In our Gospel story tonight, as He prepares to wash the feet of his apostles, our Lord makes an ominous statement about how not all of the apostles are clean. He was, of course, speaking of Judas, who was about to betray Him.
Even though our Lord was preparing to show Judas the same love He was going to show the other 11 apostles by washing their feet, our Lord knew that Judas was willfully going to refuse His love.
Judas had already given his will over to sin and evil, hardening himself to our Lord’s love and mercy, and preparing himself to commit the most heinous and infamous act of betrayal history has ever known.
This past Sunday I spoke about the burden of sin. While in moments of temptation sin promises pleasure and freedom, once we give ourselves to sin, we are wounded by it. Sin makes us another Judas – at least to some extent.
Most times we don’t even realize the severity of the wounds our sins cause us, but mark my words, dear brothers and sisters, none of us ever gets off scott free from our sins.
In addition to damaging our relationships with our Lord, with His Church, and with one another, sin changes us – and always for the worse. In addition to the shame and guilt with which sin burdens us, sin hardens our hearts, and it can quickly enslave us.
As we are enslaved and fall prey to the same sins over and over, sin begins to distort our vision of reality, so that we lose our understanding of the severity of our sin. In the worse cases, we can even begin to believe that our sins are not really sins at all.
Without a doubt, sin is the most tyrannical of slave masters, robbing its victims of their strength of will and clouding their minds so that they readily jettison their beliefs in the sound teachings of the Church and the salvation obedience to those teachings promise.
You see, when we submit our own will to the will of God, we find true freedom. But when we direct our will toward selfish and sinful desires, we become enslaved to sin.
Thus, in our fight against the tyranny of sin, I mentioned last Sunday that there must be no compromise, no surrender, and no turning back. We must never accept sin or compromise with it. This is because the stakes are high!
If we are willing to submit to the teachings of the Church and fight the sins that plague us, then we have the hope of eternal salvation. But if we willfully give ourselves to grave sins and refuse to repent of them, we run the risk of eternal damnation.
Alas, our human nature – broken as it is by our sinfulness – is too weak to fight sin alone. Knowing this to be the case, our blessed Lord has given us two interrelated remedies to aid us in this battle for our souls: the priesthood and the sacraments.
Tonight we celebrate the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist, which is the most blessed of the Church’s 7 sacraments.
Indeed, while all of the Church’s sacraments provide grace corresponding to their respective purposes in the supernatural life of the soul, the Eucharist preserves, increases, and renews the sanctifying grace first received at Baptism.
So what material food produces in our bodily life, Holy Communion wonderfully achieves in our spiritual life (cf. CCC 1392).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that Holy Communion separates us from sin. As we are united to Christ in the reception of His body and blood, we are cleansed from past sins preserved from future sins (cf. CCC 1393).
Moreover, the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins. By giving Himself to us, Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in Him (cf. CCC 1394).
Furthermore, by the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist preserves us from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ and progress in His friendship, the more difficult it is to break away from Him by mortal sin (cf. CCC 1395).
Of course, without a priest to confect it, there can be no Eucharist. Whereas the priest brings the Eucharist into being, the Eucharist forms the identity and purpose of the priest. Thus these two great gifts are actually mutually dependent on one another.
But the priesthood isn’t a remedy for the burden of sin only because he confects the Eucharist! Our Lord has given His priest more power than that. Every validly ordained Catholic priest is truly a weapon that God fashions for the battle against sin and evil.
As the spiritual father of his people, the priest is called to shepherd his flock from the snares of the evil one through sound preaching, teaching, and pastoral care. According to St. Paul, priests are “stewards of the mysteries of God” (cf. I Corinthians 4:1).
We see this most fully lived out in the administration of the sacraments. As we consider the burden of sin, we see how priests embody and dispense the mystery of God’s mercy through baptism, confession, and the anointing of the sick.
These sacraments, along with the Eucharist, are the most effective means of fighting the tyranny of sin and alleviating man from sin’s terrible burden. It is in these sacraments that we see the powerful weaponry of the priesthood unleashed against evil.
Of course the most important part of priestly ministry is the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For it in this action that we most fully see the priest as the living embodiment of Jesus, Who is both priest and victim.
The Council of Trent taught that the Sacrifice of the Mass is not merely an offering of praise and thanksgiving, or simply a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.
The Mass is a conciliatory sacrifice that is offered for both the living and dead, for the remission of sins and punishment due to sin, as satisfaction for sin, and for other necessities. Thus, by offering the Mass, the priest helps relieve the burden of our sins.
Through the Mass, reparation for our sins and our lack of love for God is made, and the guilt of repented venial sins is removed so that we can be more fully reconciled to God!
All of this happens through the priest, who, standing in the person of Christ the Head, makes present, in an unbloody manner, the redemptive sacrifice of our Lord on Calvary.
In the person of the priest, the same Christ Who offered Himself on Calvary makes the very same sacrifice on the altar. And so at Mass, we are all at Calvary!
And our Lord makes this sacrifice willingly. Indeed, the heart of our Lord’s sacrifice is the voluntary gift of self. He was not compelled to suffer and die; He chose it.
Thus, the priest – by willfully choosing to become an alter Christus, an other Christ – helps to repair the damage we cause by the misuse of our free will by dispensing the incomparable riches of our Lord’s saving grace through the Mass.
As we consider this truth, can there be anything sadder than a priest who becomes a Judas by a lack of fidelity to our Lord and His Church, or a priest who willfully chooses to walk away from this most privileged of vocations to follow selfish desires?
My brothers and sisters, once again tonight we are reminded of the immensity of our Lord’s love and mercy, for in the twin gifts of the priesthood and the Eucharist, Christ gives His very self to us.
As we begin our solemn Triduum, may we pray for a greater love and devotion to our Lord present in the Eucharist amongst all Catholics. Through frequent and worthy reception of Holy Communion, may our wills be strengthened so that we can always say no to sin and say yes to our Lord’s most adorable will.
And may I ask as well that you pray for all priests, because we really need it. Pray that we may be faithful and courageous stewards of the mysteries of God.
Pray especially for those of us who are lukewarm or lazy, for those of us who are disobedient and break our vows, for those of us who are far from Christ, and most especially pray for those of us who willfully walk away from Christ, from His Church, and from the beautiful life of sacrifice we are so privileged to live.
28 March 2012

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

Homilies from June 17, 2012 onward have audio.
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Link to Homilies:
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• In the 4th chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, we read:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help. (Hebrews 4:14-16)
• To me this is one of the most consoling passages in all of Sacred Scripture, for it is a clear acknowledgement that our Lord not only understands our human frailties, but He also works on our behalf to help us find healing, and ultimately salvation.
• Thus, while a healthy and filial fear of the Lord is proper and good, we should not fear to approach Him as His children. To the contrary, whenever we are in need of mercy, forgiveness, or healing, our Lord is the first Person to Whom we should go!
• For our Lord is not only the Father par excellence, He is a priest Who lives to make sacrifice for the salvation of His people. And the sacrifice that He makes is none other than His very self.
• It is for this reason that we know Jesus Christ to be both priest and victim! Jesus is the Eternal High Priest who makes the perfect offering by which we are redeemed.
• Yet He is also the offering. He is that Lamb Without Blemish, the true Paschal Lamb that He offers on the altar of the cross as the victim for our sins.
• This is an amazing mystery that we celebrate in the Sacred Triduum that begins tonight with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. In this mystery of Jesus being both priest and victim, we see the close interconnection between the priesthood and the Eucharist.
• At the Last Supper our Blessed Lord gave us the inseparable gifts of the priesthood and the Eucharist – two sacraments by which the chasm between God and man is bridged, and by which Christ’s presence is maintained in this world.
• For through the priesthood men are ordained and set apart to stand in the place of God, to be His living presence in this world: each priest an alter Christus who provides to the Faithful that grace by which alone man can hope to be saved.
• And in the Eucharist, we who have been baptized receive, through the hands of a priest, not only Lord’s grace, but our Lord’s own Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity!
• These sacraments are inseparable because neither can exist without the other. Without the Eucharist, there is no priesthood; without the priesthood, there can be no Eucharist.
• Whereas the Eucharist forms the identity and purpose of the priest, being the primary reason priests are ordained, it is the priest who brings the Eucharist into being.
• The inseparable nature of these two great sacraments finds a very subtle expression in the Mass whenever a priest reverences the altar by placing his palms upon the top of the altar and kisses it.
• Keep in mind that only a priest’s hands may touch the top of the altar in this way. Why?
• When a bishop consecrates an altar, it is covered with sacred chrism as a means of
setting it apart for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for the altar is the place upon which our Lord offers Himself for us and becomes our Paschal Lamb. Thus, the altar is sacred.
• In like manner, when a man is ordained to the priesthood, his hands – which are the instruments through which the Mass is offered – are also covered in sacred chrism, making them sacred and thereby suitable to handle the sacred mysteries of God.
• Thus there is a sacred union, a sacred likeness, that exists between an altar and the hands of a priest, which is ritually expressed whenever a priest reverences the altar.
• And so it is that the twin gifts of the priesthood and the Eucharist go together, a union that we see perfectly realized in Christ Himself, Who in a charity beyond compare is both priest and victim.
• But our Lord’s charity at the Last Supper did not end with the giving of these two magnificent gifts. Desiring to give His apostles an example of charity that He wished them to follow, He humbly washed their feet. Imagine: God washing the feet of men!
• Can we think of a more humble act of charity? Although Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He kneels before His disciples and washes their feet like a common slave, an action that we memorialize in this Mass.
• This ritual action of washing feet at this Mass is not simply a memorial of our Lord’s charity. It’s an invitation to all of us.
• Like our Lord, we also must be willing to humble ourselves before others and serve them. We must be willing to give of ourselves fully through charitable words and actions, most especially through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
• Because all genuine charity is rooted in humility, charity can be a difficult virtue to practice. Charity requires that we in some measure overcome pride and sacrifice ourselves; it requires that we think of others before ourselves.
• Charity finds its perfection when we give without counting the cost.
• The good news is that God gives us the grace of charity in the Eucharist! Indeed, Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI referred to the Eucharist as the “Sacrament of Charity.”
• He wrote, “Each celebration of the Eucharist makes sacramentally present the gift that
the crucified Lord made of his life, for us and for the whole world. In the Eucharist Jesus also makes us witnesses of God’s compassion towards all our brothers and sisters. The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbor” (SC 88).
• And so whenever we worthily receive our Lord in the Eucharist, we are strengthened not only to love God more, but to love one another more, and to be able to show that love in acts of humble service.
• My brothers and sisters, our Lord gives to us tonight His greatest gifts: the Eucharist and the priesthood. In giving us these inseparable and sublime gifts, Christ gives us the gift of salvation.
• May we show our gratitude to Him by humbling loving and serving others.
• May we also adore Him tonight with great love and devotion, realizing that, while
tonight we honor Christ as our great high priest, tomorrow He will become our victim.

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

Homilies from June 17, 2012 onward have audio.
To enable the audio, lease go directly to Fr. Reid’s homily homilies and select the matching date.

Link to Homilies:
http://stanncharlotte.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=8&Itemid=61

The great Carmelite mystic, St. John of the Cross, tells us that Good Friday is the day of the year that, more than any other, invites us to enter into the sufferings of the Son of God (Spiritual Canticle 35.9).

Truly, this is the day, more than any other, on which we contemplate and delve into the mystery of human sin and its crucifying consequences, felt most especially on a rocky hill outside of Jerusalem some 2000 years ago.
Whether we like to think of it or not, all of us are complicit in our Lord’s Passion and death, for all of us are sinners. The Passion narrative gives us some prescient examples of human sin and the terrible consequences of those sins.
As such, the story of our Lord’s suffering and death is also a primer for how to deal with our own sins, especially as we compare several of the historical figures in the story.
Look at Peter and Judas. Both were apostles; both had witnessed our Lord’s countless miracles. Both Peter and Judas knew who Jesus was. Yet both of them betrayed Him nevertheless, and both suffered terrible anguish for doing so.
But it is there that the similarities end, for in their knowledge of Jesus’ divinity and their terrible betrayal of Him, Peter and Judas made radically different choices. Peter made a choice based on humility and hope; Judas made a choice based on pride and despair.
What we learn today is that in the face of our own sinfulness, each of us has to make a fundamental decision: to either proudly refuse God’s mercy and sink into despair, or to humbly accept His mercy and live in hope.
Indeed, we must remember that the potential to be a Peter or a Judas lies within all of us. All of us betray Jesus every time we sin. The graver and more mortal our sins are, the worse our betrayal is.
And if our sins are mortal, the choice to seek God’s mercy or proudly refuse it will determine the eternal destiny of our souls.
We see this so clearly in the story of the two criminals crucified with Jesus. While John’s Gospel, which we read from today, does not provide many details about these two criminals, the Gospel of Luke does.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that in an act of humility and faith, the Good Thief, whom Tradition names Dismas, recognizes the innocence of Jesus, admits his own guilt, and asks Jesus for mercy – which is readily given to him by our Lord along with the promise that Dismas will, that day, be in Paradise.
Sadly, the other criminal mocks our Lord and remains steadfast in his sin.
Just as the potential to be a Peter or a Judas lies within us all, so does the potential to beDismas or the unrepentant criminal.
The crucial question is how we respond to our own sinfulness, especially at the end of ourlives, for this determines whether or not we will be saved.
My experience as a priest has shown that most people die just as they lived.
In other words, if we live lives in which asking God for His mercy, especially in Confession,is a habit for us; if we have sought to be in union with our Lord through prayer, obedience to His teachings, and frequent and worthy reception of the Sacraments, then we will most probably die a happy death like Dismas, even though we may have sinned terribly during our lives.
But if we live a life of proud selfishness and unrepented sin with little thought of prayer, obedience, or worthy reception of the Sacraments, then we cannot expect to be open to God’s mercy at the end of our lives – even though God’s mercy is always available.
And so, my brothers and sisters, as we consider today all that our Lord suffered because of our sins, let us ask ourselves how it is that we are going to respond to our own sinfulness, most especially in the waning moments of our life.
In the face of man’s abominable sinfulness, Jesus responds with the greatest act of love the world has ever known. None of us is worthy of Heaven, but Jesus makes it possible for us anyway – and this must be our hope and our confidence!
Today, as we venerate the cross – that terrible instrument of our salvation – let us pray for the grace to always recognize our sins and to humbly yet confidently turn to our Lord for His mercy.
May pride, despair, or self-loathing never keep us from the gift of salvation our Lord gives to us this Good Friday, but like St. Dismas, may we all be happy thieves in Paradise some day!

April 2012

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

You can go directly to his homilies:
http://stanncharlotte.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=8&Itemid=61

 Our readings today speak of human suffering, and although suffering is by its nature is unpleasant, it is a part of this life. None of us escapes it, although hopefully we’re not as bad off as poor Job, whom we hear from in our first reading.

 What we may not realize about suffering is that suffering always shapes us; it always changes us. Today’s readings challenge us to look not only at the sufferings in our own lives but the sufferings in the lives of others as well, and to respond like Christ.
 As I mentioned, suffering always changes us: either for better or for worse. Sadly, our broken human nature often tends toward selfishness in the face of personal suffering.
 When suffering enters our lives, we often turn inward, complaining, losing hope, and in the worst cases, becoming bitter, angry, or cynical.
 As a priest there is nothing sadder to me than seeing an older person whose heart has been hardened by suffering, especially the suffering endured at the hands of others.
 Because all of us are sinners, we all hurt others from time to time, sometimes grievously and even purposefully. That is part of the human condition.
 If we are not careful, the sufferings we endure at the hands of others can lead us to harden our hearts and withhold forgiveness, which Scripture tells us will keep us out of Heaven! Maturing as a Christian requires that we learn to respond well to suffering.
 The proper response to suffering is to imitate Christ and entrust ourselves to Him!
 The Gospel shows us Jesus’ willingness to heal all our infirmities. Whatever our illnessor demons may be, Christ can give us healing and peace. And He desires to do precisely
that with all of us!

 Last Sunday I spoke a bit about St. Clare and how she drove away a legion of soldierswith the authority of Christ. She was an extraordinary woman who was the disciple of
one of the most extraordinary men this world has ever known: St. Francis of Assisi.

 What is most extraordinary about St. Francis is not all that he accomplished in his short44 years of life.
 What is most extraordinary about St. Francis is how the tremendous sufferings in hislife made him the man who is widely acclaimed to be the saint most like Jesus Christ.
 Although he grew up in relative comfort as the son of a wealthy merchant, St. Francisbegan embracing a life of suffering when he chose to go off to war in the town of
Perugia at the age of 20.

 During this war between Assisi and Perugia, Francis was captured and held a prisonerof war for a year. During this year of captivity, the young Francis had a crisis of faith
that led him to search out Jesus and to begin alleviating the sufferings of others.

 Over time as he began doing works of charity, his relationship with Christ grew to thepoint where the gentle saint felt compelled to renounce his inheritance and all worldly
goods and to fully embrace a life of radical poverty.

 His choice to follow Christ in the most radical of ways by serving the poor, the sick, andthe outcasts of society in utter poverty resulted in Francis being ridiculed and mocked
by the townspeople, and being cut off from his family.

 Over time, even many of his fellow Franciscans, the brothers who joined with him in hiswork amongst the poor, turned against Francis in the most brutal and callous of ways.
 Yet Francis was not deterred. And his willingness to enter into the sufferings of others, and to endure sufferings at the hands of others – including his family and followers – eventually led St. Francis to a peace and joy that very few people have ever known.
 Over time St. Francis not only became like Jesus in his gentle bearing, patience, and inexhaustible charity, but two years before his death he even received the stigmata, bearing in his body the very wounds of Christ.
 If you ever have a chance to visit the Basilica of St. Clare in Assisi, there you can see the slippers that St. Clare made for the wounded feet of St. Francis, and the poultice that she applied to his wounded side to help stem the flow of blood and prevent infection.
 These little relics – along with many others there – testify to the Christ-like nature of St. Francis and his willingness to embrace suffering as a means of becoming like Jesus and coming to the aid of others.
 One important lesson that we learn from St. Francis is that as we get into the habit of turning to Jesus in times of personal suffering, we become better able to help others in their times of suffering. We also become more gentle and forgiving with those who cause our sufferings.
 That’s precisely the challenge St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians makes to us today. St. Paul says that he has made himself a slave to all “so as to win over as many as possible.” He says: “I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”
 You see, St. Paul was willing to look past the sins and ugliness of others – intuiting perhaps that their bad behavior might be rooted in some suffering of their own – in order to minister to them.
 And so as we consider our readings today, as well as the life of good St. Francis, we must ask ourselves if we are willing to bear patiently with others when they treat us badly.
 To be sure, being patient with the sins of others doesn’t mean that we don’t correct them, for the Church has always recognized that admonishing our erring brothers and sisters is a spiritual work of mercy.
 However, it does mean that we must try to see everyone as Christ sees them, magnanimously looking past their faults and failings in order to see the good within them.
 Like Jesus, who was willing to suffer crucifixion and even death, we must be willing to suffer for others and at the hands of others to help them along on the path to salvation.
 When we can do this, it is then that we can best help them to find the remedy for whatever ails them.
 My brothers and sisters, all of us are sinners. All of us fall short of God’s glory. None of deserves God’s mercy, and yet His mercy is always available to us. No matter how terrible our sins, if we are sorry for them, God always forgives them.
 Even the worst and most evil of people are precious in God’s eyes, and He desires that they be saved too.
 Perhaps this mystery of God’s inexhaustible mercy is the most inscrutable of the mysteries surrounding God. Yet as hard to understand as it is, it is this mystery of mercy that we must all learn to practice with others.
 May we all learn to turn to God in our times of suffering and pain so that we may become more like Him who suffered for us. And may we all learn to show the same mercy to others that we have received from our Lord.
 St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

05 February 2012

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

You can go directly to his homilies:
http://stanncharlotte.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=8&Itemid=61

• My paternal grandfather was a commercial artist. While he was generally employed to paint billboards and signs rather than create works of fine art, he still had a marvelous aesthetic sense.
• Grandpa’s house and yard were a wonderful combination of creativity, color, and order, and I always felt a great sense of peace and delight in his home.
• My father has never been an artist, but he did inherit his father’s deep appreciation of beauty – an appreciation that he very consciously passed along to me.
• So while it was my mother who really taught me to love and serve God, it was my father who taught me to see and appreciate our Lord through the beauty of this world. From my dad I learned that man needs beauty in order to get through life.
• To this day I rarely see something beautiful, whether it be a beautiful sunset or a truly beautiful piece of artwork, without thinking of how much my dad would enjoy it.
• When I began studying philosophy in the seminary, I was delighted to learn that beauty, according to St. Augustine, is really just another word for God, and that the unity, truth, goodness, and beauty we find in this world all point us to God.
• The great philosophers teach us that the essence or heart of beauty is order. So in other words, if something is beautiful, it is by definition well-ordered; all of its elements form a harmonious, integrated whole.
• It is this harmony, this integrated wholeness, this order that elicits delight and peace and calms all restlessness within the one who beholds the beauty – much like the feelings I had as a child in my grandfather’s home.
• I suppose this is one of the reasons why I love the saints so much. Regardless of what any of the saints looked like physically, all of them possessed a beauty of soul that radiated through their countenance.
• The saints were beautiful because their souls were well ordered. There was no division in them, no conflict between the way they lived their lives and what they knew to be true. In a saint there is harmony between his actions and his beliefs.
• If we can understand order as the heart, the essence of beauty, then we can understand disorder as the essence of ugliness. Ugly things lack harmony, order, and integrity. Ugliness is chaotic. Rather than peace and delight, ugliness foments disturbance.
• Both beauty and ugliness can be understood in either an aesthetic or moral sense. Of course, moral ugliness is much more serious than aesthetic ugliness, just as moral beauty is superior to aesthetic beauty.
• Moral ugliness in a person indicates some amount of disorder within that person, and disorder is created within us by sin. Every sin is a disordered act because it is contrary to the great schema of order by which our Lord has created us and all of creation.
• Anyone who has ever studied nature in any depth can tell you that there is a wonderful harmony, a wonderful order to our world and all of its elements. The order that we find in creation is a sign of the larger order by which God created the entire universe.
• But God’s ordering of the world is not only a physical or natural phenomenon; there is also a moral order to our world as well, which is indicated by the natural law.
• All of us have the law of God written upon our hearts. Because of this, everyone knows at his deepest core that things like stealing, telling a bold-faced lie, or murder is morally wrong.
• Just as we disrupt the natural order of the world by abusing the environment or misusing the things of this world, so too do we disrupt the natural order by acting in a way contrary to the laws of God.
• This Wednesday we will enter once again into the holy season of Lent, which is our annual time of the year to take stock of our moral lives in order to prepare ourselves for the glory of Easter.
• If we wish to experience our own personal resurrection some day and go to Heaven, our souls must be properly ordered – which means that we must try to correct our sins.
• To this end Holy Mother Church gives us the 3 very important spiritual practices of prayer, alms-giving, and fasting as a means of reordering our lives and our souls.
• Through the practice of prayer, we come to a greater understanding of the truths of our faith; we come to a personal knowledge of God! In coming to know God better, we come to a greater knowledge of the moral order He has set forth for us.
• Through prayer we also come to a greater knowledge of ourselves and of all of the ways that we are disordered because of our sins. It is in prayer, as well, that we are given the courage to repent of our sins and overcome them by God’s grace.
• Through the practice of alms-giving we grow in generosity and give honor to our Lord, as well as help to those in need. Proper alms-giving should cost us a bit; it should involve true sacrifice, but without being imprudent.
• And through the practice of fasting we make reparation for our sins, we find strength to say no to the temptations of sin, and we express our contrition for our sins. In some ways this spiritual practice is the most helpful in correcting our disorders.
• This is why Catholics are obliged under the pain of sin to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; it’s why we are obliged to abstain from meat on Fridays; and it’s why Catholics traditionally give up something during the 40 days of Lent.
• So as we approach Ash Wednesday this week, I’d ask you to give some serious consideration to what it is you’re going to give up this Lent. If you wish for your fasting to have its intended effects, you should be a bit rigorous in your fasting.
• But before deciding on what you will fast from, I encourage you to think about your sins. In what ways are you most disordered? In answering that question, try to fast from something that will really help you overcome your disorders.
• So if you struggle with gluttony, fast from your favorite foods and drinks. If purity is your worst disorder, fast from the forms of media that can be an occasion of sin for you. If you struggle with anger, fast from yelling at your kids.
• Just as with alms-giving, your fasting should pinch a bit; it should cost you something. It’s a bit disingenuous to fast just from chocolate or desserts if you don’t really have that much of a sweet tooth or if gluttony is not a real problem for you.
• Brothers and sisters, during the Holy Season of Lent Holy Mother Church encourages us to take stock of our lives and try to remove from within ourselves all that is displeasing to our Lord, all that disorders us and makes us ugly.
• Through the tools of prayer, alms-giving, and especially fasting, may each of us bring harmony and order to our souls so that we may grow ever more beautiful in God’s eyes.

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

Homilies from June 17, 2012 onward have audio.
To enable the audio, lease go directly to Fr. Reid’s homily homilies and select the matching date.

Link to Homilies:
http://stanncharlotte.org/content/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=8&Itemid=61

Back in the corner standing sentinel above the confessional is the statue of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. He stands there because of his renown as a confessor – often spending 16 hours/day in the confessional of his parish in Ars, France.
While perhaps St. John’s greatest work as a priest was done in his confessional, he was also a marvelous preacher, and a man of great vision and determination who worked very hard for the salvation of his flock.
When he arrived in Ars in 1818, he found his parishioners ignorant and indifferent to their Catholic religion, often spending their Sundays either working in the fields or drinking and dancing in the taverns.
But by the time he died in 1859, St. John Vianney had transformed his parish into a spiritual oasis, attracting tens of thousands of pilgrims each year, who came to avail themselves of his saintly pastoral care.
In all ways St. John Vianney was truly the most remarkable of parish priests, and his incorrupt body testifies not only to his purity of life, but also to his extreme holiness. Today, August 4th, is his feast day.
So what was St. John’s secret to holiness? In addition to a life of deep prayer, St. John was perfectly formed by the messages we hear in our readings today from Sacred Scripture.
In a nutshell our readings today speak of the dangers of being attached to the things of this
world. Our first reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that while worldly riches may alleviate some sufferings, in the end they bring on other sufferings – and thus the laboring for earthly goods is vanity.

Certainly the parable we hear from our Lord’s own lips today also reminds us of the utter foolishness of spending one’s life pursuing the things of this world – for we do not know when our earthly lives will end.
And as the parable reminds us, we will not be able to take our earthly goods with us into Heaven. The only things that we can take to Heaven are our virtues and good works. To be rich in these things is to be “rich in what matters to God.”
Truly, our readings today should cause us to ask ourselves how much of this world’s goods we really need. While it’s not a sin to be rich or to own many things, we must be aware that having and pursuing wealth poses some significant spiritual dangers.
You see, when we are blessed with an abundance of material goods, we can come to rely too much upon them and the comforts they provide, thus becoming less willing and able to endure suffering and hardship – while at the same time becoming more self-consumed.
And let us not forget that our salvation was won by the selfless suffering of Christ, and as His followers we must be willing to suffer, too. So if we lose our capacity or willingness to suffer, we will not become like Jesus.
Moreover, if we seek our happiness and joy in the things of this world, we will necessarily become greedy and materialistic, consuming whatever catches our eye with the hope of being sated.
And yet are we ever sated by the things of this world? Does anything this world has to offer ever produce real, lasting joy or peace? No! The peace and joy promised by the things of this world are a lie and a trap. That’s why it is vanity to pursue them.
They promise something they can never deliver, and worse yet, becoming attached to the things of this world makes us less capable of being attached to the One Thing that will give us real, lasting joy and peace: God Himself.
St. John Vianney understood all of this so very clearly. Thus, his was a life of fasting and penance, often eating nothing more than a raw potato in a day in order to keep up his strength.
If you visit St. John’s rectory in Ars today you will see that the only things of value he owned were the things he used for Mass: his vestments and his chalice and paten. He loved poverty, for he knew that poverty provided a freedom to be attached solely to God.
Refusing to be allured by the things of this world, and through much fasting and penance, St. John was able to “put to death the parts of him that [were] earthly.” And so must we.
But even more so, St. John Vianney followed the advice of St. Paul today to seek and think of what is above, of what is heavenly. He understood that God created us for Heaven, and so he spent his earthly life trying to get there – and to take others with him.
Thus we must remember the words of the Psalmist today that man is dust, and that we will eventually turn back to dust. Made out of a handful of clay, mankind is delicate and finite. In the light of eternity, the life of a man is no more than a blink of the eye.
So it is that we must be constantly prepared to meet our Maker! So it is that we must learn to cling to our Lord in this life, preferring Him and His most holy and adorable will over anything this world has to offer.
We must be willing to turn away not only from earthly goods, but also from all sin and impurity, as St. Paul counsels the Colossians today. And again, St. John Vianney provides a wonderful example.
As I mentioned earlier, St. John Vianney’s body is incorrupt, even though he’s been dead for 154 years! This is because St. John, like a handful of other saints whose bodies are incorrupt, maintained his chastity and practiced virtue throughout the course of his life.
And quite honestly, there is great joy and freedom in remaining pure and practicing virtue, a joy and freedom that cannot be matched by whatever fleeting pleasures sin or earthly things may provide.
As St. John Henry Newman once stated: “Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure.”
My brothers and sisters, we live in a society that extols wealth and materialism with little or no thought to the dangers they pose to man. While it is a blessing to have an abundance of this world’s goods, it can also be a curse if we seek our happiness in those goods.
Thus, like the saints we must seek to be detached from all worldly things and pleasures, turning our minds to what is above, shunning all sin and vice, and remembering that we have died and that our lives are hidden with Christ in God.
By practicing the virtues of charity and generosity, through fasting and penance and prayer, may we become attached only to the things of Heaven.
And like St. John Vianney, may we learn truly to love our Lord above all things and to seek His glory rather than our own.
4 August 2013

© Reverend Timothy Reid

Fr. Reid is the pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

Homilies from June 17, 2012 onward have audio.
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Link to Homilies:
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