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Good Friday

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/03/29 at 12:00 AM
  • The Passion Narrative that we just read brings us face to face with the darkest elements of humanity. Through this story we are shown the horrible power of our sins.
  • Indeed, my brothers and sisters, we must never get comfortable with our Lord’s Passion, nor must we allow ourselves to take our Lord’s suffering and death for granted.
  • Isaiah the prophet reminds us that: “it was our infirmities that He bore, our sufferings that He endured.” As we console ourselves with the fact that Jesus lovingly suffered for us, we must remember that He also suffered because of us, and Christ’s wounds reflect the sickness of our sinfulness.
  • In looking upon the marred, beaten, broken, and crucified body of Jesus, we see the effects of our sins – not simply upon the One who has taken our sins upon Himself, but we see as well in His wounds a symbol of the devastation sin wreaks in our souls.
  • Sin is a destroyer. It maims, it wounds, and it robs us of the beauty we possess as children made in the image and likeness of God. Sin is a sickness that can kill us.
  • Yet despite the pain we rightly experience today in looking upon our Savior whom we have crucified by our sins, we call this Friday “good,” for it is through our Lord’s suffering and death that we are given the opportunity to share in His eternal glory.
  • Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. ReidReverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NCBy faith we know that the misery of human sin is only part of today’s story, for our Lord’s Passion also shows us the power of suffering borne with love.
  • In his letter to the Romans (6:8), St. Paul wrote: “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ.” It is this fundamental Christian belief that we hold fast to, especially on this day in which we memorialize our Lord’s death on the cross.
  • But as St. Paul tells us, to live with Christ, we must die with Christ, which means we must share our Lord’s willingness to suffer.
  • You see, my brothers and sisters, there is no such thing as a comfortable Christianity. By its very nature, Christian discipleship is painful and even death-like precisely because it requires imitating Him who suffered and died for us. It requires the cross.
  • While we may not suffer and die as did Jesus, a Christian’s willingness to suffer and die must be whole-hearted and open to whatever it is that God wills for us.
  • For most of us our sufferings will consist mainly of the normal everyday sufferings that come from embracing the demands of our vocations. They will come from the sins committed through our own stupidity and self-centeredness, as well that of others.
  • For most of us our willingness to die will be expressed by the taking on of voluntary penances and sacrifices so as to die to self. Not all Saints are called to be martyrs.
  • Ultimately, our willingness to suffer and die in union with Christ on the cross must be firmly rooted in a desire to follow God’s will no matter what the cost. Even more so, our willingness to suffer and die in union with Christ must be firmly rooted in LOVE.
  • Our Lord’s death on the cross shows us the power of suffering offered in love: namely, it reverses the effects of sin. Again in his letter to the Romans (6:23), St. Paul teaches us that the wages of sin is death, but Christ’s suffering and death bring us life!
  • And when, out of love, we are willing suffer and die in union with Christ – even in the smallest of ways – we reverse the effects of sin in our lives: we break free from the slavery sin causes, the virtues begin to grow, and we make reparation for our sins.

•Ultimately, we participate in our own redemption, as well as the redemption of all mankind. It is for this reason that we venerate and kiss the cross today. It is for this reason that today is a very good Friday indeed. By God’s grace, may we all suffer well.

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Holy Thursday

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/03/27 at 12:00 AM
  • With this Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we begin our solemn 3-part vigil in preparation for Easter Sunday known as the Triduum.
  • As its name suggests, the Triduum is three liturgies in one, consisting of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which we are now celebrating, the Passion of the Lord, which we will celebrate tomorrow, and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night.
  • Tonight, with this Mass, we sit with Christ at the Last Supper as He gives us the inseparable gifts of the priesthood and the Eucharist, and at the end of the Mass we will follow our Lord into the Garden of Gethsemane to watch and pray with Him.
  • Tomorrow we will witness all that He suffers for us, and we will stand at the foot of the cross with His Mother as Jesus dies for our sins. And finally, on Holy Saturday night, we will peer into the empty tomb and experience anew the glory of His resurrection.
  • Tonight’s Gospel tells us that Jesus “loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” In celebrating the liturgies of Triduum, we see the many ways that our Lord shows His love for us.
  • In tonight’s Mass our Lord shows us His love by giving us His two most powerful and important gifts: the priesthood and the Eucharist.
  • Tomorrow, we witness our Lord’s sacrificial and self-emptying love poured out for us on the cross. In His great love for us, Jesus will suffer and die a most ignoble death, even though He is innocent, and He will do so to save us from our sins.
  • And on Holy Saturday night we will experience His love through the power of His resurrection, a gift that He lovingly promises to give to each of us if we simply believe in Him and live our lives as witnesses to our belief in Him.
  • The liturgies of the Triduum also show us God’s greatness, and in tonight’s Mass we see our Lord’s greatness expressed paradoxically in humble service.
  • 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.
  • Our Lord’s humility does not end there, though. We see Christ’s humility expressed in two other important ways in tonight’s Mass.
  • We see His humility in the fact that He is willing to become our food and drink. In His great love for us, He hides His infinite greatness in bread and wine so that we might eat and drink of our redemption in Holy Communion.
  • Not only does Jesus become bread and wine, but He even extends His power to confect the Eucharist, to forgive sins, to bless and heal and counsel and teach to weak and broken men like myself in the gift of the priesthood.
  • And our Lord does this not so that He can elevate priests above the people entrusted to their care, but so that there might be men in this world who will perpetuate His love and continue His humble service throughout history.
  • And all this: His humble service, His love, His twin gifts of the Eucharist and the priesthood we experience and live anew in this Mass.
  • As we experience our Lord’s loving and humble service, as we receive His gifts of the priesthood and the Eucharist, we are called to give thanks to our Lord.
  • We show our gratitude first by our willingness to follow our Lord into the Garden tonight so that we might stay and pray with Him. As such, at the end of this Mass we will have a Eucharistic Procession and Adoration until midnight.
  • Yet the gratitude demanded of us for such awesome gifts cannot be satisfied by prayer alone. Indeed, our gratitude to Christ is best shown through humble imitation of Him.
  • 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.
  • We must also show our love and gratitude to our Lord by treating the Eucharist with profound reverence and love, maintaining a reverent decorum whenever we are in its presence, only receiving the Eucharist when we are properly disposed to do so.
  • Lastly, we show our thanks to our Lord by the way we treat our priests, recognizing that by the grace of Holy Orders, priests stand in Christ’s place here on earth.
  • I make this last point with a great deal of trepidation, because although by grace I am a priest of Jesus Christ, I am a weak and sinful man. I sincerely ask for your forgiveness for the times that I have failed to be a priest like Jesus Christ.
  • But even though priests are weak and sinful, we must treat them with a certain respect and reverence because they stand in the person of Christ. Indeed, because of the great dignity priests possess, we must treat priests as we would treat Jesus Himself.
  • Truly, I’ve found that most of you here at St. Ann’s do just that, and I’m so very grateful for the respect, affection, and love you show me despite my faults and failings.
  • But if I may be so bold as to ask something of you, I ask that you pray for me an d for all priests. Pray that we may be truly holy, truly Christ-like in every way so that we can be proper pastors and shepherds of souls.
  • It can be a frightening thing to stand at the altar and call down our Lord from Heaven, holding Him, Who is our Creator, in my hands. It’s an awesome responsibility to stand in His place and bless, heal, counsel, teach, and forgive sins. So we need your prayers.
  • Pray that we may be always fervent, chaste, prudent and charitable. Pray that we have the courage to live our vocations with reverence and integrity. Pray most of all that we be effective in helping you on the path to salvation.
  • Looking back over the last 4 years that I’ve been at St. Ann’s, I am so very grateful for your prayers, support, and love. Truly, it’s hard for me to imagine a parish that I’d rather be serving than this one.
  • I am most grateful for your willingness to bear with me as we’ve made so many changes, especially to our church and to our liturgy. I’m quite conscious of the fact that I’ve asked a lot of this parish.
  • The guiding principles I’ve followed in making these changes have been fidelity to Church law, teaching and tradition, and fidelity to what I believe the Lord has asked of me in prayer. My hope in making these changes has been to help you grow in holiness.
  • Specifically, I’ve hoped to increase your reverence and devotion to the Eucharist, and to increase your love and appreciation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because this is the very heart of our beautiful Catholic faith.
  • It is through the Eucharist that we receive in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that our Lord gives Himself to us most profoundly. It is here that He gives us every grace we need to be saved. It is here that we are most closely united to Him.
  • As we honor our Lord tonight for the twin gifts of the Eucharist and the priesthood, let us show our gratitude by giving ourselves to Him whole-heartedly and without reserve.
  • Let us show our love for Jesus by always honoring the Eucharist and the priesthood, by which Christ is made present to us.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Palm Sunday

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/03/22 at 12:00 AM
  • With today’s Mass we enter once again in that most solemn of weeks for us Christians: Holy Week. Today’s Mass provides us with a prelude to all that we will experience in the coming week so that we can be fully prepared for the joys of Easter.
  • While we call today Palm Sunday, the primary focus of today’s Mass is not the blessing of palms we had at the beginning of the Mass, but the reading of the Passion narrative.
  • The Passion narrative gives the entire story of our Lord’s suffering and death, which we will experience in fuller measure through the Passion Liturgy on Good Friday.
  • Indeed, suffering is the main theme of our readings today, most especially the suffering of our Blessed Lord. But if we restrict our reflections this week to only our Lord’s sufferings, we will fail to fully realize the graces being held out to us.
  • You see, my brothers and sisters, as Christians we are called to imitate our Lord in every way. To be Christian means to be Christ­like.
  • And if we are going to live lives that are authentically and fully Christian, we must be willing to imitate Christ in the most important thing that He did for mankind: we must be willing to embrace suffering, just as Jesus embraced His sufferings, even unto death.
  • Jesus accomplished many things during His 33 years on earth: He was a teacher, a healer, a man of both gentle kindness and bold conviction. But most importantly, He was a Savior, a Savior who chose to suffer and die for His people.
  • It was His suffering that made Jesus the Christ, and if we are going to be Christians in the truest sense of the word, then we must be willing to embrace our sufferings too.
  • This is precisely what Jesus meant when He said that His followers must be willing to take up their crosses.
  • So as we meditate on our Lord’s passion and death this week, let us seek to imitate Him. Let us learn not simply to endure our sufferings, but to embrace our sufferings so that we do not become bitter and hard‐hearted, but more loving and gentle.
  • So many Christians today have the mistaken notion that if we lead virtuous lives and follow Christ, then we shouldn’t have to suffer. We have this mistaken notion that if we give our lives to God, that He should protect us from all evil and suffering.
  • We numb ourselves with the lie that if we’re leading “good” lives, then we don’t deserve to suffer. We mistakenly believe that suffering is always some sort of payback for sin.
  • But in reality, when we decide to live our lives for Christ, we promise to take up our crosses – whatever they may be. And we do this because by faith we know that doing this is the path of redemption. This is the narrow road that leads to Heaven.
  • If we look to the example of the saints, we learn that as we grow in holiness, we begin to see suffering as a most valuable gift from our Lord, because suffering is one of the most powerful ways that our Lord draws us into union with Him.
  • It is through our sufferings, borne with faith, hope, and charity and offered in union with our Lord’s suffering on the cross, that our Lord enables us to make reparation for our sins, grow in virtue, and participate in the redemption of all of mankind.
  • Moreover, the saints teach us that if we love God in a disinterested way that excludes all selfishness, we will be able to endure any suffering life may bring.

As we enter into this Holy Week, let us ask ourselves: How willing am I to suffer? How willing am I to be like Christ in every way? And let us pray that our Lord will enable us to suffer all that is necessary to fulfill His divine plan for our life.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Prayer by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/11/23 at 8:00 AM

• Last week our readings taught us the importance of persevering in our prayer, trusting that our good Lord will answer them according to His will.

• This week we learn that it is not enough to simply persevere in our prayers, but that we must also have the proper disposition when we pray if we wish to be heard.

• The first reading from Sirach tells us that “the one who serves God willingly is heard,” and that “the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds.”

• And in the Gospel we have the parable of Pharisee and the tax collector. The irony of this story is that Pharisees were supposed to be holy and righteous people, while tax collectors were thought to be the most morally bankrupt in ancient Hebrew society.

• Yet it is the humble tax collector whom our Lord holds out to us as a model in the parable. Unlike the Pharisee, who is convinced of his own righteousness, the tax collector fully recognizes his sinfulness in the face of the Almighty.

• His only prayer is “’O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” And as each of us comes to pray to our Lord, these are words that we would do well to remember and to repeat often.

• Indeed, while Sirach makes the point that the Lord knows no favorites, today’s readings teach us that our humility disposes God to hear our prayers more readily.

• In this regard, we must always recognize and remember our proper place in our relationship with God when we pray. While it is good to be on affectionately familiar terms with our Lord, we must also remember Who He Is.

• He is our creator! It is He who sustains us in being. Moreover, it is He, who in His great mercy, forgives us and saves us from our sins. So we owe Him everything, for every good thing that we have is from Him. Our prayer should reflect this knowledge.

• As I mentioned last week, prayer is the mechanism by which God’s will is brought about on earth. Our Lord has a divine plan, a divine will for each of us and for all of creation, and our prayer is the spiritual force that helps to bring about His will.

• Our prayers do not change God, for God is unchanging, but our prayers do act as a spiritual lever to bring about His will.

• For Catholics prayer is not simply the recitation of prescribed words. It is an action by which we lift our minds and hearts to the Lord, entering into a loving dialogue with Him, uniting ourselves to Him.

• While our Catholic faith includes a treasury of prescribed prayers, such as the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and many others that we can use, Catholics are also encouraged to use their own words when praying to the Lord.

• What is important in praying is not so much the words we use, but the disposition and intentions of our hearts as we pray.

• While our Catholic faith also makes use of many different types of devotions and pious practices to help us pray, the greatest prayer of all is the Mass.

• It is through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that we experience anew the saving events of Calvary in an unbloody fashion. It is through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that we witness the miracle of transubstantiation, which makes our Lord truly present in the Eucharist under the appearance of bread and wine.

• And it is through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that we most closely unite ourselves to our Lord through the reception of His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in that same Holy Communion.

• Moreover, the Mass gives us a structure for our other prayers. The Mass teaches us how to pray. And the Mass shows us the disposition we are to have in prayer.

• When we come to Mass the very first thing we do is call to mind our sins and ask for mercy in the Penitential Rite. We then glorify our Lord and praise Him with the Gloria.

• Next we listen to our Lord speak to us in the readings and homily, and we profess our belief in Him, in His Church, and in our Catholic Faith with the Creed.

• Then for the most important part of the Mass, the Eucharistic Prayer, we go down on our knees in humble adoration of the God who mysteriously appears before us in the Eucharist, praying humbly for the gift of salvation – for ourselves and for all mankind.

• And finally, the great prayer of the Mass reaches its culmination as we unite ourselves to our Lord in Holy Communion. We joyfully take Him into ourselves, just as a bride receives her bridegroom in a loving and fruitful embrace.

• Thus, the Mass teaches us that when we go to pray, we must be conscious of our sins and beg pardon for them, as did the humble tax collector.

• The Mass teaches us that prayer is not simply a matter of asking things of God but requires that we praise and adore Him, and that we listen to Him and give Him thanks.

• The Mass teaches us that we should approach our Lord with humble hearts, and that the true goal of every prayer is union with our Lord.

• Ultimately, my dear brothers and sisters, praying is not about asking God for what we want or need. Prayer is about uniting ourselves to the Lord and accepting what He gives us by His divine will.

• That’s why humility must be our disposition in prayer. Without humility we cannot ever hope to unite ourselves to God, nor will we ever be able to accept His will with love and gratitude.

• In fact, praying should be an act of humility. It should presuppose our dependence on God. It should be a manifestation of our desire to give ourselves to Him fully, joyfully accepting  whatever God wills with the trust that His will is the best thing that could ever happen to us.

• As we gather together today in this most important prayer of the Mass, let us all earnestly pray for the gift of humble and contrite hearts that will not only make us pleasing to the Lord, but that will dispose us to desire His will and nothing more.

Copyright 2010 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Prodigal by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/09/08 at 9:11 AM

• Shortly before he died, the great Dutch artist Rembrandt painted one of his most beautiful works, which is entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son. While the original version of this painting is in St. Petersburg, Russia, we have a copy of it in our confessional, which I encourage you to visit!

• In this painting we can see a young man in tattered clothing and sandals, kneeling before his elderly father, leaning his head into the father’s breast in repentance. And the father, in turn,embraces the son with his age-stiffened hands in an act of sublime mercy.

• This story, of course, is the subject of today’s Gospel. And it’s a marvelous Gospel story, isn’t it? I love this Gospel because it reminds us that there is always hope for the sinner.

• This story tells us clearly that no matter what we’ve done in life, we have a loving Father who will always take us back with compassion. This should give us all great comfort!

• While there are many angles from which we may look at the Gospel, I want to focus today on the aspect of reconciliation and forgiveness that forms the heart of this Gospel story.

• St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that God’s omnipotence – the fact that He is all-powerful – is most perfectly and fully expressed in His mercy. In other words, God’s uses His omnipotence in order to forgive us our sins.

• It’s a powerful thought, is it not? To think that of all the ways that our Lord could manifest His omnipotence, He uses it to forgive us and reconcile us to Himself. We see this symbolized today in the person of the father of the prodigal son.

• Despite the numerous sins committed against him by the son, when he sees his son coming from afar he runs after him; and in that moment sin and mercy meet. And the mercy of the father is so overwhelming that the son can barely finish the confession he has prepared.

• And not only does the father forgive, but he calls the servants to bring him new clothes, sandals, and a ring. He orders the slaughter of the fattened calf and a party ensues, for the father wishes to rejoice in the reconciliation he is now experiencing with his son.

• Brothers and sisters: This is how our God deals with us. This is the God we worship! This is the God we believe in.

• Yet we cannot see in the father simply an image of our Father in heaven; we must also see in him a model for us to follow in forgiving others.

• One of the more difficult parts of life is learning how to handle the hurts and offences that occasionally occur in our dealings with others. Because we humans are flawed and sinful, we often hurt one another: sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.

• But regardless of whether the people who hurt us mean to do so or not, our duty as Christians is to forgive always. For the true Christian, there can be no conditions on forgiveness.

• We must be willing to forgive, even when the person who hurt us has no remorse or contrition, even when the person who hurt us does not desire our forgiveness.

• Indeed, to harbor grudges and to hold on to past slights is truly a very selfish act that will never do anything for us except make us miserable. Anyone who holds onto a grudge in this life will never be happy and peaceful.

• Rather, we must always seek to be peacemakers, looking for ways to reconcile with those who have hurt us.

• And the reason we must forgive is simple: it’s because God has forgiven us. As St. Paul tells us in the second reading today, God has reconciled us to Himself through Christ. God does not count our trespasses against us but seeks to be reconciled with all of us.

• In turn, we must have the wherewithal to get over our selfish and proud emotions and extend that same mercy to others. For indeed, my brothers and sisters, if we don’t forgive others inthis life, we have no reason to expect that our Lord will forgive us in the next.

• Moreover, when we humble ourselves enough to forgive those who have hurt us, we are freed from the bondage caused by our negative emotions. Forgiveness makes us free. It increases charity within our hearts. And best of all, it makes us more like God.

• Contrast the father in this story with the older son who is holding on to his grudge. Who is happier? Who is more at peace? Who would you rather be?

• But this Gospel today is not simply about the mercy of the father; it is also about the conversion of the son. The son undergoes a powerful change of heart in this parable in order to be reconciled with his father, and we must be willing to do the same.

• Yet keep in mind that conversion always comes at a cost. Pain is always involved because conversion of any kind is a matter of dying to self in some measure.

• It was not easy for the son to change. It was only the terrible misery of his condition that forced him to take the courageous steps to free himself from the slavery into which his sin has cast him

• But like the son, we must be willing to recognize our sinfulness. We must recognize the ways we have hurt others. We must learn to admit our wrongs and failures. We must be willing to ask for forgiveness. And we must be willing to make amends.

• In his misery the son recognizes how he has wronged his father. The son then decides to admit his wrong and ask for forgiveness, and he is willing to become his father’s hired worker in order to make reparation for his sin.

• Likewise, we must be willing to take these difficult steps when we hurt others. While doing these things can be very painful, they are necessary. And we cannot allow our pride get in the way of trying to reconcile with those whom we’ve hurt.

• Like the prodigal son we must humbly acknowledge our wrong-doing and seek reconciliation with those around us.

• But above all, we must seek reconciliation with God and with His Church, as St. Paul encourages us to do. While it’s so very important that we make peace with one another, we must also be willing to reconcile with our Lord through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

• Confession cleanses us from sin; it makes us a new creation, as St. Paul says. Confession reconciles us with God and with His Church. And it helps procure for us the grace to avoid future sins.

• Along with prayer and frequent worthy reception of Holy Communion, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the best preparation we can make for Heaven.

• My brothers and sisters, is there anyone in this world in need of your forgiveness? Is there anyone against whom you are holding a grudge? If there is anyone in your life who needs forgiveness, then grant it and experience the freedom and peace that forgiveness brings.

• And if there is anyone to whom you owe an apology, then make it. Humble yourself, admit your wrong-doing, and do your best to make amends. Life is too short for us to be at odds with one another, and eternity is too long for us to spend it separated from God.

• So let us all reconcile with one another while we still have time in this life.

• But most importantly, let’s make it a point to reconcile ourselves with our Father in Heaven, and with His Church. And in so doing, let us each become a new creation in Christ.

Copyright 2010 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Sin

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/06/29 at 9:11 AM

• Our passions and sinful inclinations can truly harm us by distorting our souls and making it more difficult to see the Truth and act upon it.

• I have talked about some of the dangers of falling into sin through a weak will: how it takes away our peace and makes us vulnerable to committing more sin, and how it can ultimately lead our souls to hell.

• I have also mentioned how the virtues of humility and charity, along with the spiritual practices of fasting and penance, can help us learn to master our wills and overcome the temptations to sin that our passions can provoke within us.

• In our Gospel today our Lord gives us a little primer on sin and the importance of trying to avoid it at all cost. Therefore, I’d like to talk a little more about sin, its effects, and what we can do to avoid it.

• Benjamin Franklin once said that: “Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” And he’s absolutely right! Not only is sin hurtful to the one who commits the sin, but it is also hurtful to those around us.

• As I’ve mentioned before, sin enslaves us. It makes us less than who we are called to be. Sin robs us of our personal dignity and it distorts our true character. As the French author Andre Gide put it: “sin obscures the soul.”

• But our sins also affect on those around us, and our Lord addresses this in the Gospel today. And being a cause of temptation for others or inducing others to sin is a sin.

• Jesus says: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

These are pretty harsh words from the Prince of Peace! But we must take them seriously.

• When we lead others into sin through our sinful actions, we jeopardize their souls. Or if our sins are known to others or made public, they may cause scandal – which can cause people to fall away from the Faith, thus jeopardizing their souls!

• Sadly, the Catholic Church in this country knows firsthand the devastation that scandal can cause. For example, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Church in 2002, hundreds of Catholics left the Church, especially in parishes where abuses took place.

• But even on a small scale, giving rise to scandal and inducing others to sin is something we must be wary of. One issue that comes readily to mind is dressing modestly. When we dress immodestly, we may lead others to sin, and this is especially sad when it happens at Mass!

• Parents, too, must be very careful about what they say and do around their children. Children pick up on everything, and sometimes they can be very quick to call you out for your sins and moral failures.

• But what’s worse than that is that children often end up committing the same sins as their parents. If you’re living in a way that is morally compromising or if you have habitual sins that are apparent to your kids, it’s very likely that they will think nothing of doing the same things as they grow older.

• Thus, it’s very important that we try to make reparation for the damage we cause to others by our sinful actions. It begins by making apologies when necessary.

• As weak humans, all of us sin from time to time. No one outside of Jesus and our Lady have ever lived perfect lives. And because we sin, we must ask for forgiveness, first from God, but also from those who may have been affected by our sin.

• But in addition to asking for forgiveness, we also need to show we’re sorry for our sins and make restitution, and that’s why the priest gives us a penance whenever we go to confession.

• Penance helps us to restore the balance of justice we disrupted by our sin. It’s a way that we can make up for what we’ve done wrong. And that’s why it’s important for Catholics to perform acts of penance on a regular basis.

• Penance brings healing to our soul, and it helps us right our relationship with God. Penance also helps to deepen our sense of contrition, making us less likely to commit the same sin again in the future.

• In addition to talking about leading others into sin in today’s Gospel, our Lord also speaks about the necessity of avoiding whatever leads us to sin.

• We are told: if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. . . . And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. . . . And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, for it is better to go through life without these things rather than be thrown into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.

• Hopefully it’s obvious that our Lord is speaking figuratively here. He doesn’t really expect us to maim ourselves.

• Our Lord’s point is that we should do everything in our power to avoid those things that lead us into sin, what we call in Catholic parlance: “the near occasion of sin.” Jesus makes the point that we should do this because if we don’t, there may be – very literally – hell to pay.

• I say this not to scare you, but simply to underscore our Lord’s own words. Please understand, my friends, that when it comes to sin, the stakes are high. So many people today waltz through life, sinning with reckless abandon, with nary a thought to the consequences.

• And yet there are always consequences to our sins, whether we recognize them or not. Sin not only offends God, but it alienates us from God and makes it harder for us to love and live a holy life. So we must try with all our might to avoid sin at all cost.

• Personally, I love the stories of the virgin martyrs, like St. Agnes, and even more recently, St. Maria Goretti, who preferred to die rather than allow themselves to be defiled by sin.

• They give us hope and show us a great example of courage in the face of sin. The virgin martyrs remind us of how we are called to love God above all things – even our own lives.

• Now if we wish to avoid sin, then we must also avoid the near occasion of sin. For a lot of us in today’s world, that means being very careful about the type of media we expose ourselves to, especially on television and the internet.

• It also often means learning to avoid or limit contact with those people in our lives who easily lead us into one of the 7 deadly sins like anger, lust or envy.

• Ultimately, we must learn to constantly throw ourselves on God’s mercy, and trust that He will give us the grace we need to overcome temptation when we face it, and that He will forgive our sins when we fall prey to our temptations if we make a good confession.

• My dear friends, let us listen well to the words of our dear Lord today. Let us flee from every temptation to sin as if our lives depended upon it, for in truth, they do.

Copyright 2009 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Actions by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/06/21 at 9:00 AM

• One of the lessons my father constantly tried to teach my siblings and me while we were growing up is that our actions have consequences. One of my father’s favorite phrases that we heard over and over again was “think before you act.”

• While Dad wanted to orient us toward making right decisions, toward choosing the right things in life, he also simply wanted to protect us from harm.

• Unfortunately, like most boys my brother and I had to learn this lesson the hard way. But somewhere around age 12 or 13, after I had broken a couple of bones and had dozens of stitches from various accident, the message began to sink in!

• Both my brother and I have a couple of scars on our bodies that remain as reminders of some of the bad decisions we made in our childhood.

• But as a priest, I can tell you that the scars we bear on our bodies from physical wounds are never as devastating as the scars that we bear on our souls from the bad moral choices we’ve made in life.

• One of the most poignant lessons that I’ve learned from sitting in the confessional every Saturday afternoon for five years is that our moral choices have a definitive meaning and finality. Our sins affect us. They wound us and scar us. And ultimately they can kill us.

• Both our first and second readings today talk about sin and encourage us to turn away and repent. But our Gospel story today follows on the heels of the famous story of the disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

• What’s most interesting about today’s Gospel is that when Jesus appears to the disciples, He identifies Himself by His wounds. Our Lord directs His disciples to look at His hands and feet as a way to prove His identity.

• As we consider our Lord’s wounds, let us be clear about something: we put those wounds there. Our Lord was perfectly innocent during His life on earth, and yet as Isaiah prophesied, Jesus was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our sins.

• And in the process of wounding Jesus through our sinfulness, we also wounded ourselves.

• In philosophical terms sin is a privation; specifically, it deprives us of sanctifying grace. It never improves or adds to us in any way. In fact, sin makes us less than who we truly are.

• Sin distorts our true self by taking away part of our true self. It always wounds. It wounds our relationship with God, with one another, with the Church, and ultimately it wounds our souls. But there is a bright side to all of this!

• In the Easter season we celebrate the fact Jesus has conquered sin and death. Jesus has definitively won the battle between life and death!

• While Jesus still has His wounds, these wounds reveal Christ for who He Is – the incarnation of sacrificial love – and they also glorify the Father. And those wounds, my friends, are the means of our salvation.

• In the same passage that Isaiah tells us the Jesus was pierced for our offenses, he also tells us that by His stripes we will be healed. Because our Lord was willing to take on our spiritual infirmities and to be crushed for our sins, because He is the expiation for our sins, we have been redeemed.

• And yet while Christ has won the war over sin and death, and while we know what the final outcome will be, the battle for eternal life is still played out in each and every human soul.

• While we know that Christ died to save us, we still have to exercise our free wills so that we choose to cooperate with the grace that saves us. We still have to choose to repent from our sins. In this process it is important that we understand just how devastating sin can be.

• It’s important to realize that our sins, no matter how small or insignificant we think they might be, can easily ensnare and entrap us.

• For truly, my friends, there is no such thing as a “little” sin or a hidden sin. Even those venial sins that we don’t think much about and rarely confess have the power to deform us.

• And left unchecked, our venial sins can quickly lead us to mortal sins and to an enslavement from which it is not easy to recover.

• To make matters worse, we are now living in an age and in a society in which many sins are glorified and even defended as fundamental human rights.

• And those people who do have the courage to speak out against the popular sins of today arelabeled as judgmental, intolerant, and even lately, as terrorists.

• As a pastor, I am constantly confronted with the responsibility of helping you form your consciences according to the teachings of the Church. Quite honestly, this obligation I bear toward you is not an easy one, especially when we consider the world we live in.

• I am often tempted to say less than I should for fear of offending some of you, especially when it comes to difficult issues like abortion, same sex unions, cohabitation and contraception. But, my dear friends, I cannot be silent. These things are intrinsically evil.

• If we do not repent of these sins or any other sins that the Church qualifies are mortally sinful, they can lead us into hell.

• I tell you this not to shame you or scare you, but because I love you and care for your soul, and as your father in faith, I want to protect you from harming yourself, just as my own father tried to protect me.

• Moreover, I want to remind you that priests are not the only ones who bear this responsibility of witnessing to the truths of our faith. It’s your responsibility too. As baptized Catholics you too have the responsibility of being a soldier for Christ. You too share in the apostolic mission of the Church.

• In the second reading today St. John tells us clearly that we can know if we are truly in relationship with God by whether or not we keep His commandments. When we don’t keep His commandments, we sin and thereby wound the Body of Christ and ourselves.

• And so, my friends, if you are living in a way that goes against the teachings of Christ, which are proclaimed by the Church, then please heed the words of the first reading today: “repent and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”

• Last week was Divine Mercy Sunday, and what Divine Mercy Sunday teaches us is that God’s mercy is for the taking, but we have to first acknowledge our sins for what they are, and then we have to do our best to turn away from them.

• As your pastor, I am less concerned with what your sins are, and more concerned that you at least recognize your sins as sins and do your best to repent.

• We can never presume upon God’s forgiveness; we must ask for it. So please do not be hard of heart, and please do not let pride get in the way of receiving forgiveness for your sins.

• Place your trust in the Church’s teachings, for they come from Christ Himself, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and they have been safeguarded by the Holy Spirit.

• And in repenting from our sins, let us together faithfully witness to the beautiful truths of our faith so that all men might be saved.

Copyright 2009 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Utopia by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/06/09 at 9:11 AM

 

• In my home state of Indiana there is a little town in the very southwest corner of the state called New Harmony. It is a town that was founded in the 19th century as a utopian village.

• In the 19th century there was a movement in our country to set up small, self-contained societies that were free of the problems endemic to large cities – problems like crime, and the influences of a general lack of morality. New Harmony was one of these places.

• These utopian villages were supposed to be the perfect place to live….a sort of heaven on earth. Ultimately, this movement failed. Why?

• In simplest terms the failure was the result of sin, and the fact that man suffers from original sin: that he is disposed, in his weak nature, to sin – even when he desires not to sin. And this propensity to sin is, perhaps, the greatest sadness of human life.

• In our first reading today Job paints a rather bleak picture of life when he speaks of it as drudgery and without happiness. To me he calls to mind the words of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who famously said that “life is nasty, brutish, and short.”

• Hobbes was a philosopher who had a tendency to focus on only the ugly sides of life and humanity. In the face of human sin and suffering, he only found despair.

• And despair, my friends, is a sin. In fact, it’s one of the most debilitating sins of all.

• To be sure, all of us have moments when, because of our sin and suffering, it’s difficult to see that which is true, good, and beautiful.

• Anyone who has ever experienced tremendous, on-going suffering in this life knows the temptation to despair. Anyone who has struggled over and over with the same grave sins that seemingly cannot be conquered has felt despair rising in his heart.

• Yet as Christians, we must never allow despair to have a voice within our hearts and souls,for it directly contradicts the primary disposition of joy to which we, as Christians, are supernaturally called. Joy is our vocation as Christians, and it is the promise of the Spirit.

• Even in the face of our deepest and darkest sins – those sins that we hide deep down in our souls and that we confess only with a sly honesty – we must remain joyful.

• You see, my friends, while sin is a terrible and debilitating illness, it is treatable! Even the gravest of sinners is never without hope. And as Christians, this is a truth to which we must cling with tenacity! It’s something that we must believe in our very bones.

• Our gospel story today provides a wonderful contrast to the bleakness of the first reading. In today’s story we see Jesus heal Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, as well as many other who were sick or possessed.

• At the end of the story, when Jesus finally finds some time alone to pray, his disciples come looking for Him and say: “Everyone is looking for you”, to which Jesus replies: “Let us go …For this purpose have I come.”

• And off He goes to preach and to heal and to drive out demons in other towns and villages.

• This is why Jesus came to us: to save us from our sins and to heal us from our spiritual infirmities. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it in abundance!

• While Jesus is not here among us in the same way as He was with His apostles 2000 years ago, He is still here among us.

• Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist. He speaks to us through His Word. And He lives in our souls, along with the Father and Holy Spirit, through the grace of baptism!

• The more that we pay attention to Jesus and seek to be in communion with Him through prayer, the sacraments, and virtuous living, the stronger His presence within us becomes – and the stronger we become to say no to the temptations that plague us.

• However, there is one caveat – one little hitch, if you will. For our communion with Jesus to be authentic and for our strength against temptation to grow, we must recognize our sins for what they are and be honest about them, and we must be willing to let go of them.

• In our Catholic tradition we identify seven deadly sins: pride, greed, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, and sloth. Each of us typically struggles in a particular way with one or two of these sins. These are our root sins; they are the sins we commit most often throughout life.

• It’s important that we try to recognize our root sins and their many manifestations in our lives, so that we can present them to Jesus and ask for His help.

• It’s important that we examine our souls regularly for sin, and the measure we should use inexamining ourselves is Sacred Scripture and the constant teaching tradition of the Church.

• Whenever we find that we are living in a way that goes against the teachings of Christ as found in Sacred Scripture or Church teaching, we must quickly seek to amend our lives.

• Some of you may ask, “Well, what if I disagree with Church teaching, or what if I think the Church is wrong or unfair about something?”

• If that is your position, then as your pastor I have to ask you with great love and respect: do you really want to risk your soul on the idea that you may know something that the Church doesn’t?”

• Please understand, my friends, that the Church was founded by Christ and has been entrusted with His teachings. Moreover, for her 2000 years of existence she has been guided by the Holy Spirit so that in matters of faith and morals she would never err.

• Now I realize that at times the Church’s teachings can seem hard to follow. I also realize that there are people who consider some of the Church’s teachings controversial or outdated – especially her teachings that concern conjugal acts.

• But, my dear friends, Truth never changes – and therefore it can never be outdated. Do not allow yourselves to be seduced by the dictatorship of relativism that pervades our society!

• My point, of course, is that the morally safest way to live is in accord with Church teaching, which we Catholics believe to be the teaching of Christ Himself.

• Jesus came to heal us and set us free, but we have to be willing to repudiate our sins. He will never forcibly take them away from us. If we seek to be free of our sins, then we can grow in the authentic communion with Jesus by which we will be strengthened against temptation.

• Moreover, the more we grow in communion with Jesus, the more we grow in joy, even in the midst of terrible suffering. Every saint whom the Church has ever canonized attests to this.

• And as we grow in joy, even in the face of suffering, and as we begin to enjoy the freedom of the sons and daughters of God, it is then that we begin to experience Heaven itself.

• For Heaven is not a place – a physical location up in the sky. Heaven is a person: the person in Whom God and man are joined: Jesus Christ!

• My dear friends in Christ, while it is true that any purely human effort to establish a utopian or heavenly society will ultimately fail, we can begin to experience the joy of Heaven here on earth. In fact, as Christians we are called to it.

• If we renounce our sins and seek to live in authentic communion with Jesus through a life of prayer, fidelity to the sacraments, and virtuous acts, we will begin to experience Heaven in this life, and be assured of experiencing the fullness of Heaven in the next.

Fr. Reid is pastor of  St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Christ by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/06/02 at 9:11 AM

• Our readings today are so very important because they give us some wonderful insight into the nature of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

• Today’s readings provide us not so much with a portrait of His personality, but rather they teach us about why Jesus became man.

• In our first reading from Isaiah we hear of the prophecy that tells of how Jesus will give His life as an offering for sin.

• Isaiah tells us that the coming Messiah is willing to suffer for us, even though our sins are the cause of His suffering. Moreover, Isaiah tells us that because Jesus suffers for us and bears our guilt, we can be saved.

• In the second reading from the Book of Hebrews, we hear Jesus spoken of as a “great high priest.” He is a priest who knows and understands our weaknesses, and He knows our temptations. Therefore, we should have absolutely no fear in asking Him for mercy.

• The author of Hebrews tells us that we should “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.”

• Lastly, the Gospel today tells us that Jesus “did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.”

• It’s all very consoling, isn’t it? And that’s how it should be. But even more than consoling us and giving us confidence in our Lord’s goodness, hopefully this insight that these readings provide will help us love Jesus more!

• Hopefully this knowledge of our Lord will help us deepen our relationship with Jesus and help us to trust Him more and seek His mercy more. But most importantly, this knowledge of Jesus should help us who call ourselves Christians to be more Christ-like.

• As Christians, as people who have taken on His name, we are called not simply to love Jesus, but to be like Jesus! We’re called to follow His example in every way, especially in the way we treat others.

• So like Jesus, we must be willing to suffer for others, even those who hurt us . . . most especially for those who hurt us and cause us pain.

• Whenever we are hurt by someone, the normal human responses arising out of our brokenness are to strike back and then to nurse our wounds and protect ourselves from future harm from that person.

• While these are normal human responses, they are not Christian responses. The truly Christlike response begins with forgiveness, but even goes beyond mere forgiveness to a willingness to suffer and to offer up one’s suffering for the good of the one who hurt us.

• This is what Christ taught us from the cross. Jesus didn’t just die for us to save us from our sins. He died because of us. We caused His death by our sinfulness! And yet still He chose to die for us and to offer His suffering and  death as a means to save us!

• You see, there’s a particular magnanimity that Christians are called to possess: a greatness and nobility of soul that enables one to bear suffering calmly and to rise above human faults and failings in order to generously and genuinely care for the needs of others.

• And this magnanimity that we are all called to possess must be rooted in a simple humility that recognizes that we are all flawed and sinful human beings, and therefore we must be willing to sympathize with the weaknesses of others, even when we become the victims of the weaknesses and faults of others.

• The great poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once wrote: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should see sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

• His point is that if we can just get past our own negative emotions that naturally arise when we are hurt by others and actually try to understand why people act the way they do, we will soon be less inclined to exact recompense from those who have hurt us and more inclined to overlook their faults and failings.

• While it is sometimes just, necessary, and eminently charitable to correct or admonish a sinner, we must remember that correction must always be done with a charitable spirit and a genuine desire to help the person overcome their faults so that they may grow in holiness.

• Ultimately, my friends, if we wish to be like Christ, we must be willing to serve other rather than be served by others. We must be willing to set aside our own needs and wants, our own emotions and sense of justice, in order to help others achieve their salvation.

• Think for a moment what a better world this would be if we all set out to serve one another and to worry about the needs of others rather than always looking to take care of ourselves.

• Think about what a better world this would be if we were all quick to extend mercy and forgive one another, rather than holding grudges.

• Think about what a better world this would be if we were all willing to sympathize and understand the weaknesses of others and willing to suffer for the sake of others.

• Think about what a better world this would be if all of us who called ourselves “Christian”were indeed Christ-like.

Copyright by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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Ability to Choose by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/05/18 at 11:11 AM

• Of all of the characteristics that set man apart from the rest of the natural world, our ability to choose is the most fundamental.

• In His great love and solicitude, the Creator has endowed man with the capacity and the freedom to make decisions for himself. So unlike the animals, we are not bound to act according to instincts. We are not bound to act even according to our emotions.

• Rather, we can exercise our intellects to assess any given situation and then decide upon our course of action.

• Our Lord gave us this capacity and freedom not simply because He loves us. Ultimately, our Lord gave us this capacity and freedom so that we could choose to love Him in return, for love is always a choice – not simply an emotion.

• As we learned last Sunday, our love for God is best shown through obedience to Him and His most adorable will. God gave us the capacity and freedom to choose so that we would choose to obey His will in every situation, and thereby show our love for Him.

• For every act of obedience to God and His divine will is in essence an act of love. And not only do we show our love for God by our obedience to Him, but we are ennobled and made holier by choosing God’s will over our own.

• Throughout the course of a normal day, each of us is confronted with hundreds of decisions we must make, many of which are decisions of little consequence, such as what shoes we will wear.

• Other decisions, such as what we eat or how we carry out our work, may affect our health, livelihood, and well being, and therefore are decisions that we weigh with more gravitas.

• But even more important than these decisions affecting our health and livelihood are the moral choices that we must make,  specially when we are confronted with the temptation to sin. This, of course, is the theme of our readings today.

• The good news is that if we do choose to sin, we know that our Lord will show us His mercy and forgive us if we are truly sorry for the sin. Our Lord will even forgive the gravest and most serious of sins if we are truly sorry for them.

• But even though God will always forgive the contrite sinner, there is always a price to pay for our sins, for every sin we commit – no matter how big or small we may think it is –damages us and those around us.

• The Catechism teaches that: “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity” (CCC #1849).

• “Sin is an offense against God…. Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become ‘like gods,’ knowing and determining good and evil” (CCC #1850).

• “Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God.’ In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation” (CCC #1850).

• The Catechism goes on to teach us that: “Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations, which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil” (CCC #1865).

• So by using our capacity and freedom to choose in a sinful manner, we undermine our capacity and freedom to choose in the future.

• Any sin that is committed repeatedly distorts our judgment so that good and evil are not as readily apparent. We see this most starkly in people whose consciences are sufficiently deadened to enable them to regularly commit the gravest of sins, such as abortionists or prostitutes or hardened criminals.

• But we also see this phenomenon in the not-so-hardened sinner who has learned to justify his or  her sinful behavior, such as a student who regularly cheats on tests, or a couple who contracepts, or a teenager who routinely lies in order to avoid punishment.

• Furthermore, any sin that is committed repeatedly enslaves us, robbing us of the freedom to say no to it. Anyone who suffers from an addiction is living proof of this truth. Simply put, the more we commit a sin, the more likely we will commit it again.

• But while sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, it cannot destroy man’s moral sense at its root (cf. CCC #1865). On some level, man always retains some capacity – as mitigated and corrupted as it might be – to choose.

• Thus, my brothers and sisters, it is of utmost importance that we make a fundamental choice to obey God in order to protect ourselves from the consequences of sin.

• Our readings today set up a dichotomy between the first Adam, who by his sinful life unleashed a spiritual death upon all of his progeny, and the new Adam: Jesus Christ, who by His death made life possible once again for all who choose to follow Him.

• We see in the stories from our first reading and Gospel how each of these Adams confronted temptation. The first Adam, in a fit of pride, was seduced by the evil one, while Christ humbly countered temptation with the spiritual tools of prayer and fasting.

• Holy Mother Church gives us these readings today on this 1st Sunday of Lent as a means of strengthening us and preparing us for our Lenten journey, through which we hope to imitate Christ through the spiritual practices of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving.

• She gives us these readings at the beginning of this holy season of self-renewal as an encouragement for us to choose to be like Jesus Christ, the new Adam, rather than the first Adam who fell from grace.

• This fundamental choice of the spiritual life is one that we must make every day, for every day we are confronted with temptation. Temptation to sin is and always will be a constant in our lives. It’s never going to go away.

• So we must learn how to exercise our free will to say no always to temptation so that we might avoid the devastation and horror of sin.

• To help us in this battle, we have the spiritual tools of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, which unite us more firmly to God, strengthen our wills, and increase our charity.

• These spiritual tools help us make reparation for our sins, and they help to undo the damage caused by our sins. As such, the practices of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving are absolutely indispensable for any of us who have repeatedly fallen into grave sin.

• And so, my brothers and sisters, as we begin our way through the desert of Lent, let us be firm in our commitment to increased prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. But even more importantly, let us be firm in choosing to serve God, and God alone.

• May our Lord, in His mercy, strengthen us all against every temptation this Lenten season.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC