How do I create more unity in the Church?

Homily

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

Word of God Sunday 

25 January 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

How do I contribute to the unity of the Church?

Why is there still division in Christianity?  It's a question for the Church that existed long before the Orthodox schism in the 1100s or the Protestant reformation in the 1500s.  St. Paul rants about it in the early part of his letter to the Church at Corinth, that was filled with cliques and rivalries since its beginning?  This last week was a week of fasting and prayers, for racial reconciliation, for the legal protection of all human life without exception, and ultimately, for Christian unity.  Why are there still divisions in Christianity?

It's my fault.  Mother Teresa reminded us often that the thing that most needs to change in the world is me.  That's true in the Church as well.  A church that is on the way to holiness, on the way to fulfilling its mission entrusted to her by Christ, is one completely committed individually and together to repentance and conversion.  Why is there division in Christianity?  Because I have not completed my contribution to the unity of the Church.  It's because the Catholic church has squandered the incomparable gift of goodness, truth, beauty and unity, along with all the means of mercy and grace, that Christ has given to HIs bride, and has not given a compelling witness to the communion that we have.  

It's why people are becoming Catholic, by the way.  It's our unity.  It's our community, and our lived experienced of the communion that Christ has given us.  People become Catholic for many reasons, but it's ultimately because they see Catholics showing up for God and each other with authenticity and love.   Jesus teaches and prays that His Church be one, that the world may believe in Him.  Settling for anything less than the unity Christ has given us is unacceptable.  

The Mass is the source and the sign of the Church's unity. That's why I have to show up every week, to make my contribution to the Church's unity. From the beginning, the Church gathered regularly for the teaching, the communion, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. That's the structure of the OCIA, the process by which people enter into our unity by marrying the Church in faith.  This is Word of God Sunday, a day to highlight the third luminous mystery, and the beautiful liturgy of the Church, through which we come to understand the revelation of the Bible, the written scriptures, in light of the lived experience of the Church's tradition.  The Mass and the Magisterium, represented by the priest, are the ultimate interpreters of the written word of God, a word that takes on flesh in Jesus Christ and through His sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  We can read the written word of God apart from the lived experience and living authority of the Church, but the Bible can't be separated from the Word made flesh.  The Church has always understood this, that the Bible fulfills its role in salvation especially when it is proclaimed at Mass.

You get to make a contribution to the Church's unity in faith and morals.  You have to by what you say and do.  Your options in the Gospel are plentiful!  You can fish, or hunt, or farm, or shepherd, or teach, or heal, or witness, etc. etc. etc.  Jesus hired fishermen first because of their patience and perseverance.  Most of us fish at the grocery store because it's easier to shop than fish.  

But the Church isn't a store you buy things from.  It's where you make a meaningful contribution to the Church's unity in faith and morals. 

After another tough week out there, I'll remind you of what I've said a thousand times.  There is no technological, political, legal or economic solution to the evils that surround us.  There is only your contribution to building the kingdom of heaven.  That's what we gather to do, as we gather every week for the teaching, the communion, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.

+mj  

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Is this the year?

Homily

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

18 January 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village

AMDG

Is this the year?

You know what I'm talking about?  Will 2026 really be any different?  Will this be the year when my hopes are realized, and my resolutions are more than just wishful thinking?  Will my desire to be more alive, and to truly love the will of God, find real traction?  Or will it be another year that slips through my fingers, when I'm afraid of what it takes for real transformation to happen in my soul?

I'm not sure why there's a viral trend to post pictures from 2016.  Maybe it's a good thing, to remember what has changed in the last 10 years, and what has not.  Maybe it's a reminder especially that there is much I hoped for in 2016 that remains unfulfilled, and to wonder why.

Again real change is more than wishful thinking for circumstances to magically change in a new year.  I'm fond of having a word of the year, and sharing it with my friends, as a small means of my being accountable to the gift and responsibility of my life.  My word this year is joy, the fruit of a memorable conversation I had with a parishioners who said the parish needs to see me having more fun, for if the priesthood is not a joyful life, no mother would ever want her son to be a priest.  I have a superabundance of good things that have been poured into my lap, so much so that it is very ungrateful for me to be obsessed with what I don't or can't have.   My resolution is to fully enjoy the life I have chosen and been given. We will see if it really makes a difference.

I like to think that so long as I am faithful to prayer, exercise, spiritual direction and therapy, that I will grow in health and holiness, and that 2026 will be my best year yet.  Yet I'm not always convinced that this is more than wishful thinking.  

How about you?  Will 2026 be any different for you?  Is this the year?

The Church has us reflecting on baptism two weeks in a row to start ordinary time in 2026.  Why the redundancy?  It's because the promise of our baptism is our greatest opportunity for holiness, greatness and the fullness of life.  No other resolution could compare to us fully knowing the dignity and destiny of my baptism.  

Yet in our fallen condition, our greatest desire and potential is met with by the greatest fear.  It's the fear of letting go of our sins that makes the quest for real greatness so scary.  It is the total eradication of sins from our lives that free us to ultimately live heroic lives of courage, loving the will of God with incredible strength, and making a total and sacrificial gift of ourselves within the paschal mystery of Christ.  Anything less than the total eradication of sin from our lives is lukewarm, weak sauce, and tentative.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  This shocking, revolutionary proclamation of John the Baptist is meant to shock us out of complacency and back into the promise of our baptism, into a real, total and uncompromising desire for a holiness that is new and different and more.  The unique proclamation of John the Baptist is repeated at every Mass, at a penultimate moment, to bring us clarity as to what is really at stake, the complete removal of any sin in my life that keeps me trapped in fear.

There could be no greater resolution in 2026 that to respond to the grace of my baptism, fed by the Eucharist, the Lamb of God who completely frees me from all sin by the inner working of his mercy.

How's that for a 2026 resolution?  Is this the year?

+mj  

Did my Christmas make any difference?

Homily

Baptism of the Lord

11 January 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

Did my Christmas make any difference?

What time is it anyway?  It's day 11 of the calendar new year, but as you see around you, the Church still thinks it's Christmas.  But is it?  Is it Christmas still or Ordinary Time?  If the former, how do I keep celebrating Christmas - I'm out of gifts and out of ideas.  If the latter, then is it time to get back to my normal life?

The answer is yes. The answer is both, which is often the case when dealing with questions of faith.  The Church blurs this second manifestation of Epiphany of Jesus - the proclamation of who He is by the father at His baptism, with the beginning of his public work, his first day on the job as it were.  The blurring is intentional.

Yes today is the official culmination of Christmas, and the beginning of ordinary time, but just as this Christmas was meant to be celebrated in a way that makes new things possible, so we return to our lives at the end of Christmas, just as the Magi did, by another way.   

The whole point of Christmas, and the Incarnation, is that Jesus wants to visit His world in ever more dramatic ways, where the world is most in darkness.  That includes your heart, your family, our Church and this world  There are these smallest and weakest points, where fear and doubt are most threatening, where the Lord has desired to come and make all things new.  Your Christmas depends on your reception of this visit, and whether you will remain in this grace of being loved and cherished at your weakest point.

Christmas culminates then with Jesus identifying with sinners, those who need visited by the Lord's mercy in that exact spot where we cannot change or save ourselves.  

There is a reason the Church baptizes infants, though they cannot be guilty of personal sin.  It's because they too need to be visited at that point of original sin that we all inherit, at that point where our destiny is sin and death, not holiness and life.  Baptism transforms us inwardly, making us first of all children of God and the His favorite dwelling places.  

Yet from our baptism on, the battle against sin rages.  Baptism gets us into the game, and gives us all the saving grace we need to respond with faith and courage to the gift and opportunity of our lives.  Yet the effects of sin are still all around us, and the temptation to cope with the pain of life with fear and doubt remain. 

There will be a time for extreme training in the desert during the holy season of Lent.  For now, it is time for us to begin testing if Christmas made any difference.  With the Lord of my baptism always ready to visit me and remain with me at my weakest point, will I move forward in my life by another way?  

Did this Christmas make any difference?

What did you get Jesus for Christmas?

Homily

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

25 December 2025

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What did you get Jesus for Christmas this year?  You did get Him something right?  You didn't show up to Christmas mass empty handed did you?  Don't get me wrong, it's amazing to see all of you here, but your presence is not your present.  You can do better.  You have to do better.  I believe you will do better.  Jesus is betting this Christmas on you, and so am I.

You know what He wants.  Today He appears as a human person, just like you.  He wants what you want for Christmas.  The difference is that He is not too proud or afraid to ask for it.  He wants what everyone newborn baby wants first in this world.  At this vulnerable moment, what He wants is also exactly what He needs, and that never changes.  It will always be true.  You know what He wants for Christmas.  He wants you to hold Him.  It's what He will always beg of you at Christmas.  Did you bring a gift for Him?  Christmas depends on you, and on your answer to the ultimate and precise question that Jesus comes tonight to ask you - will you hold me?  The first Christmas depended on Mary and Joseph's answer.  This Christmas depends on yours.

If Jesus wanted anything else for Christmas, I would be terrified of Him.  One would expect a savior to come in power and to ask me these fundamental questions - How are you?  Are you ready for this moment?  What are you afraid of?  How can I help you?  But He doesn't, because He knows these terrifying questions will trigger my defenses.  I am fine, I guess.  No, I don't feel ready for this moment.  I'm afraid of losing control.  I'll figure it out on my own thanks.  

So if Jesus is going to get what He wants for Christmas this year, which is to save me from my fears, He has to trick me.  He has to don a disguise.  He has to slip behind my elite defenses.  He has to disguise his desire for me as need, or I'll get scared.  So He tricks me tonight.  He finds me tonight by hiding, trusting my faith to find Him.  He gives by begging my love.  He shows His power to get past my defenses by becoming helpless - cold, poor, naked and homeless.  He makes sense of my life by becoming an absolute joke. Instead of asking me the scary question of what I want, He simply asks me - Fr. Mitchel, will you hold me?  

How does He ask this question?  It's through the most surprising disguise of all.  In just a moment, the cave of Bethlehem will give way to this altar, the manger which once held the Bread of Life to that desperately hungry and fearful place in your soul that only the Eucharist can reach.  You're about to put the Mass in Christ's Mass, you see.  It's at that moment that you give Jesus precisely what He wants for Christmas, your answer to the precise and ultimate Christmas question - will you hold me?

I have no idea how your answer will save the world.  I only know it's what Jesus wants for Christmas, and that Christmas runs through your answer, and your touch, if only you're not afraid to hold this baby in a new and deep within your soul.

Do not be afraid, Mary to hold me.  Do not be afraid Joseph, to hold me.  Do not be afraid, I dare each of you, to hold this baby.  

If you've ever held a newborn baby, you know you're the one being held.  If you're scared to hold a baby, you're scared even of Christmas.  You've forgotten who you are, and the meaning of your life.  

So Jesus is here at Christmas to see if anyone here tonight is ready to give Him what He wants, and is courageous enough to answer the original, precise and ultimate Christmas question - will you hold me?  If you say yes, the Christmas miracle will happen here tonight.  And what Jesus really wants, and what you really want For Christmas, will both come true.

+mj   

Who is pursuing you?

Homily

1st Sunday of Advent A2

30 November 2025

St. Ann Catholic Parish Prairie Village

AMDG

Who is pursuing you?

The first question I put on our missionary discipleship worksheet was this one?  How and why is God pursuing you?  It's pointless to start one's spiritual life anywhere else.  God's desire to visit you is infinitely greater than your desire to make your way toward him.  But why is God pursuing you?  And how?  It's a primary question for the spiritual life - it's the perfect way to start Advent.

When someone surprises you by knocking on your door or calling you, what's your initial reaction usually - it is one of excitement or fear?  Perhaps a bit of both.  This question goes deeper than whether you are an introvert or extrovert.  It's an attitude of faith.  Faith loves surprises and interruptions, because it's nice to be wanted, chosen and desired.  If you are living life as a gift, the most likely response to someone interrupting you is that they have a gift for you!

It's why God is pursuing you, by the way.  He's a giver and gets great joy out of making a gift of Himself.  You are made for God, not as a robot or slave to an owner or master, but as a child who is fit to receive the gifts your Father most wants to give you.  

My initial inspiration to the priesthood, Msgr. Vincent Krische, lived life in just this way.  He received every phone call, every interruption, every surprise knock on his door, as a gift.  Not as a threat to his privacy, but as a gift.  In fact, he left the front door of the rectory open in case someone wanted to leave a gift for him.  Now, he did get a lot of things stolen, but his security was in knowing everyone and trusting their generosity.  He received so much more than was ever stolen; and if something was stolen, he figured the person needed the gift more than he did!

Your very existence and certainly your future is secured by the weight of God's affection and attention bearing down upon you.  Your growth in faith this year will not come from what you are able to privately master and control, but in how ready you are to respond to the surprises and interruptions in life with faith.  For at the moment you least expect, the Son of Man will visit you to make the gift of His presence known.  

Happy are those whom the Lord finds vigilant upon His arrival.  This is Advent - awaiting with eager expectation the greatest news of all time - the Lord will not leave us to our own devices.  We are not alone and He will not leave us alone.  The Lord has come in history, he is coming now in mystery, he will come again in majesty!

Advent is about sensitivity, awareness and readiness to respond.  We begin again our celebration of the Christian mysteries not by plotting, planning and tinkering with our own self-improvement projects, but by daring God to come faster, and to come sooner, and to actually mean it.  

Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Who is pursuing you right now?  Better yet, how and why is the Lord pursuing you?

Have I ever been stranded?

Homily

Solemnity of All Souls

2 November 2025

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

AMDG

Have I ever been stranded?  Most of us have.  In this do-it-yourself world where privacy and self-reliance mask as true security, being stranded and not knowing how you're going to get home, or who is going to help you, can be a terrifying experience.  Such is purgatory.  Most of us can relate.  Whether it was an accident, a canceled flight, a storm or natural disaster, or a breakdown, sooner or later, most of us find ourselves stranded, in need of help to survive and make it home.  

You're the good Samaritan in this scenario, at least in today's liturgy of All Souls. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them.  May they rest in peace.  May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.

This solemn duty of the Church militant - that's YOU btw - is highlighted today and carries through the end of the liturgical year, as the Church fixes its attention on the eschaton, ultimate things, and the Catholic final four of death, judgement, heaven and hell.  Black vestments are recommended, along with the spiritual maxim to keep death daily before our eyes, so that we may gain wisdom of heart.  What is more, today we resolve as part of our faith, prayer, and holy work, to never forget our beloved dead, and to always offer the best of anything we do that in pleasing to God in union with the saving sacrifice of Christ, to those most in need of his mercy, to the most forgotten soul in purgatory. We do this in union and through the heart of our blessed mother, who received the dead body of Her son from the cross, and prepared the body to return to the dust from which it came.  Her 'pieta' is the symbol of our prayer for All Souls day.

At every funeral Mass we wish our beloved dead to have a safe trip, and to come home safely!  When we ask people to pray for us, and promise to pray for them, we mean it most of all once they have passed from this world.  It's when our beloved ones die that we really start praying for them to have a good trip, and to let them know we're here if they need anything!

Today we solemnly remember that it is a complete waste of time to presume that nice people go to heaven.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Gospel is just the opposite!  Nice guys always finish last, and the lukewarm are always cast out of the kingdom of heaven, unless they passover in Christ to the fullness of love that constitutes who God is.  Man has just one proper end - to become like God, who is perfect, sacrificial and heroic love.  That passover process must be completed, sooner or later, in every person.  The transformation and divinization of the human person from good to holy is the most dramatic and improbable change of all.  It is only possible through fervent prayer and through fear and trembling!

Again, I say that canonizing nice people is a complete waste of time, and totally misleading.  Of course we live in the hope that God desires each of us to be saved and to lose nothing of what belongs to Christ, but to equate myself with a saint like Maximilian Kolbe, and to pretend there is no substantial difference, is to do the most absurd thing of all. To equate my friends to Mother Teresa, or my family to St. Therese of Lisieux, and to pray like they are close enough and ready instantaneously for heaven, is to truck in nonsense.  

The God of justice and love is too good and too loving to shove us into a new reality that does not correspond to the state of my soul.  Hence purgatory, the doctrine of justice and love and great hope, which is highlighted today and celebrated as a solemn duty and corporal and spiritual work of mercy for the Church militant.

I'm so glad it fall on a Sunday this year, so we can all mark this feast together.  It's not about earning out way to heaven, but praying our way to a worthy participation in the passover mystery of Jesus, a cooperation with the one saving sacrifice that infinitely pleases the father, and a sharing of these graces won by love with our beloved dead, especially the forgotten souls in purgatory most in need of God's mercy.

+mj  

Is holiness easy or hard?

Homily

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village

5 October 2025

AMDG

Is holiness easy or hard?

I bet your first answer is that holiness is really hard.  Really hard.  And you're not wrong.  Or perhaps your first response was that holiness is neither easy nor hard.  Maybe you sniffed our a false dichotomy.  When considering matters relating to God, paradox oftentimes prevails, and both . . and answers are much better than either . . . or answers.  So maybe holiness is both easy and hard.  

The right answer is the last one though.  Holiness is easy.  Holiness is simple.  My yoke is easy and my burden is light, says the Lord.  All it takes is the smallest amount of faith.  Then holiness, a complete sharing in the love and power of God that overcomes all things, is the fruit.  

Holiness is easy.  It is simple.  It is expected.  It is at hand.

Don't believe me?  Look at the three honorees who receive the Ave St. Ann award this weekend.  They make it look easy.  What's the key ingredient, the common thread between these St. Ann heroes of faith?  They pray.  They have faith. They put themselves simply at the the service of God's plan. They live not an ego-drama of trying to get, but the theo-drama of simply giving.  The result of this trusting relationship of faith is powerful indeed; the fruit is a heroic love the endures and prevails and bears fruit that lasts.

None of the three honorees - Dick and Martha Taylor, Al and Pat Kolarik, Jim and Patti Lisson - think they deserve these awards. Which is why we are so happy to give them to them.  Each would in their own way say they are the least deserving, that they are only unprofitable servants, doing what life requires.  Yet in trusting God and serving His plan and not their own, they have truly moved mountains.  

Faith obtains all things.  Perseverance obtains all things.  Prayer obtains all things. Chastity obtains all things.  Service obtains all things. Being pro-life obtains all things!  It's all utterly simple, and just takes a mustard seed of faith.  

It's hard when you make your life about you; when your life is about you, the simple demands of holiness seem impossible.  Yet they are easy for God, and easy for one who just has a mustard seed of faith.  

I'm not saying that the Taylors, Kolariks and Lissons have had comfortable lives.  Far from it.  They have just learned a very simple secret.  That trusting God and serving Him redounds to their own benefit.  Trusting in God's plans makes them strong.  The just one is not one who has life figured out, but the one who lives by faith.

In honoring our Ave St. Ann inaugural award winners, we honor all of us, just as when we honor the saints, a new path to holiness opens up for each one of us. Thank you Lissons, Kolariks and Taylors, for showing us the way.  Holiness is for everyone.  And for the one who has faith, it's not hard at all.

+mj