. He once declared: “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”<br />
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"Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death light has arisen."<br />
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Jesus confronted the forces of darkness by turning Satan’s victory into everlasting defeat. The Bible personifies the forces of darkness in giving them a name — the Prince of Darkness, Satan, or Lucifer. As members of Christ we must do the same confronting in our lives. St. Paul reminds us that we, in Christ, carry on that epic struggle against the forces of darkness arrayed against us.<br />
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It is the intention and goal of the Prince of Darkness to disable you from revealing God’s presence here on earth. He accomplishes that purpose by filling us with thoughts of inferiority and inability, by filling us with a sense of failure and futility. The Prince of Darkness likewise presents you with seductive opportunities, or with concerns that absolutely captivate your attention and keep you from considering the presence of God within your heart, mind, and soul. You can identify Satan’s presence when you encounter doubt, discouragement, disillusionment, depression, defeat, despair, and finally death – the death of God’s life in your soul. When we encounter those works of Satan you and I need to expose them to God’s Light, the Light of the World that we receive from Christ. That is why coming to Mass and receiving Our Blessed Lord in Holy Communion isn’t something that is simply “nice,” it is essential. It is truly the Bread of Life that nourishes and sustains us, particularly when we feel weak.<br />
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And so today I leave you with this vision of St. Paul who in writing to the Roman Christians who were suffering in dark persecution:<br />
<br />"What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, 'For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-39)<br />
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Do not allow the work of the Prince of Darkness separate you from the love of God that comes to you in Christ Jesus our Lord. Along with Jesus at your side, snatch victory out of defeat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-39727006235427184142026-01-05T08:55:00.000-05:002026-01-05T08:55:53.203-05:00Homily for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 18, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqdCc3dmye8oqEOL9JCTQJ40LP4O5EWeg8mdnfmi_Nt47lOWh_VGlObqR5Q30sSl5-FDXbN80PLpY1kdmfel8Q85wlPQPyDZtbmUCofx3eR1AaCR04MgI6RveKmdkZuas1KQTa7jR7QbSME8AZUkpluUum_Swn8a5K_ZBMB9H2oCAuyosB4Bm3mvwlMo_/s626/Behold%20the%20Lamb%20of%20God%20icon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Behold the Lamb of God" border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="626" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqdCc3dmye8oqEOL9JCTQJ40LP4O5EWeg8mdnfmi_Nt47lOWh_VGlObqR5Q30sSl5-FDXbN80PLpY1kdmfel8Q85wlPQPyDZtbmUCofx3eR1AaCR04MgI6RveKmdkZuas1KQTa7jR7QbSME8AZUkpluUum_Swn8a5K_ZBMB9H2oCAuyosB4Bm3mvwlMo_/w640-h348/Behold%20the%20Lamb%20of%20God%20icon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011826.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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If you go out into the North African desert with its rolling and shifting hills of sand, you will likely come upon quicksand. You can also encounter quicksand in our North American swamps, in our Florida Everglades, and even in some of our own inland lakes. Nearer to us you’ll find it in the marshy, reed-filled edges of Michigan’s inland lakes.<br />
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Sometimes these spots are called sinkholes. They are pockets of loosely packed sand that has collected in a hole with a really deep bottom. There’s nothing solid at the bottom of these sinkholes. When you step into one you immediately begin to sink down and the more you thrash around the more it sucks you down until you are under the sand and then die of suffocation.<br />
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Many people find themselves in spiritual sinkholes. They are being sucked down into alcoholism, drugs, sex, mistreatment of others, and other sorts of addictions. They are caught in behavior patterns that are repeated over and over and over again. Such unfortunates are powerless to stop themselves.<br />
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The only way out of quicksand or sinkhole is to reach up and grasp the hand of someone who is standing on solid, rock-hard ground. It takes the two of you to get out. Your rescuer can’t pull you up all by himself, and you, all by yourself, cannot get yourself out.<br />
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Why is it that so many people continue to be sucked down into their moral, psychological and spiritual sinkholes? The problem is located in their unwillingness to reach out for help. They cling to the delusional lie that they can rescue themselves. “I can take care of my own problems,” they say. “I know what to do and I don’t need anyone else to tell me what to do.” “I don’t have a real problem; I don’t need any busy-body’s help. Besides, they don’t know what I’m facing; they don’t know what’s going on in my life.”<br />
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Self-help is the Great American Illusion. Self-help remedies fill our magazines and books that line the shelves of our bookstores. Usually self-help remedies are of no real help at all and these victims thrash around all the more and thus continue to suffocate in their own sinkholes filled with quicksand.<br />
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Now most of you who are here come to Mass in order to stay out of trouble, in order to build your lives with Christ, the Rock — the One standing in solid ground. Some, however, may be here because they know they’re in a sinkhole and are trying to get a good grip on Jesus’ outstretched hand so they can, with Him, get out of the moral quicksand that’s suffocating them.<br />
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When you see and understand the picture I’m painting for you, you’ll begin to see the meaning of why Jesus is called the “Lamb of God”.<br />
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In the city of Werden, in Germany, there stands a Catholic Church with a lamb carved out of stone and placed on its roof. Centuries ago a worker was once up on the roof of that church in order to repair it. His safety belt snapped and he fell. The area below was filled with large-size rocks. As luck would have it, a lamb was having its lunch on grass growing between the rocks. The craftsman fell on the poor lamb. The lamb was slain… but the man lived. So the craftsman did the decent thing. He sculpted a lamb and, in gratitude, situated it on the roof.<br />
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Today we come together at this Liturgy to remember and salute another Lamb. Each of us owes Him much. As a matter of fact, we owe Him our spiritual lives.<br />
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What did John the Baptist have in mind when he caught sight of Jesus and shouted, “Behold, the Lamb of God…”? Many world-class scholars have speculated about what was in John’s mind. The real question is “what do we have in our minds when we speak of Jesus as the Lamb of God?”<br />
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There are a lot of Christians living in what was formerly known as Czechoslovakia. Back in November of 1989, when atheistic Communism fell in their country and the Church was once again free, they put a sign on a lawn of a Prague church. It read: THE LAMB WINS. Those folks had a grip on reality.<br />
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John the Baptist spent most of his life out in the wilderness. Nevertheless he had also been around for some years in what we politely call civilization. He knew what life was like among the Hebrews of his time. He was very aware of the fickleness of human love. He knew that talk is cheap and that our words of love are often insincere. He knew that humans often say “I love you” to one another in order to get something without giving much of anything in return.<br />
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Jesus likewise knows us only too well. He knows we say we love Him while not really wanting to change our ways. And so long as we do that we’ll continue to sink into our own self-made quicksand. Our hearts and souls will continue to suffocate under the weight of our addictions and repeated ways of doing things. We’ll continue to sink in the morass of the way we treat God, others, and ourselves… or don’t treat God, others and ourselves.<br />
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So is the “Lamb of God” just a nice, pretty piece of poetry for us? Is the Lamb of God something that’s merely soft and cuddly and not a part of our real life?<br />
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Just who IS this Lamb of God for you? Like St. John the Baptist, the Church presents Him to you in each and every Mass. “Behold the Lamb of God!” the priest proclaims. “Behold Him who takes away the sin of the world!” When he does that, do you recognize what you must do in order to really receive Christ? For He is not here simply to make you feel good. He is here so that in your ordinary every-day living you can take a hold of His outstretched hand and begin living while standing not on quicksand, but on solid ground… His ground. If you do not, I guarantee your spirit will suffocate and die, and you’ll never receive the power God has given you to live life as it really should be lived — a life filled with God’s Spirit living within you forever, as He intended us to live it in the first place before we took control for ourselves.<br />
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There is a great paradox here. The great mystery is that we reach out to God by finding Him within us. We win by surrendering. We get out by going inward. For the revelation of Jesus is that God is far nearer to us than we have the daring or courage to see. God’s presence, power and love abide within us. It is there, deep down within, that I find the way out of the quicksand that pulls me down along with freedom from my Imperial Self.<br />
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So receive, now, the Lamb of God and let Him become deeply a part of your inner self. There, grasp Him and hold on to Him, for he came to rescue you and rescue me from all that would entrap us, all that would pull us down, all that would suffocate our souls.<br />
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“Behold the Lamb of God. Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to His Supper”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-42061904827199480292026-01-03T08:46:00.000-05:002026-01-03T08:46:12.293-05:00Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, January 11, 2026, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitb2jBDM-KiTG3Frehage9bBq8cML7jYbsqRbsbMCO_uge1Sjj1oamEdeTbXG1CQLzlgYteUbDSUswv0fk0i6I9IbdpoYKD4C8BKQ6Fp6_zTxbVf3196d93iyusu6wMsKX4wqH7ZJvDOsjtgklWk7jVdvJMGKBOwxsSpBmYvdaA-MyNSBa3oLXTbp3Ww/s1134/Contemporary%20icon%20of%20the%20baptism%20of%20Christ.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="794" data-original-width="1134" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitb2jBDM-KiTG3Frehage9bBq8cML7jYbsqRbsbMCO_uge1Sjj1oamEdeTbXG1CQLzlgYteUbDSUswv0fk0i6I9IbdpoYKD4C8BKQ6Fp6_zTxbVf3196d93iyusu6wMsKX4wqH7ZJvDOsjtgklWk7jVdvJMGKBOwxsSpBmYvdaA-MyNSBa3oLXTbp3Ww/w640-h448/Contemporary%20icon%20of%20the%20baptism%20of%20Christ.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011126.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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Whenever I stand here before you at this time during the Mass I have a dual responsibility — the responsibility to teach and to preach. That is particularly true today as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. Let’s begin now with the teaching aspect. <br />
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We might ask ourselves why Jesus Christ submitted to the baptism of St. John the Baptist. After all, if Christ is the incarnate Son of God, the sinless Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, why would it be necessary for Him to be baptized? That’s a good question calling for an insightful answer. <br />
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The answer begins with a clear understanding that Jesus Christ did not need to be baptized. He, the Holy One of God, sanctified the waters of baptism, He wasn’t sanctified by them. He, the Holy One, made Baptism holy, not the other way around. By being baptized His intention was to reveal the love of God for us even though we have sinned against Him. By His own baptism Jesus leads us to repentance. <br />
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A few points come to mind. (1) Jesus was identifying Himself as being immersed in our sinful humanity, (2) He was emptying Himself of His divine glory and joining Himself into our human state of alienation from the Father, (3) His baptism opened up His public ministry, revealing His activity in our world as one of us. <br />
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In the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, we heard how God’s Spirit brooded over the waters of chaos and in that activity, God brought order out of chaos, light out of darkness, giving life to Adam and Eve and creating them from the slime of the earth into His own image and likeness. In the waters of the Baptist’s baptism Jesus harkens us back to God’s creating activity out of the waters of chaos and announces that God is bringing about His new creation. <br />
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Our Blessed Lord’s baptism is a revelation of what God is doing, a revelation announcing the beginning of Christ’s redemptive activity in our world. As such, baptism wasn’t so much for Christ as it was for us. It inaugurated the mission of Our Blessed Lord to us and for us. It is the manifestation of the arrival of the One the Jewish people had longed for, the arrival of the Messiah. <br />
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For us as Christians the baptism of Christ Jesus by John the Baptist the River Jordan manifests the Holy Trinity. All three were revealed to us in Jesus’ baptism — the voice of the Father making His announcement, the submission of the Son to His Father’s will, and the consecration of Christ by the Holy Spirit. It was the revelation of Jesus’ consecration by the Holy Spirit for the establishment of His mission amongst us. <br />
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To be sure, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of our world, and He would be baptized in His bloody death on the Cross. But in that moment of His total immersion in the consequences of our sins, death, water and blood would flow out of His pierced side, the water and blood that would constitute the Sacraments of the Church. Raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit, we who are members of Christ’s risen and glorified Body now receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus was born, lived among us, and died on His Cross for us so that we could be given God’s holy and life-giving Spirit. <br />
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In bringing all these things to mind I am not simply sharing some interesting history with you. What I am sharing with you here in these thoughts are present realities in your life and in mine because of our baptisms into Christ. All of these things didn’t happen in the past; they are happing right now in your life and in mine. <br />
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For the preaching aspect I turn now to examine how that teaching applies to you and me as we together live out the Catholic Faith that we share. <br />
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The beginning point of all theology is that God offers and then waits for our response. We can reflect on all of the glorious things God has done for us, and we should. What is crucial is that we hold before our eyes all that we ought to do in response to God’s initiatives. There is a temptation on our part to think that God’s gift salvation to us is automatic, that all we have to do is believe and we will be saved. While it is true that God’s activity is necessary, it is at the same time incomplete unless and until we act in response. The simple truth is that a gift is not a gift unless we receive it. Love isn’t effective unless we accept it — and then act on it. Salvation is ours only if we receive it by acting on it. <br />
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Christ was baptized – immersed – into our human life so that we would be baptized – immersed – into His divine life. The Holy Spirit that abided in Him now, because of our Baptism, abides in us. When you stop and think about it that’s quite astonishing. Furthermore, when we were baptized, we were baptized into Christ and thereby immersed in His Holy Spirit. We are joined into Christ’s mission in order that we might realize it, to make it real in all that we think, say, and do. This means that we don’t establish God’s kingdom here on earth, He has already done that. It is in the living-out of God’s gift that we receive it. <br />
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To be sure we must first believe, that we must first have faith in God and in His love for us. But then we must act. We don’t act and then come to believe; we believe and then come to act on our belief. Our actions come forth from our love; our love does not result from our actions. Our actions speak of our love and reveal it. <br />
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Acting on our faith and doing the will of God means that we must overcome our self-concerns and care for those who suffer, for those less fortunate than we are, the outcasts, the sick, and the poor. It means that, like God, we are ready to forgive, to bring peace into our family conflicts and to reconcile ourselves with those whom we have hurt. Acting on our faith means that we build up those who feel they aren’t capable, those who feel they are without talents or abilities. It means that we bring courage to the dispirited. Acting on our baptismal faith we go about the task of revealing the presence of God and the light of His love to those who suffer from hate and discrimination. Acting on our baptismal faith impels us to bring a vision of meaning and purpose to those who live in the misery of life without purpose or meaning. It means respecting the dignity of all living persons no matter in what condition they may be. <br />
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Acting on our baptismal faith means that we honor God, respect His Church, and give God the worship that is due to Him. Prayer and worship are essential to our baptismal response to God’s offering of Himself to us. The baptism of Christ was out in public — it wasn’t in private. Christian living isn’t private and hidden. It is public. Today’s Gospel account is taken from the third chapter of Matthew that begins with these words: <br />
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“In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea (and) saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’ It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: ‘A voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.' John wore clothing made of camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.” <br />
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It was in this context that Jesus was baptized by John and so began His public ministry. In Christ, God offers Himself to us. The question to be answered now is “How will we respond?” The answer will be found in your life and in mine, in your lived-out baptismal faith and in mine. <br />
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This is why we are privileged to call ourselves Christian. This is why we are here, to receive and then go out from here and share what we have received in God’s love.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-43942085903055496272026-01-03T08:17:00.000-05:002026-01-03T08:17:43.291-05:00Homily for the Epiphany of the Lord, January 4, 2026, Year A<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLWXT8yLu8hXaHIDrco1ohXcIeoudfmtb4pmztBXo4KshIHs2PEUXIc6CU10k3_fKH2QBSoH-cectQ7tHwNPtpi-zJeWjTVAliqVGxiNb5BsimafX3rvZ5C47KP3waw62A6ub_3Zfg1cl/s1600/Nativity+of+our+Lord+Jesus+Christ+%255BFabriano-adoration-magi%255D+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="599" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTLWXT8yLu8hXaHIDrco1ohXcIeoudfmtb4pmztBXo4KshIHs2PEUXIc6CU10k3_fKH2QBSoH-cectQ7tHwNPtpi-zJeWjTVAliqVGxiNb5BsimafX3rvZ5C47KP3waw62A6ub_3Zfg1cl/w640-h360/Nativity+of+our+Lord+Jesus+Christ+%255BFabriano-adoration-magi%255D+%25282%2529.jpg" title="Adoration of the Magi, Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, Uffizi Gallery, Italy." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Fr. Charles Irvin</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010426.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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The Feast of the Epiphany was celebrated in Eastern Churches before being observed in Rome. It seems originally to have been a feast of the nativity of our Lord. January 6th. For those Churches it was the equivalent of December 25th in the Roman Church.<br />
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The Epiphany, as you know, celebrates the manifestation of our Lord to the whole world… the shining forth of the Light of the World… the manifestation of the Incarnation to the entire world beyond the Jewish world. The three kings symbolize the coming of God to the Gentiles… the entrance of God into all of the world in all of its history. Today’s Liturgy is surrounded with other epiphanies… the manifestation of God’s marriage to us, symbolized in the wedding feast at Cana, the manifestation of Christ’s Sonship in His baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan… and finally His Presentation in the Temple, otherwise known as Candlemas Day – February 2nd. This latter celebration marks the closing of the various manifestations of God’s incarnation for us in our world, beginning with Christmas and ending with His presentation in the Temple.<br />
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The essential reality of the Christian religion is that God reveals Himself to us. God comes to us; He makes Himself known to us at our own level, in our humanity. It is fundamental to Christian belief that God entered our human condition in order to enter into communion and close communication with us. From Adam and Eve until now it is God who comes to search us out; it is not we who search God out.<br />
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Materiality carries within it spirituality. The meaning of having a body is to allow for communion of spirits. This fact flies in the face of any sort of “other world” spirituality. It undercuts the spiritualities that tell us flesh is evil, that the world is totally corrupt, that materiality is a bad thing because it imprisons the human spirit. Catholicism celebrates the holiness of material things in order to show the sacredness of things created by God. The Catholic vision is to see what is inside, to manifest the Spirit Who moves within them because God has entered into our material world. Hence bread, wine, fire, incense, water, oil, candles, and all of the other things we find in Catholic churches, are seen to be conveyors of God’s Holy Spirit. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh are therefore apt symbols to be presented to the God Incarnate now manifesting Himself to us in His creations, particularly His crowning creation, the humanity of men and women.<br />
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The Star over Bethlehem is a light that recalls the lights, the fire, and the warmth of God’s love. The star points backward through history to the God who revealed Himself to Moses in a burning bush, the God who manifested Himself in the fire and lightning that surrounded Mt. Sinai, the pillar of fire that lead the Jews through the desert to the Promised Land, and the Star of David, their greatest king. That same Bethlehem star points ahead to the tongues of fire that will come on Pentecost which the Jews observed on the fiftieth day after Passover and which also commemorated the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai.<br />
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Epiphany tells us that God has decided to come to us where we are. In amazement St. John writes his Gospel: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands was made manifest. And we saw it.” This is the permanent amazement, the awe, the wonder, and the mystery the Church celebrates continually in the epiphanies of her Sacraments.<br />
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What we are therefore concerned with today is our vision. What the Church wants us to do is to see the Light of the World, to see things in God’s Light as He presents Himself to us in our lives. That Light has come into our world and the darkness will not overcome it. Christ’s cure of the man born blind is our own cure. It is the call of God to us. It is His urging to see things as He sees them.<br />
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God continues to reveal Himself to us. God’s Light comes to us in the beautiful insights of people we meet who give us a way of seeing things in truly striking ways. You and I have all met such people. They move us to feel that God is near. Those are grace filled moments in our lives. God continues to give us epiphanies in those moments.<br />
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Or perhaps God’s Light comes to us in moments of silence and reflection when we are trying to pray. Perhaps we feel dry… that the words just do not come. Yet there are moments when God will come to us in our attempts at prayer… when He is very near… when He is trying to manifest Himself to us… when His Spirit is moving within us.<br />
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Or it may come in a particularly beautiful or moving celebration of the Mass… or in a reading from an Epistle or Gospel account. These, too, are epiphanies of God. These, too, are moments when we can bring our own personal gifts to Him, the gold that is the richness of our lives… the frankincense of our love for Him… the myrrh of the bitterness and suffering we carry within us. These are moments when God looks upon us as kings and queens… not as cringing and bootlicking slaves… but as beloved friends. Didn’t He tell us that when He declared: “I no longer call you slaves, but I call you friends”? That was truly an amazing statement by God. He calls you and me His friends! Truly we are kings and queens.<br />
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And so let me here resolve with you once again to renew my vision. May you and I try harder to push the darkness of our vision aside. Are we bitter and resentful like Herod was? Do we feel upset with the Catholic Church? With having to go to Mass? Are we upset with priests… with the bishop… with the pope? Do we carry animosities in our hearts toward those with whom we live? Toward our associates or our neighbors? Let us therefore cast aside the darkness that keeps us from seeing each other as God sees us. Let us try once more during this coming year to see the epiphanies of God in our lives, especially those manifestations of Him that come to us through other persons. Let us turn our hearts to renewed prayer… to thought-filled contemplation of our lives…to meditation on the meanings that we find in our selves. Let us become the Kings who followed Bethlehem’ star to the birthplace of the Son of David. Let us renew once again our commitment to see God’s Light in our lives. For He comes… He comes to tell you and me that He loves us… that He loves us as a lover loves his beloved… that He wants to share His very self with us… that He wants to have a total communion… a whole communion… a Holy Communion with you and with me… together in His beloved Son born as one of us to become one with us.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1210491415270052508.post-39612359220646016972025-12-15T09:20:00.001-05:002025-12-15T09:20:10.518-05:00Homily for the Nativity of the Lord (Christmas), December 25, 2025, Year A<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulZtgSZPCnHCaFW_F1DY2I4VKWnHg2kqIfpsP4R5q_wr30wmLY0sE2Nwhj6Z3F2hEFzCimyE-gvE2TOapQakk8S8hIDGFmSb3qIJ0igS0yOANSczadUtvBBzu_MgaXZA78TnKr6quf-mM2akuSRNaG_TCIgm2-TgDNGAgCuyOpWv253RWKIw1OvDINs_g/s1280/Nativity%20of%20the%20Lord%20(Christmas).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nativity of the Lord (Christmas)" border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="1280" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulZtgSZPCnHCaFW_F1DY2I4VKWnHg2kqIfpsP4R5q_wr30wmLY0sE2Nwhj6Z3F2hEFzCimyE-gvE2TOapQakk8S8hIDGFmSb3qIJ0igS0yOANSczadUtvBBzu_MgaXZA78TnKr6quf-mM2akuSRNaG_TCIgm2-TgDNGAgCuyOpWv253RWKIw1OvDINs_g/w640-h460/Nativity%20of%20the%20Lord%20(Christmas).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Fr. Charles Irvin</div><div style="text-align: center;">Diocese of Lansing</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">(<a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122525-Day.cfm" target="_blank">Click here for Sunday’s readings</a>)</div>
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My dear brothers and sisters, all of our ideals, all of our dreams of what we want to be, and of what our world can be… all of our visions and understandings of God, and of God’s ways with us, are focused now on a child… God’s Anointed One, God’s Christ. For a child us born unto us, a son is given us, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying powerless in a manger, there being no room for him elsewhere in our world for his birth.<br />
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It is a sacred moment into which we now enter, a precious moment, a holy hour observed all over the world in Midnight Masses. Midnight Mass gathers so many different people in a lovely moment of peace and happiness – Blacks and Whites, Asians, Africans, Latinos and Anglos…. Catholics, both active and devout as well as marginal and estranged, Protestants, members of others great faiths, and even doubtful believers with hesitant faith. It is a transcendent moment when we suspend business as usual, when we suspend suspicion and animosities, when we lay aside resentments and jealousies, push back our hurts and anger.<br />
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The Christmas story we have just heard once again presents us with tremendous vistas. They offer the possibility of transforming yet again our beaten-up world and our humanity as we’re now living it; they offer us the invitation to take hold of God’s power and allow Him to re-shape our lives, our present condition, and our souls.<br />
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It is the prerogative of God to do such things. Isaiah’s cry once again reaches deep into our souls proclaiming:<br />
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<i>The people who walked in darkness<br />have seen a great light;<br />those who lived in a land of deep darkness –<br />on them light has shined.</i></blockquote>
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<i>For the yoke of their burden,<br />and the bar across their shoulders,<br />the rod of their oppressor<br />you have broken….</i></blockquote>
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<i>For a child has been born for us,<br />a son given us;<br />authority rests on his shoulders;<br />and he is named Wonderful Counselor,<br />Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.</i></blockquote>
Isaiah’s cry is a fitting introduction to the Gospel account just read, the Christmas story, the infancy narrative of Jesus Christ. It’s account is poised between the timeless fairy-tale quality of the Isaian passages and the all-too-real disregard of governmental officials, both back then and in our day, for the human dilemmas and human pain caused by official governmental policies.<br />
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The brutal taxing of the sweat of those whose work seems to be only for the government, along with the casting of the marginalized and the poor on to the charity of private citizens…. there’s no fairy tale in THAT, either back then or right now in our lives. The dislocation of the marginalized, along with their forced and undocumented migration, a fate in which Joseph and Mary and their Child have shared, is all too real and common among us even today. And the problem of lack of housing, lack of shelter for pregnant women (with it’s implicit message that they should abort their babies) along with Herod’s raging infanticide, remains the stuff of the print and electronic news stories we see each day.<br />
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And yet all of God’s promises, beginning with Abraham and renewed down through thousands of years of Israel’s history in all of her prophets, priests and kings, come to be focused still on the moment of Christ’s birth. A shaft of divine light with the quality of a laser beam shines down through the night’s darkness on to a manger, into a human body, in a baby miraculously and mysteriously conceived in a little virgin girl, a virginal life beyond human mental or physical conception, a life that comes only from God, unstained by human corruption.<br />
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In the darkness of our clutter and pollution, in our wasted energy and wasted lives, in the ruins of Jerusalem in which Isaiah cries out, in our deceptions both personal and in high public office, and in our aggressions – individual, racial and national, we hear it proclaimed once again that the grace of God has appeared, offering salvation for us all, calling us to righteousness, giving us reasonable expectation and hope that, YES, human life can be changed, redeemed and transformed. The amazing account we have just heard is the good news of amazing grace made human flesh.<br />
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In our darkness, how do we and interpret life? How do we interpret our own lives and the lives of our families? What light do we offer our sons and daughters in which to see and judge? Tonight we can turn to offer them a gift that can never be bought in any shopping mall… tonight in Christ’s Mass, Christmas Midnight Mass, we can offer them a gift that can only come from God, the reality and the truth that the life of God has become and still becomes human life. For Christ’s life is a life of undreamed-of intensity and healing, hope and transcending power…. along with a passionate love for each one of us here. All of God’s revelation becomes very clear, very real, and all too human… but in a way that offers extra-ordinary goodness, hope and meaning to any human life however buried and smothered underneath the ash and debris of human sin and degradation.<br />
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Some (perhaps) would demand that I present proofs of these assertions. The truth is that no proof would be sufficient. Why? Because where there is proof there can be no faith. Faith and proof cannot exist in the same soul and the same time. For faith is an act of love, just as love is an act of faith.<br />
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But I can offer you what Holy Mother Church has offered for 2,000 years now. I can offer you signs. And they are all around you, right now.<br />
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You are celebrating this Mass with very real people who have discovered that there is more goodness in our world than evil… that there is more good in their selves than they once thought before. You are among people who attend Mass each and every weekend, not out of obligation and fear of hell, but out of love. You are among people who are recovering their lives from addictions, who have undergone major conversions, and who have come to know Jesus in very personal, intimate and loving ways. You are in a parish composed of very significant numbers of people who have resumed coming to Mass after years of absence and alienation from our Church. You are surrounded by signs of Good News, a cloud of witnesses, who are focused here in this church on one stupendous and incredibly beautiful moment in human time and history… that moment when God joined Himself forever and for all eternity into ordinary people, took on ordinary human flesh and blood, and joins himself here into you and me.<br />
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Tremendous power, infinite faith, hope, love, goodness, wisdom and vision are all here…. for each one of you, and for me along with you. This is the moment when ordinary humanity is given the power to become extra-ordinary…the moment when ordinary bread and common wine become infinitely extra-ordinary… and when all that seems fairy-tale like in the telling becomes very real and very human in the living.<br />
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The eternal Word, that Word that is God, became quite human so that we might more easily see and understand… and more divinely live. It is Christ’s Mass, Christmas Midnight Mass, a precious moment that can become a forever of moments for you and for me, all because of a God who does not reject and despise your humanity and mine…. because He has fallen in love with us.<br />
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May that gift and that Good News be forever yours and your children’s, forever yours and mine and our friends’, forever a part of the blessed and wonderful life we share here in our St. Francis family of faith. And may all of God’s blessings be with you and yours in this forthcoming year, the forth prior to the 2,000th year in which we celebrate the origin of this precious hour, and in which we now together share in God’s extraordinary love.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0