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Washing of the Feet

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2016/03/04 at 12:00 AM

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.
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

 

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“With Him there is no possibility of failure”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2016/02/26 at 12:00 AM
“I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” With him there is no possibility of failure, and this conviction gives rise to the holy “superiority complex” whereby we take on things with a spirit of victory, because God grants us his strength. (The Forge, 337)

If you’re not struggling, it’s no use telling me that you are really trying to become more closely identified with Christ, to know him and love him. When we set out seriously along the royal highway, that of following Christ and behaving as children of God, we soon realize what awaits us: the Holy Cross. We must see it as the central point upon which to rest our hope of being united with Our Lord.

Let me warn you that the program ahead is not an easy one. It takes an effort to lead the kind of life Our Lord wants… We will, however, discover our own meanness and selfishness, the sting of sensuality, the useless, ridiculous smack of pride, and many other failings besides: so very many weaknesses. But are we to give in to discouragement? Not at all. Together with St Paul, let us tell Our Lord, ‘I am well content with these humiliations of mine, with the insults, the hardships, the persecutions, the times of difficulty I undergo for Christ; for when I am weakest, then I am strongest of all’…

I am convinced that unless I look upward, unless I have Jesus, I will never accomplish anything. And I know that the strength to conquer myself and to win comes from repeating that cry, ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me,’ words which reflect God’s firm promise not to abandon his children if they do not abandon him. (Friends of God, 212-213)

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A Doctor’s Ministry, Bridging Science and Spirit

In 13 History on 2016/02/26 at 12:00 AM

 Forty years ago, long before the recent afternoon when Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky knelt at the warped feet of his 4-year-old patient, he was a small-town teenager approaching his Catholic confirmation and needing to select a patron saint. He made an unlikely choice, a newly canonized figure, St. Martin de Porres, the illegitimate child of a former black slave in 16th-century Peru.

Back then, in the early 1970s, as the child of a factory worker and a homemaker, Joseph had no aspiration toward medicine. Nor did he know that Martin de Porres had been elevated to sainthood in part because of his healing miracles.
Decades later, something — call it coincidence, call it providence — has bent the vectors of faith and science together in the career of Dr. Dutkowsky. The confluence of these often-clashing ideals has taken him to the top of his profession as an orthopedic surgeon specializing in the care of children disabled from cerebral palsy, spina bifida, Down syndrome and other afflictions. It has also taken him to the healing shrine of Lourdes and to the Lima barrio where his patron saint tended to the poor and broken and cast out.
Dr. Dutkowsky’s appointment with Christian, his young patient at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in New York, was as emblematic as any other on his calendar: cerebral palsy at birth, canted legs that could not be corrected by braces, muscle tissue softened by Botox injections, and each foot placed in a cast for several weeks to try to reshape it for stable walking.
“This is my ministry,” said Dr. Dutkowsky, 56. “Some people stand next to the ocean to feel the presence of God. I get to see the likeness of God every day. I see children with some amazing deformities. But God doesn’t make mistakes. So they are the image.”
Dr. Dutkowsky is well aware that he occupies contested territory, both intellectually and theologically. He can say, as he does, that he considers both belief and reason to be divine gifts. And he can say, as he does, that a healing miracle can consist of restoring a person’s soul to God, not necessarily curing a disease or reviving a paralyzed limb.
Words, though, have rarely settled the millenniums-old arguments between sacred and secular, particularly as they pertain to medicine. So Dr. Dutkowsky mostly lives his example. Once chastised by a hospital superior for saying “God bless you” to his patients, he wears a wooden cross carved by a disabled man in Lima, he fingers a rosary as he drives to the hospital each week from his home in upstate New York, and he recites a prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier as he parks the car and prepares to see his patients. “Only show me,” it concludes, “what is your will.”
Dr. Dutkowsky has found his place working in a zone where medical challenge and religious mystery intersect. He treats people — even those who have grown into adulthood — who were visited with disability as children. When he operates on them, he recognizes that he is, at least in the short term, adding pain to a life saturated with pain.
A purely secular physician, someone who accepts the concept of a capricious and random universe, would not face the question that a believer like Dr. Dutkowsky did when he saw an adult patient named Mike late last month. Here was a man in his 30s who, despite a case of cerebral palsy that had consigned him to a wheelchair, earned a master’s degree and held a social work job. What kind of God would then allow this man to develop retinitis pigmentosa and gradually lose his sight?
As with the 4-year-old boy, Dr. Dutkowsky began his session with Mike on the floor, at the patient’s feet, looking less the expert than the supplicant. He swiveled his head and propped his chin on his palm to keep his face within Mike’s shrinking field of vision. He was, by choice, “Dr. Joe.”
Before turning to anything diagnostic, Dr. Dutkowsky spoke to Mike person to person, chatting about the Baseball Hall of Fame, joking about how he mows the lawn to reduce stress. “My psychiatrist,” he said, “is named John Deere.” Only then did he examine Mike’s legs and discuss a regimen of conditioning and strengthening exercises to return some mobility to them.
“We have a culture that’s addicted to perfection,” Dr. Dutkowsky said later. “We’re willing to spend thousands of dollars to achieve it. The people I care for are imperfect. And I can’t make them perfect. I only hope that they can sense that I actually care they’re more than skin and bones, that we have a bond.”
Dr. Dutkowsky has made efforts to bridge the chasm between science and spirit. As president of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, he had the Rev. David Farrell, a Catholic priest who has worked among Peru’s poor since 1964, address the group’s convention last year on the topic of “Poverty and Disability.” That same year, on his third pilgrimage to Lourdes, Dr. Dutkowsky took part in a conference on faith and medicine, delivering a speech he titled “Dignity and Disability.”
He took the occasion to wrestle with the ontological question embodied by the unmerited suffering of patients like Mike and Christian.
“For years, when asked why I chose this profession, I had no good answer,” he said, “until I came upon the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus and his disciples come upon a man who was blind from birth. The disciples asked Jesus, ‘Did this man or his parents sin that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered that the blindness was not the result of the man or his parents’ sin. The man was born blind ‘so the glory of God might be revealed.’ Every day in my work I find myself in the revealed glory of God.”
Source: Fr. Robert Connor http://robertaconnor.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-doctors-ministry-bridging-science-and.html 

On the Lives of the Saints

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2016/02/26 at 12:00 AM

• Throughout the seasons of Advent and Christmas, Holy Mother Church repeatedly reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Light of the World.
• Through the use of candles and the Advent wreath, as well as through the readings we heard at Mass, we were reminded over and over again that Christ is our Light, a light so powerful that not even the darkness of sin and death can overcome Him!
• And this symbol of Christ as our light found its culmination last Sunday as we celebrated the beautiful Feast of the Presentation, the feast during which the candles used at Mass for the upcoming year traditionally are blessed.
• Now, after two months of meditating upon Christ as the Light of the World, the light shining in the darkness that sin and death cannot overcome, Holy Mother Church encourages us to be lights ourselves!
• In the Gospel today Jesus tells us that we are the light of the World, and that our lights must shine before others.
• The prophet Isaiah encourages us to perform works of mercy for others as a means of being light. He says that our charity makes our light “break forth like the dawn”, so that when others see our good works, they will give glory to our heavenly Father.
• Being this light is our baptismal call. It is both a duty and a privilege. At baptism we all receive the light of Christ symbolized by a candle that is lit from the paschal candle. When we’re given this candle, we’re told to keep the light of Christ burning brightly within us throughout our lives.
• Those lighted candles we receive at our baptism are a sign of the divine radiance of Christ, Who came to expel the darkness of sin and division and to make the whole world shine with the brilliance of His eternal light.
• Those baptismal candles also remind us how brightly our souls should shine when we go to meet Christ at the end of our lives.
• This is why I love the saints of our Church so much. Each of the saints of our Church is like a brilliant, burning torch whose good works shine brightly for all to see.
• Each is like a lighthouse, and by their lives and good works they shine out as beacons into our dark and fallen world, illuminating for us the pathway to the safe harbor of sanctity and union with our Triune Lord.
• Many saints of the Church, like St. Benedict and St. Augustine here to my left, shined forth in such major ways that they not only enlightened the Church, but the world!
• Think about it. We know good St. Benedict as the Father of Western Monasticism. It was he who not only founded the Benedictine Order, but who provided the template for the way monasticism is practiced in the western Church.
• We know as well that it was his monasteries that persevered our cultural heritage during the so-called “dark ages.” Without St. Benedict and the incredible legacy he left to the Church, western civilization would no doubt be greatly impoverished.
• And dear St. Augustine, perhaps more so than any other person in the Church’s history, has given shape and form to our theology. Even though he died nearly 1600 years ago, all who study the Church’s theology keenly feels his influence even today!
• Yet St. Augustine’s greatest legacy is not his enlightening theology, but rather his autobiography – known as his Confessions – which give voice to the dynamics of
spiritual conversion better than any other work known to man.
• I could go on and on about the incredible accomplishments of the saints, of how
through their work and acts of heroic virtue they shone forth with the brilliance of
Christ’s light and led many souls to Heaven!
• Each of the Church’s saints, in his or her own way, not only shines forth like a
brilliant lamp on a lampstand, but through his or her holiness is an inspiration and a
consolation to those of us struggling for sanctity ourselves.
• Of course not every saint accomplished works as grand as St. Benedict and St.
Augustine. Not every saint’s light was placed on a lampstand for all to see.
• Some of our saints lived quite hidden lives actually. Perhaps these “hidden” saints
are the most inspiring and consoling saints of all, for these hidden saints show us
that great holiness can be attained even through very ordinary and simple means.
• In this regard I think in particular of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. Little
Thérèse grew up quietly in Normandy, entered a Carmelite monastery at the age of
15, and died when she was only 24.
• In her short life she accomplished nothing extraordinary, and she was not well
known outside of her family or religious community. Yet now, just a little more than
100 years after her death, she is considered one of the greatest saints of the Church!
• This is because of her spiritual legacy known as “the Little Way” that she expounded
upon in her autobiography, “Story of a Soul,” which teaches us that holiness is not
attained by accomplishing much in this life, but rather by loving much.
• St. Thérèse wrote that true glory is reached not by performing striking works for all
to see, but by hiding oneself and practicing virtue “in such a way that the left hand
knows not what the right is doing” (cf. Story of a Soul, Manuscript A. IV; Mt. 6:3).
• Perhaps it sounds like the Little Flower is contradicting our Lord in the Gospel today, but in truth she is teaching us that great holiness is achievable for all of us, no matter
what our state in life, no matter how small our accomplishments may be.
• In truth, St. Thérèse is echoing the sentiments of St. Paul, who tells us today that
whatever good we do accomplish in this life is really only by means of God’s grace.
• St. Paul speaks of how he conducted his work amongst the Corinthians in weakness,
without sublime words or wisdom. And he says this so that the Christians of Corinth
might believe in God – not in Paul.
• This is the difference between a saint and a sociopath! History has been filled with
men who have accomplished great things, believing that they did so by their own
power. And they did so for their own glory, not God’s.
• So as we strive to let the light of our good works shine before others, we should do
so with a humility that recognizes that whatever good we do is only because God has
given us the grace to do those good works.
• Furthermore, St. Thérèse’s Little Way teaches us that all growth in holiness begins
with those little decisions we make each day to be good, to be charitable. So if you
wish to be a saint, simply begin with little acts of charity towards others.
• When we concern ourselves with the needs of others before the needs of ourselves in little things, our wills naturally are strengthened and the light of Christ within us
grows brighter so that we can love our Lord even more – and this makes us holy.
• My brothers and sisters, through God’s grace and mercy, may we all shine with the
light of Christ in this dark world of ours, most especially through the little, ordinary
actions of our daily lives – and may we do so with a humility that glorifies God. • May we all be saints someday.

© 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

Our Thirst for God

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2016/02/19 at 12:00 AM

• For those of you [who will be baptized at Easter or] who come to the Easter Vigil in a few weeks, you will hear the remarkable prayer of blessing of water for baptism.
• This prayer is remarkable because it walks us through salvation history and shows us how God has used water as a rich symbol of the grace that comes to us through the Sacrament of Baptism, namely, sanctifying grace, which is the grace of salvation!
• The prayer recalls how God’s Spirit hovered over the waters in the first moments of the world’s creation; it reminds us of how, through the waters of the great flood, God brought an end to the world’s vice in Noah’s day and a made a new beginning of virtue.
• This prayer speaks of how the children of Abraham passed dry-shod through the Red Sea, set free from slavery to Pharaoh, while prefiguring the Sacrament of Baptism.
• This prayer also recalls how Jesus was baptized by St. John in the Jordan at the beginning of His ministry, and of how water and blood gushed forth from His side as He hung upon the cross at the end of His earthly life.
• And so through this prayer we hear how our Lord has used water throughout human history as a means of sanctifying us and of drawing us closer to Him.
• Water plays a prominent role in our readings today as we hear the story of the Israelites thirsting in the desert, and how our Lord brought forth water from a rock for His chosen people, providing for them in their every need, despite their unworthiness.
• Even more poignantly, in the Gospel today we hear of the Samaritan woman at the well, who at first was in search of only natural water, but who, after conversing with our Lord, desired the waters of ever-lasting life.
• In truth, all of us thirst for God. Indeed, the deepest longing of every human heart is to be united with our Lord, for eternal union with Him is why God created us. God designed us so that we would long for Him and seek Him out!
• Sadly, many people do not recognize that the thirst they feel deep inside is a thirst for God, and in an effort to slake their thirst, many people turn to the things of this world for fulfillment, just as the Samaritan woman sought to slake her thirst with men.
• But truly, God is the only thing that will ever fulfill us. He alone can slake that great thirst each of us feels within the depths of our souls. And God will only slake this great thirst if we unite ourselves to Him by living a life of holiness.
• For the past two weeks I’ve spoken about the soul-expanding process of becoming holy. As we begin our spiritual lives, growth in holiness comes about largely through our own efforts.
• Through the practices of fasting and prayer, and by seeking to detach ourselves from the things of this world, we prepare our souls for union with our Lord. But as we do these things, we often must contend with temptation and suffering.
• The evil one always knows when we are making progress in the spiritual life, and so he will always try to derail it by tempting us to sin and turn away from God.
• But the devil is not the only one who tests us. As I mentioned last Sunday, God often allows suffering to enter into our lives as a means of strengthening us and of helping us detach from earthly things so that we might become more attached to Him.
• Suffering is always a test because of our natural tendency to become angry with God when bad things happen. How we deal with suffering is a great measure of our faith, because suffering is always an invitation from Christ to join Him on Calvary.
• God doesn’t send us suffering because He wants us to suffer per se. Rather, God allows suffering to come into our lives so that we might become more like His Son!
• When we persevere in prayer and fasting, when we root out the grave sin in our lives, when we detach ourselves from worldly things and suffer with faith, hope, and charity, little by little, God begins to quench our great interior thirst.
• As we make progress in holiness and our souls expand, we begin to drink of our Lord’s water in prayer, which becomes in us a spring welling up to eternal life.
• As our union with God is strengthened, our prayer becomes less and less something that we do, and more and more something that God does within us. The more intent we are on doing the will of God, the more our Lord unites Himself to us in prayer.
• However, I think the real lesson of today’s Gospel is not that we thirst for God, but rather that God thirsts for us, and that He cannot resist a soul earnestly seeking truth.
• Keep in mind how shocking it was for Jesus even to be speaking to a Samaritan woman. There was bitter enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans, and thus the Jews and Samaritans typically had nothing to do with each other. Moreover, He was exhausted!
• Yet in our Gospel narrative we see Jesus not only engaging the woman at the well, but leading her down a path to conversion. He wants to win her soul, and so like a master fisherman, he sets to work reeling in this big fish!
• And through the course of their dialogue, the Samaritan woman responds to God’s grace. Not only is she open to talking to a Jewish man, but she humbly admits her sin, and shows a sincere desire to know more when He moves her away from the task of drawing water to seeking the water that wells up to eternal life.
• And as the woman at the well shows willingness to accept the true teachings that He is giving her, Jesus reveals His true identity, and not only does she profess belief in Him, but she shares her newfound faith with her neighbors.
• My brothers and sisters, we are all thirsty. Deep in our souls is a thirst that only union with God can quench. But for that thirst to be quenched, we must do our part to respond to the grace of conversion that He gives so generously to us all.
• But more importantly, God thirsts for us. He thirsts for our souls, and His greatest desire is that all of us join Him one day in Heaven. But again, we must do our part.
• May we continue steadfastly with our Lenten fasting, penances, and prayers that help us to be detached from worldly goods and more attached to God. May we be willing to turn away from temptation and endure all sufferings with faith, hope, and true love.
• And like the Samaritan woman at the well today, may we accept our Lord’s graces and drink deeply of His life-giving water so it may well up within us to eternal life.

© 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

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“Get to know the Holy Spirit”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2016/02/19 at 12:00 AM
Get to know the Holy Spirit, the great Stranger, on whom depends your sanctification. Don’t forget that you are God’s temple. The Advocate is in the centre of your soul: listen to him and be docile to his inspirations. (The Way, 57)

The strength and the power of God light up the face of the earth. The Holy Spirit is present in the Church of Christ for all time, so that it may be, always and in everything, a sign raised up before all nations, announcing to all men the goodness and the love of God. In spite of our great limitations, we can look up to heaven with confidence and joy: God loves us and frees us from our sins. The presence and the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church are a foretaste of eternal happiness, of the joy and peace for which we are destined by God. (…)

But our faith in the Holy Spirit must be complete. It is not a vague belief in his presence in the world, but a grateful acceptance of the signs and realities into which he has poured forth his power in a special way. When the Spirit of truth comes, our Lord tells us, “he will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.” The Holy Spirit is the Spirit sent by Christ to carry out in us the work of holiness that our Lord merited for us on earth.

There cannot be faith in the Holy Spirit if there is not faith in Christ, in his sacraments, in his Church. A man cannot act in accordance with his christian faith, cannot truly believe in the Holy Spirit, unless he loves the Church and trusts it. He cannot be a coherent Christian if he limits himself to pointing out the deficiencies and limitations of some who represent the Church, judging her from the outside, as though he were not her son.

(Christ is passing by, 128-130)


The Faith Journey of Paul Mitchell

In 12 Converts on 2016/02/19 at 12:00 AM

Most converts to The Holy Roman Catholic Church come through a logical, methodical and cerebral understanding of where they are and then where they want to be.  I, as a right brain, stubborn, hard headed engineer, HAD to do it differently.  I had to find out the stove was hot, THE  HARD WAY.

My spiritual venture started as a Southern Baptist, in the mountains of North Carolina, AND  very anti-Catholic.   Not only did I believe that Catholics worshiped statues and Mary, and had to obey everything the Pope and priests said, but also that Catholics started the Civil War and were not Christian.

I was raised in the 1940’s and 1950’s and greatly influenced by the 1960’s.  It was a time of Dale Carnegie (Act enthusiastic and be enthusiastic) and Napoleon Hill (You are what you want to be) and the mantra of “self-actualization”.  I was a ‘true’ believer that the sky was the limit and wealth and power were closely within my reach.  The gold ring was mine, and all I had to do was reach a little more and I would have the platinum ring.

One day, in early 1993, it ALL came tumbling down.  My mother had died December 1992, the business I started took a financial disaster, my health was deteriorating (I thought I was having a heart attack), debt was rampant, and I could see no encouraging future. Fortunately, as an engineer, I was always looking at issues numerically (No. 1 through 101).  So, I made a list of all that was going badly.  The list was long.  Then I forced myself to make a list of anything going well.  The list was short:  wife, kids, and family and they were fine.  Suddenly, I realized that it was primarily because of THE CHURCH,  the faith with which my wife Gerry was raised.

I realized I had better get my act together and be more focused on what Our Heavenly Father wants us to do.  So, I rushed into the office of St. Peter and Paul and asked to speak with Father Morris.  He came right away, and I blurted out “I need to get my act together and focus more on the Church!”  He was most understanding, gentle and patient.

Gerry, who had continuously demonstrated the love of Christ, and I received the Eucharist together for the first time on Monday, June 13, 1994.

Life is not without problems and issues but, through prayer and participation in my local parish, I have less needless anxiety.

My new avocation is to make apparent anti-Catholic behavior, and to witness that such behavior is not necessary, whether it comes from jokes, stories, TV, radio, magazines, books or even homilies.

Since June 13,1994, I have been enjoying the academic (and sometimes cerebral) pursuit of my ‘new found’ faith.  For example,  ten years ago, while reading about the lives of the Saints of the Church, I discovered that  June 12, 1994, the day I was received by Father Morris into the Church founded by Christ, the Responsorial Psalm was from Psalms 92:
“They will still bear fruit in old age.”  The next day when Gerry and I received the Eucharist together for the first time (6-13-1994) at the 7:00 am Mass,  that day was the Memorial Mass for Priest and Doctor of the Church,  St. Anthony of Padua.    St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint for American Indians (my Eastern Band of Cherokee heritage), sailors (I love to sail), shipwrecks (I was one) AND (appropriately) asses.

The Responsorial Psalm for 6-13-1994 was from Psalm 5:  “The arrogant cannot stand before you.”

So now, through God’s grace,  I have the emotional ability and am continuing to develop the intellectual confidence to affirm:

“Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.  Amen.”

I have now ‘staked’ my soul upon this statement.

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“The charity of Christ should compel you”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2016/02/12 at 12:00 AM
You need interior life and doctrinal formation. Be demanding on yourself! As a Christian man or woman, you have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, for you are obliged to give good example with holy shamelessness. The charity of Christ should compel you. Feeling and knowing yourself to be another Christ from the moment you told him that you would follow him, you must not separate yourself from your equals – your relatives, friends and colleagues – any more than you would separate salt from the food it is seasoning. Your interior life and your formation include the piety and the principles a child of God must have in order to give flavour to everything by his active presence there. Ask the Lord that you may always be that good seasoning in the lives of others. ( The Forge, 450)

A Christian can’t be caught up in personal problems; he must be concerned about the universal Church and the salvation of all souls.

Concern for one’s own spiritual improvement is not really a personal thing, for sanctification is completely bound up with apostolate. We must, therefore, develop our interior life and the christian virtues with our eyes upon the good of the whole Church. We cannot do good and make Christ known, if we’re not making a sincere effort to live the teachings of the Gospel.

If we are imbued with this spirit, our conversations with God eventually aid other men, even though they may begin on an apparently personal level. And if we take our Lady’s hand, she will make us realize more fully that all men are our brothers — because we are all sons of that God whose daughter, spouse and mother she is.

Our neighbours’ problems must be our problems. Christian fraternity should be something very deep in the soul, so that we are indifferent to no one. Mary, who brought up Jesus and accompanied him through his life and is now beside him in heaven, will help us recognize Jesus as he crosses our path and makes himself present to us in the needs of our fellow men. (Christ is passing by, 145)

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“You have to live in harmony with your fellow men and understand them”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2016/02/12 at 12:00 AM
You have to live in harmony with your fellow men and understand them as a brother would. As the Spanish mystic says, you have to put love where there is no love to obtain love. (The Forge, 457)

Christ, who came to save all mankind and who wishes Christians to be associated with him in the work of redemption, wanted to teach his disciples — you and me — to have a great and sincere charity, one which is more noble and more precious: that of loving one another in the same way as Christ loves each one of us. Only then, by imitating the divine pattern he has left us, and notwithstanding our own rough ways, will we be able to open our hearts to all men and love in a higher and totally new way.

Tertullian writing in the second century tells us how impressed the pagans were by the behaviour of the faithful at that time. So attractive was it both supernaturally and humanly that they often remarked: ‘See how they love one another.’

If you think, looking at yourself now or in so many things you do each day, that you do not deserve such praise; that your heart does not respond as it should to the promptings of God, then consider that the time has come for you to put things right.

The principal apostolate we Christians must carry out in the world, and the best witness we can give of our faith, is to help bring about a climate of genuine charity within the Church. For who indeed could feel attracted to the Gospel if those who say they preach the Good News do not really love one another, but spend their time attacking one another, spreading slander and quarrelling? (Friends of God, 225-226)

Extraordinary Event in History Baptism of the Lord

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2016/02/12 at 12:00 AM

• As I mentioned last Sunday, with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord two weeks ago, we are now in what is called “Ordinary Time” in the new liturgical calendar.
• This is the longest of the liturgical seasons, and it is dedicated to honoring the mystery of Christ in its fullness, and not just specific mysteries.
• But in some senses I wonder if “ordinary” is the best way to designate this period of the year, for since the Advent of our Lord’s Incarnation 2000 years ago, there really is nothing ordinary about time anymore.
• You see, the fact that our eternal and infinite Lord became man was no ordinary event. It was a wholly extraordinary event, as Christ’s conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary was an intersection between heaven and earth, between the invisible and the visible, between infinity and finitude, between eternity and time.
• Indeed, with the in-breaking of eternity into the finitude of time, time itself has now been radically changed: time has been sanctified.
• The rest of human history will always be marked and measured by our Lord’s presence on earth. The people of old understood this, and this is why when calendars in the western world were devised, a division was made between the time before our Lord’s birth and the time after it.
• The anno domini (“AD”) that we see with the number of the year together denote for us how many years it has been since that pivotal moment in human history when our Lord appeared in human flesh.
• Those secularists and academics who of late have been insisting that we change the designation “AD” to “CE” for “Common Era,” are actually denying our Lord’s Incarnation.
• In doing so they are denying the central event in human history: that God, in His love and mercy, became one of us. Not only are they denying this central event in human history, but they are also denying something fundamental to our human nature.
• You see, not only did our Lord’s Incarnation change and ennoble the very nature of time; it changed and ennobled human nature as well!
• We, who once were lost because of the disobedience of our first parents, now have the Savior so long awaited by God’s chosen people. Salvation has become possible! And our weak human flesh has found new dignity in our Lord’s taking it upon Himself.
• And the salvation that our Lord brings is not only for His chosen people. As Sts. Peter and Paul both discovered and agreed upon, God’s salvation is for all people, Jew and Gentile alike.
• Thus we have the beautiful words of Isaiah today in our first reading: “Anguish has taken wing, dispelled is darkness: for there is no gloom where but now there was distress. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”
• With our Lord’s incarnation and subsequent passion, death, and resurrection, sin no longer has to be the defining and central characteristic of human nature. For while it is true that we are still sinners, we are redeemed and can be saved despite our sins!
• This is a most crucial distinction that as Christians must direct our lives. This knowledge of our redemption must form our hearts, our minds, and thus our behavior!
• Again, as Isaiah tells us today: “For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed, as on the day of Midian.”
• Jesus Christ, our Incarnate Lord, is now our light and our salvation, and we who know Him and love Him may dwell in His house. We may gaze upon His loveliness and contemplate His temple! Thus, despair has no place in the heart of the Christian.
• While we still have our daily struggles with sin and temptation, Christ Jesus Himself is our remedy. And we need only to turn to Him with sorrow for our sins to receive that mercy that will open up for us the gates of Heaven!
• Thus we have in today’s Gospel Jesus giving us a very simple and direct command: “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” When our Lord says that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, I think we can understand this in two senses.
• First, there is the imperative sense in which our Lord is reminding us that we never know when we will have to face our Maker. There is an immediacy to His words, and He wants us to be ready at a moment’s notice for Heaven.
• But we must also remember that as Catholics, we know that Heaven can be experienced even now – at least in a limited and nascent way – through prayer and the Sacraments.
• You see, my dear brothers and sisters, Heaven isn’t so much a place as it is Person! In Heaven we will be united with our Triune Lord for all eternity. And through our prayer and the grace of the Sacraments, we can begin to experience Heaven even now!
• And so our lives as Christians should be a matter of continual repentance, always seeking to grow in holiness by the constant turning away from those sins that tempt us, and doing our best to correct our faults and failings.
• But today’s Gospel also shows us that the life of the Christian must also be marked and measured by our obedience to our Lord and our willingness to follow Him, just as we see in the apostle brothers Andrew and Peter and James and John today.
• I love this passage because in this little vignette from the life of Christ we see the power Jesus has to attract followers to Himself, a power strong enough to draw men away from their livelihoods, to drop everything and follow Him.
• What I believe must have drawn the apostles was the fullness of truth, beauty, and goodness that Christ possesses within Himself.
• This calling of Jesus that we see being given to the apostles is given to all men. On a most fundamental level, our Lord calls to each person through one’s conscience and the natural law. In the depths of our consciences, every man is given the opportunity to hear our Lord’s voice and to know what is right and wrong so that we might follow Him.
• But our Lord also calls to us more directly through the preaching of the Gospel, which has been the Church’s primary task ever since Pentecost.
• Every time we hear or read the Scriptures, every time we listen to a homily that is faithful to the Church’s teachings, we are called by Christ to follow Him, just as Andrew, Peter, James and John were called in our Gospel story.
• My brothers and sisters, in His mercy and love our eternal Lord has broken into the limits of time and become man. In doing so, He has not only ennobled time, but He has ennobled our human nature as well and made salvation possible.
• In His love and mercy, our Lord constantly calls each us to Himself. May we hear His voice and heed His call by repenting of our sins! May we whole-heartedly believe that Jesus is our light and our salvation so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its
meaning.
• May Jesus Christ be praised, now and forever!

© 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