At Cana, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, said: “Do whatever He tells you.”
Fix your eyes on Christ and with the ears of your heart listen to the words of truth He spoke while on earth.
In His words you will find all the answers to your questions and dilemmas.
His ears are always attuned to your voice. tune in to His voice, which is clear, direct and life-giving.
Christ will listen, guide, counsel you. So listen to him as He speaks to you in the silence of your heart.
But do not forget that being with Jesus means we shall most certainly come upon his Cross. When we abandon ourselves into God’s hands, he frequently permits us to taste sorrow, loneliness, opposition, slander, defamation, ridicule, coming both from within and from outside. This is because he wants to mould us into his own image and likeness. He even tolerates that we be called lunatics and be taken for fools.
This is the time to love passive mortification which comes, hidden perhaps or barefaced and insolent, when we least expect it. They can even go so far as to strike the sheep with the very stones that should have been thrown at the wolves: the follower of Christ experiences in his own flesh that those who have a duty to love him, treat him instead in ways that range from mistrust to hostility, from suspicion to hatred. They look upon him with misgiving, as if he were a liar, because they do not believe it is possible to have personal dealings with God, an interior life; and all the while, with atheists and those who are indifferent to God (people who are usually impertinent and rude), they behave in a most amicable and understanding manner.
Our Lord may even allow his followers to be attacked with a weapon that never does honour to its user, the weapon of personal insult; or to be subjected to a smear campaign, the tendentious and indictable result of a massive campaign of lies: for not everyone is endowed with a sense of fairness and good taste.
This is the way Jesus fashions the souls of those he loves, while at the same time never failing to give them inner calm and joy, because they are fully aware that, even with a hundred lies, the devils are incapable of making a single truth; and he impresses on them a living conviction that they will only find comfort when they make up their minds to do without it. (Friends of God, 301)
Do you realize that there is someone who loves you so much that He was willing to die for you? Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, who by taking on a human nature, He, the only-begotten Son of God, entered our human condition in order to redeem it. Jesus was not pretending to be God; He is God. To rectify our fallen nature, He endured Gethsemane and Golgotha so that we could understand His love for us, and, that as He rose from the dead, so we can rise with Him.In His Incarnation, Life, Passion and Resurrection, Jesus Christ was love giving Himself to us for us and accepting us for Himself because He first loved us. Commit yourself to Him in gratitude. Seek to imitate Him. He models every virtue for you. Turn your mind, heart, will, and soul over to Him, asking Him to lead you with His promised grace.
In joy as in sorrow, God is always there for us. As we focus on Our Lord, His Incarnation, Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection, we identify with Him upon whom we gaze. Christ gave Himself to man completely. He began to do so not only with His Incarnation and life, but specifically with His passion and death.Whenever you believe you are being sorely tried, look at the face of the suffering Christ and He will give you the grace to cope, the courage to hang on and to endure your ordeal.Look at the Crucified for mercy, salvation, understanding and hope. Christ Crucified loves you and you are looking at the proof. The sufferings Christ endured on the Cross for us provide us with an understanding that by uniting our sufferings to His, we can grow spiritually. Look to Him who is calling you to follow Him.
We sometimes wonder why God sent His Son to die. Jesus took on our human nature so that we could regain the lost divine image. Jesus gave us so much out of love, yet He asks only that we return His love by doing the will of His/our Father. This we can do by bearing our trials and tribulations as well as by loving our neighbor for His sake. In taking upon Himself our human nature, Jesus Christ experienced every possible trial man undergoes. The sinless one, having endured our trials, sympathizes with our struggles, knowing our weaknesses. After having paid our debt, and while no longer on earth, He is in heaven where He mercifully intercede for us.
The irrevocable act of love is the Cross of Christ. Sinless, He willingly died for sinners. He died for us, and we are in His debt.It was on the Cross that Christ sacrificed Himself that you might live in Him.The life you live as a Christian must be a life of faith in the Son of God who loves you as no one else can. Be grateful for His gift of perfect love and demonstrate it by seeking Him with all you heart and living as He wishes you to live.
One of the greatest gifts you can offer God is self-donation. Whatever sacrifices self-donation requires will be compensated by the reality of knowing that what is most important to you is serving God.Self-d0nation to God can be done by anyone, anytime, anywhere in every walk of life. The essence of self-donation is trust in God. We self-donate when we decide to act in a Christlike way by changing our life to conform to His values and teachings.
We long to see God’s face. Look at the Crucified for He and the Father are one.Look at Him with the eyes of your heart and see yourself in them as the apple of His eye. Recognize His love for you and how He has created you in His image and endowed you with the dignity of a human person whom He has adopted as His own at cost of His only begotten Son.Uniting our sufferings with His redemptive ordeal, gives meaning and purpose to our trials. It is God who permits such events in our lives for the sole purpose that we might seek Him with love and become the persons we should be.
• In the 25th Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gives us this grand vision of how, at the Final Judgment, He will judge each of us just as a good shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (cf. Mt 25:31-46).
• Jesus tells us that He will place the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. To the sheep He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And they will inherit eternal life (Mt 25:34).
• And to the goats Jesus will say, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” and these will go off to eternal punishment (Mt. 25:41).
• Our Lord explains in this very important passage that each of us will be grouped with either the sheep or the goats based on our love for Him shown in our service to others in need. Specifically, Jesus speaks about fulfilling the corporal works of mercy.
• Does this mean that we can earn our way to Heaven simply by serving the poor? Of course not. We are saved by God’s grace, not by our works.
• However, although God’s saving grace is freely extended to all people, we must choose to accept or refuse His grace. Our willingness to serve Christ by serving the poor is a sign that we’ve accepted His grace. It’s a sign of our willingness to fulfill the great command to love.
• As our Gospel for today explains, we must listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow it. Christ calls each of us by name and leads us, and we who recognize His voice willingly follow the path He marks out for us.
• If we wished to be saved, we must choose to be one of His sheep by being obedient to His commandments, most especially the command to love Him above all else and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
• Yet, our Gospel makes clear that Christ is also the gate through which we enter into salvation. The sheepfold – the pasture – within which we find salvation is His Body, the Church. Christ is both priest and victim; He is both shepherd and sheepgate.
• To believe that we can find salvation through anyone other than Christ, or to allow ourselves to be shepherded by those who are not faithful to His teachings is like placing ourselves into the hands of thieves and robbers, who come “only to steal and slaughter and destroy.”
• Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can go to the Father except through Him! (John 14:6)
• Through our baptism, we enter into the Church – into our Lord’s sheepfold, and once in the Church we are shepherded by Christ’s teachings, which are safeguarded by His Church and communicated by His faithful shepherds, each of whom is an alter Christus.
• But remember my brothers and sisters: we must choose for Christ! This is a choice we must continue to make daily, even once we are inside His sheepfold!
• Even though our choice for Christ is made in a fundamental way at our baptism, we must renew our choice for Him constantly, for in our brokenness, we are often prone to wander far from Him.
• As we consider His great love and mercy that we celebrated 2 weeks ago on Divine Mercy Sunday, why wouldn’t we choose Him? Jesus offers to us His unfathomable mercy, which is unlimited as long as we live on this earth.
• Not only are the worst of sinners welcome to partake of our Lord’s mercy, but Jesus said to St. Faustina that the worst sinners have the greatest right to His mercy!
• Jesus is the Good Shepherd who willingly lays down His life for His sheep. Our Savior allowed His Sacred Heart to be ripped wide open by a cruel centurion’s lance so that all mankind could find a home there!
• That wound caused by Longinus’ lance not only opened up the sacramental life of the Church; it opened up the floodgates of God’s mercy!
• In our first reading we see St. Peter proclaiming to the house of Israel that Jesus, whom they crucified, is indeed the Christ! He sets the choice before them: they can either accept Jesus as their Lord or deny Him – but they have to choose.
• St. Peter tells the crowd that choosing for Christ requires that we repent of our sins. It requires that we turn away from the corruption of our generation.
• Once inside our Lord’s sheepfold, we must follow Christ by imitating Him in every aspect of our lives. In all things we must seek the Father’s will rather than our own will.
• Yet as the second reading today makes clear, following Christ and doing the Father’s will sometimes means that we are going to suffer – just like He did.
• But, my dear friends, this should not be a cause for anxiety or worry for us. For when we look with the eyes of faith, we can see that suffering is often the sweetest gift God gives us to us because suffering borne with patience really helps to shape us into an image of Christ.
• As St. Peter tells us today in our second reading, “if [we] are patient when [we] suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God.”
• Just as the rough grit of sandpaper is used to smooth and shape wood into something beautiful, so too does suffering smooth the rough patches of our soul caused by sin so that we may be shaped into something more beautiful.
• So just as God the Father allowed His only begotten Son to suffer so that we might be redeemed, our Lord allows us to suffer so that we may imitate His Son, make reparation for our sins, and be strengthened in virtue.
• When we willingly accept our sufferings and unite them to Christ’s suffering on the cross, we console our Lord!
• Truly, if Jesus, who is the Good Shepherd, leads us by way of the path of suffering, we can be certain that it is probably because we need it for our own growth in holiness.
• Allowing us to suffer then, is a way that our Lord shows us His mercy, and we can be certain that as the Good Shepherd He will lead us through the path of suffering into greener pastures.
• My dear friends, as our Lord’s precious sheep, we must train ourselves to know the voice of the Shepherd. And as we learn to hear the voice of the Lord, let us strengthen our wills so that we may follow Him unreservedly, even when He leads us by the path of suffering.
• For by faithfully following Him who loves us more than we can ever imagine, and by imitating Him in all things – even in suffering – we will be covered in His mercy and inherit 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.
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© 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
In the church of Santa Maria del Populo in Rome is an often-overlooked painting by the master artist Caravaggio called The Crucifixion of St. Peter.
In this painting the apostle is elderly but still virile and muscular, and it depicts the moment when three men are just hoisting the newly crucified Peter and his cross off of the ground.
The three men, whose faces are obscured, are obviously struggling with the weight of this cross, perhaps suggesting that the crime they are committing is already weighing upon their hardened consciences.
In our Gospel today Jesus gives St. Peter a foreboding of his death, telling him that some day he will grow old, will stretch out his hands, and will be lead where he does not want to go – signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.
Tradition tells us that St. Peter was crucified in the area of the modern day Vatican City during the persecution of Emperor Nero around 64 A.D., and his body was buried in a nearby cemetery, above which the Basilica of St. Peter now stands.
Tradition also tells us that, because he didn’t think himself worthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus, St. Peter asked to be crucified upside down, which is the way Caravaggio depicted Peter’s martyrdom in his painting.
No doubt being crucified upside down was an act of humility for St. Peter, but perhaps it was also an act of reparation, for a man of St. Peter’s character and holiness surely understood the depth of his sinfulness and his need to make reparation.
In fact, we see St. Peter’s first act of reparation in the Gospel today. Having denied our Lord three times, Jesus requires St. Peter to make a three-fold confession of love to make amends.
While our Lord has undoubtedly forgiven Peter for his sin on that first Holy Thursday night, in justice St. Peter still must make reparation for his sin.
Last Sunday we celebrated our Lord’s Divine Mercy, the Church’s annual reminder to us that the mercy of God is inexhaustible and always available to those who are sorry for their sins.
The primary message of Divine Mercy Sunday is that we must never despair of God’s mercy because it is deeper and richer than we can possibly imagine. But all the same, we must never presume upon our Lord’s mercy.
There can be no doubt that our Lord is generous with forgiveness of sins. In fact, when St. Peter asks Him in the Gospel of Matthew how many times he must be willing to forgive those who injure him, our Lord replies “seventy-seven times” (cf. Mt 18:22).
This response by our Lord is a symbolic one, meaning that we must always be willing to forgive those who injure us. But the generous requirement of forgiveness does not in any way cancel out the requirements of justice.
In no passage of the Gospel does forgiveness or mercy imply an indulgence toward evil, sin, injury or insult. To the contrary, making reparation for our sins and for the evil and scandal they cause, as well as making compensation or satisfaction for injuries and insults we commit, are conditions for forgiveness (cf. JPII: Dives et Misericordia).
This is precisely why we are given a penance whenever we go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Our penances are the way we make reparation for our sins.
Without doing penance, our confession is not complete. Simply put, there is a price to pay for our sins. Of course the existence of Hell is the ultimate proof of this truth.
So we must in some way right the wrongs we have committed and the damage we’vecaused, even though our sins are forgiven. While making reparation through penance doesn’t undo our sins, it does set them aright by rectifying the injustice our sins cause.
If we fail to make satisfaction for the temporal punishments due for our sins, but die in a state of grace, then we will have to undergo a final purification in Purgatory before we enter into Heaven.
So while Lent is over and with it our Lenten fasts, our need to make reparation is not over – for we still sin, do we not? Therefore, penance must continue to be a part of our lives even now during this glorious season of Easter!
Not only should we make reparation for our own sins, but like the saints, we should strive to make reparation for the sins of others as well, as so many people in our world habitually sin without any thought to asking for forgiveness, let alone making reparation for their sins.
At the heart of our penances and reparations must be a genuine love for God.
While it is a good and holy thing to fear the pains of Hell and seek to avoid them andto mitigate as much as possible the sufferings of Purgatory, ultimately we shouldmake reparation for our sins as a sign of our love and respect for God.
More than fearing the pains of Hell, we should fear ever offending our Lord even inthe smallest matter, for that is where merit is to be found.
Indeed, what makes our reparation just and our penances satisfactory is not the rigorof the penances we take on as much as it is the love with which we do them.
In fact, St. Catherine of Siena taught that one Hail Mary, said with perfect love, wasenough to atone for the sins of a lifetime! Just one Hail Mary!
So not only must we make penance a regular part of our daily lives, we shouldconstantly strive to do our penances well, with deep love and devotion, with truesorrow and contrition.
The beautiful thing about living a habitually penitential life is that, over time, ourpenances will foster a deeper love for our Lord and for our fellow man within our souls. As we learn to do our penances with a deeper love, they become more efficacious and beneficial.
During this happy season of Easter we, as a Church, put a great deal of effort into celebrating all of these marvelous feasts and festivals. This is completely and wholly appropriate as we consider the sheer magnificence and vital importance of our Lord’s Paschal Mystery.
But in the midst of our celebrations this time of the year, even if we lessen our penances to some degree in order to more fully celebrate, we mustn’t lose sight of them altogether!
Even after His resurrection, Jesus still bore the wounds of humanity’s sin. The holes in His hands, His feet, and His remained. In like fashion, we must still be willing to
bear the wounds of sin through voluntary penance – even in this time of joy and
celebration.
Like good St. Peter may we be willing to welcome with both courage and deep lovefor our Lord whatever crucifixions He deems us worthy to bear.
Through our daily voluntary penances, may we make reparation for our sins and thoseof others, and in so doing may we show our Lord just how much we truly love Him.
14 April 2013
© 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.
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Instead of seeking human help in difficult situations ask first for divine help. If done with faith and humility, you will experience an interior transformation. The spiritual life must be founded on prayer. Go to Christ in prayer. Listen to Him who is the Truth. He is the infallible Truth. Ask God’s grace in order to grow in Christlikeness. To progress in your love for God necessitates and active life of prayer because a life of prayer predisposes our soul to receive grace which leads, guides our faith, hope and trust in our God.
After seeking His forgiveness for your failures, then recall all the gifts He has given you and thank Him. Do ask Him for more of His grace with confidence that He will grant this petition and say to Him: “Lord, you know me; let me know You more and more”. The best kind of prayer is that one which transforms your desire into His desire, His will instead of yours. In order to do that, humbly ask God to vacuum out your brain of all the irrelevant stuff that hinders you so that you can identify your actions and behavior in the light of God’s will.
It is in the heart that prayer resides. Prayer occurs when the will connects itself to God in complete trust, obeying His will in order to please Him. In prayer we express the trust, affection and love in our hearts. Seek God with you heart, and you will find Him. Great intensity of love can be conveyed by a single desire of the heart and make this desire become a prayer. Only when you are in an attitude of resting in God will you begin to understand your real self and know what you need to change in order to grow spiritually. Then, you will want to pray, to let yourself be healed by the transforming power of God’s love.
God has provided you with a magnificent, flawless, guidance system: the Holy Spirit, who leads us gently in the right direction and recalibrates us when we go off in the wrong direction. Simply tell God what concerns you, asking Him for His guidance. Talk with Him for He is the greatest friend you could ever have. He listens to you with great interest and attention because He really cares for you. It is the Holy Spirit’s action in the heart that enables the soul to rise above itself. Respond faithfully to the pull of grace and you will pray well. When you turn to God in prayer He will invite you to come close to Him. With His grace you will learn to love God more because the flame of God’s love enkindles in the human heart a longing that only God Himself can fulfill. Open wide your heart, and God will fill it with His love.
Do not make prayer a self-centered monologue talking to yourself instead of to God. Tell Him about your concerns, activities, preoccupations, fears – and then listen to Him who speaks to you in the silence of your heart. Remember, He who IS, sees you, hears you, loves you. Contemplating Christ sanctifies us as we gaze on Him with faith and love. He is our model, hope, strength, and joy. Gaze on Him keeping the eyes of your heart on Him in order to imitate His virtues.
Don’t beat your brains out trying to figure God out by deduction using your mind or with the ideas you garner from others. The intellect can aid the soul seeking God, but the will’s role is more essential. God is not an object that we can get to know by analysis. Faith in God involves a personal encounter. It is in living with and for Him that we can encounter God as a person.What sets the will in motion is love/commitment. Surrender your heart to God, and He will reveal Himself to you. God is Truth, and Truth bears witness to itself. Our love for God flowers in prayer, giving meaning to the aspirations of our heart. Often, it is the heart rather than the lips that speak to God directly from the inner recesses of the soul as the heart surges towards Him.
What do you say to Christ when He knocks on the door of your heart? You have to open the door to let Him in because He never forces Himself on anyone. God is always inviting us to come and visit Him; to speak to Him, to tell Him our needs, cares, woes and joys. Encounter Him personally in prayer and you will know there is no other friend like Him, no one like Him to whom you can open up your heart.
• That last line of the Gospel is a bit of a doozy, isn’t it? Jesus says to us: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Of course the question we must ask is: what does it mean to be perfect?
• If it means never to commit a sin, then we are all in trouble, aren’t we? Certainly refraining from sin is part of Christian perfection, but refraining from sin cannot be the totality of Christian perfection, for Jesus would never command the impossible of us.
• Lots of saints spoke or wrote about the meaning of Christian perfection, and the explanation that I find most satisfactory comes from St. Anthony Mary Claret.
• St. Anthony wrote that: “Christian perfection consists in three things: praying heroically, working heroically, and suffering heroically.”
• Notice that he uses the word “heroically.” What’s interesting about this is that “heroic” is the word the Church uses to define the standard of virtue a person must meet in order to be declared a saint.
• In other words living a life of Christian perfection means living a life of heroic virtue.
• In fact, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints issues a “Decree of Heroic Virtues” when a
person who is up for sainthood has been found to have lived a life of profound union with God and
fidelity to Church teaching.
• So in calling us to perfection today in the Gospel, Jesus is calling all of us to be saints!
• Certainly we know of lots of saints who prayed heroically, like St. Teresa of Ávila who prayed so
heroically that she went into ecstasies, or St. Rita, who through her heroic prayers was able to
obtain miracles for even the most impossible of causes.
• We also know of lots of saints who worked heroically, like St. Anthony of Padua who died at the
age 36 from exhaustion, or St. Raymond of Penyafort, who lived to be 100 and worked strenuously
for almost all of those years.
• Perhaps of most interest, though, are the heroic sufferings of the saints. In this vein it’s hard to top
St. Lawrence, who was roasted to death on a gridiron but still managed to crack a wry joke to his
tormenters as they were martyring him.
• While we generally remember saints for one or two aspects of their lives, in truth all of the saints
prayed, worked, and suffered heroically in that they prayed, worked, and suffered as God willed
them to do so. This heroic union with God’s will is what made them saints.
• And the saints were able to pray, work, and suffer heroically because they loved both God and neighbor in heroic fashion. They were heroic in their charity – and so should we be.
• Our readings today remind us that we are not only called to a life of perfection, a life of holiness, but our readings also set the bar for the charity we must exercise if we hope to reach the Christian perfection of the saints.
• In particular, our readings speak of charity toward others with regard to how we must bear with those who have hurt us or who have treated us unjustly, which is probably the truest measure of one’s charity.
• Our first reading from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus commands us: “You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart.” We are told to “take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any,” but to “love [our] neighbor as [ourself].”
• In the Gospel, which like last Sunday’s Gospel is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, our Lord tells us that we must love even our enemies, famously calling us to turn the other cheek when struck, and to pray for those who persecute us.
• In saying all of this to us, Jesus is teaching us how to exercise heroic virtue. Christian perfection requires that we love everyone, even our enemies. He tells us that if we are able to pray for our enemies, this will make us children of God.
• Really, to understand what Jesus is asking of us, we must put ourselves on the cross with Him and remind ourselves of how Jesus looked upon those who had crucified Him during those agonizing hours atop Calvary.
• Do you remember His words? “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Even in the most terrible and agonizing moments of His suffering, Jesus was merciful to those who had crucified Him. He was merciful to all of us.
• The responsorial psalm captures this well: “Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. Not according to our sins does He deal with us, nor does He requite us according to our crimes.”
• Thus, all of us who are serious about holiness must learn a certain detachment from ourselves, from our pride, in order to grow in heroic virtue. Instead of indulging our pride and selfish anger, we must be willing to endure suffering at the hands of others for the sake of growing in virtue.
• We must be willing to go the extra mile for others when they don’t deserve it, and to some degree, patiently overlook the bad behavior of others. Doing these things is how we love others in heroic fashion rather than merely exercising love as the pagans do!
• While I have always been fascinated by the stories of the martyrs, I’m also quite fascinated by those saints who were heroic in their love for others, especially in their forgiveness of those who wronged them.
• One beautiful example of a saint who practiced heroic forgiveness is St. Maria Goretti, who is also one of the modern martyrs of the Church.
• At the age of 12, Maria was grabbed by an 18-year old neighbor, named Alexander, who tried to rape her, and when she said that she would rather die than submit to something so offensive to God, he took her at her word and began stabbing her.
• As Maria lay dying in the hospital that same day, she forgave Alexander, who was eventually captured, convicted, and sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment.
• Unfortunately, Alexander remained unrepentant in prison, until one night he had a dream of being in a garden, and of Maria handing him a bouquet of flowers. Upon waking, Alexander was a changed man and repented immediately.
• When he was finally released from prison, Alexander went straight to Maria’s mother to beg her forgiveness. To her credit Maria’s mother said, “If my daughter can forgive you, who am I to withhold forgiveness.”
• Alexander was present at St. Peter’s Basilica in 1950 when Maria Goretti was canonized.
• As we consider today’s Gospel, we may be tempted to ask if we should ever oppose evil. Should
we not hold people accountable for their sins or at least correct them?
• Certainly we should. Justice is one of the four Cardinal virtues, and admonishing sinners is a
spiritual work of mercy. So it is a noble and good thing to seek and practice justice.
• However, we must learn to temper justice with mercy, just as Christ did on the cross. In justice
Jesus could have condemned us all, but He chooses to have mercy on us.
• If we seek only to employ justice in a strict fashion and fail to show mercy, we may find that we are
denied God’s mercy at the final judgment.
• Through the intercession of Our Lady, St. Joseph, and all the saints, may each of us learn to pray,
work, and suffer heroically in this life so that we, too, might be saints in the next!
• May we learn to balance justice and mercy as Christ did so that we may love and forgive in heroic fashion. St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!
© 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:
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How happy when they die must be those who have lived heroically every minute of their life! I can assure you it is so, because I have seen the joy of those who have prepared themselves for many years, with calm impatience, for this encounter. (Furrow, 893)
Our Lord has given us as a present our very lives, our senses, our faculties, and countless graces. We have no right to forget that each of us is a worker, one among many, on this plantation where He has placed us to cooperate in the task of providing food for others. This is our place, here within the boundaries of this plantation. Here is where we have to toil away each day with Jesus, helping him in his work of redemption.
Allow me to insist. You think your time is for yourself? Your time is for God! It may well be that, by God’s mercy, such selfish thoughts have never entered into your mind. I’m telling you these things in case you ever find your heart wavering in its faith in Christ. Should that happen, I ask you — God asks you — to be true to your commitments, to conquer your pride, to control your imagination, not to be superficial and run away, not to desert. (Friends of God, 49)
[1] cf Col 1:24
We are most Christlike when we forgive. Who am we to refuse to forgive someone for whom Jesus Christ died to redeem by His death? Life is full of little and big discords, but we should not let these annoyances influence or dominate our lives. We do not have a right to hold a grudge against anyone, much less get even. We must not be cold or insensible to others. Deliberate, intentional shunning of anyone will be a serious obstacle to your spiritual growth.
You cannot be open to God’s will if you close your heart to your neighbor’s need. Do not deceive yourself by praying a great deal while closing your heart to another person. Do not think you are accepting God’s will if you are finding dealing with others tiresome, a nuisance or even repugnant. Both good and evil are permitted by God. You will encounter ingratitude from friends who do not understand you and people who hinder you. How you react is what makes the difference.
Humiliations and contradictions purify our souls, detaching them from our ego in order to have us bear more and more fruit. If we wish to have peace and serenity of spirit, we need to conform ourself to His will. This is the only sane way to deal with the weakness of others that impinges on our lives, and to deal with the frustrations or set-backs that are bound to come our way each day. To do this involves respecting the other’s opinions, decisions, likes and dislikes. Look to Jesus as your guide in how to deal with everyone: family, friends, acquaintances, unknowns. Just as mercy is God’s constant attitude towards all, so we too must always be ready to relieve anyone. So we must cultivate a sensitivity of heart so that our eyes and ears will be aware of the daily opportunities we have to show mercy.
Jesus is the most wonderful example of mercy. His mercy springs from His compassion. He did not shun anyone and felt sorry for those who sought Him with their physical and spiritual ailments. He reached out to them with His grace. He knows we are sinners and He reaches out to us constantly. He is a merciful God who will not abandon us. He offers us the grace to repent and He is there for us in our daily struggles. He wants us to return to Him, to have us near Him, to protect us from straying, to strengthen and fortify us. Call on Him. He will answer you and help you carry your cross withe patience despite the irritations others cause you. God wants to prune away all things that prevent us from being Christlike. Humiliations and contradictions, suffering and illness, purify our souls, detaching them from our ego in order to have us bear more and more fruit.
Just as mercy is God’s constant attitude towards all, so we too must always be ready to relieve anyone. To do this we must first cultivate a sensitivity of heart so that our eyes and ears will be award of the daily opportunities we have to show mercy.
The peace of your soul is determined by your relationship to God. We seek peace and want our sins forgiven. God’s grace is there for us, dependent only on our desire to accept it. Never give up on yourself or any person because God is merciful. Repentance is possible because no one is beyond God’s grace. No matter how bad a situation is, God’s goodness and mercy is there for anyone who seeks Him. Testify to God’s mercy to bewildered or suffering friends, and guide prodigals to their loving and forgiving Father. The closer you get to Christ, the more you will seek to do His will. Avoid anxiousness by maintaining unbroken the bond of love; protect it with your life.
Truth to Ponder 