What is ultimate in your life?

Homily

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

28 June 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What is ultimate in your life?  We can only answer this question if Jesus Christ, who reveals you fully to yourself, says something provocative and exclusive.

Jesus easily answers this question.  It's hard and complicated for the rest of us.  It's a question I ask couples on the brink of marriage. I ask it like this.  What is the key to a fruitful marriage?  Some get it, some don't.  A lot of them say communication.  A lot of them saying letting nothing get between them.  A few of them say going to Mass, which is the source and destiny of their married love.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is always absolute.  It never panders to any interest.  It is clear.  There is only one proper end to man, made in the image of God.  It's to love God with all your heart, mind and strength.  It is to glorify God by loving His will above and in all things.  It is to die to self in order to love God for His own sake, which is the very definition of love.  

When I interview people for funerals, I ask the remaining family what they learned from the deceased. What was ultimate in their life?  Occasionally I get love of God's will, but not that often honestly.  I usually get family as the ultimate meaning, and what a person lived and died for.  Yet today's Gospel will not accept that as a final answer.  The best way to love your family, if we are truly listening to Jesus, is to love God and His holy will alone.  Only then will you be free to love your family.  Many of us say that our family is our world.   Of course we mean that they are very dear to us.  But to love them in front of or in place of God is idolatry, and it will crush them to make them our ultimate concern.  

What do I want St. Ann's to be known for?  It would be easy for me to say community.  We are relational beings, called into communion by God here at St. Ann. I want St. Ann to be a place where everyone wants to know everyone!  I want us to be known as the very best place to show up and do life together.  Even this according to the Gospel would be idolatry.  

St. Ann's can only fulfill it's purpose if each and every person loves God and worships Him as He deserves and has asked to be worshipped.  By making Mass the heart of my week, and my participation in the sacrifice of Christ and the mystery of His cross as first and ultimate in my life.

What is ultimate in my life?  The Gospel only admits of one answer, if we're being honest.  The Lord God is God alone.  Him alone shall you serve.  This is not a master commanding a slave.  It's a savior inviting a friend to embrace the cross, where true love that endures and conquers all things is made perfect.  It's from the cross that Jesus gives the new and ultimate commandment.  Love one another just as I have first loved you.

In a few weeks I'll make my annual retreat.  I'll have a room with minimal furnishings, just like Elisha had on the roof of a Shunamite woman.  My spiritual director will ask if I have everything I need.  I'll reluctantly say yes, and nothing more.  But it needs to be this way.  If I'm going to have any chance to focus on the ultimate question while being detached from any idols or replacements.  

What is ultimate in my life?  It's to love God alone exclusively with all my heart, and to love His will in all things.  Nothing less brings with it the gift of eternal life.

+mj  

+mj  

What's the most dangerous thing I do?

Homily

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

21 June 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What's the most dangerous thing I do?

I admitted a few weeks ago that I am afraid of heights.  No bungee or cliff jumping for me. Definitely no sky diving or taking a trip to outer space. Verticality is not my strong suit.  And that's the problem.  Anyone playing it safe has already lost.  We are meant more for vertical living, not necessarily physically through sky scrapers, but spiritually through our sense of adventure, our exploring with courage our capacity to glorify God by fulfilling our vocation to love.  

As is clear from today's Gospel, Jesus believes you are the most courageous person in the world.  Three times in a few verses He tells you his missionary disciple not to be afraid.  It's the heartbeat of the Gospel.  They are the first words of the most courageous person I have ever met, John Paul II. Do not be afraid.  

If you're paying attention here at St. Ann, the most dangerous thing we do together is go to Mass.  Many of you remember the decision a year and a half ago to have armed security in our school building.  Those security measures extend into the celebration of Mass.  Why did we do that?  It was an admission that going to Mass, especially with our children, is the most dangerous and courageous thing we do.  We are always working on security, so that St. Ann is the safest place or the family of God to gather.  Yet going to Church is never playing it safe, at least it shouldn't be.  

First of all, there is an evil one trying to kill the life of God in you.  Jesus says be afraid of that person, and no one else besides God.  One tactic of the evil one is to scare you out of going to Mass, where you feed and strengthen the very life of God in you.  Evil knows where to strike, precisely at the point of our deepest commitment to explore a love stronger than death, with our children.  If evil makes us scared to worship, it has won.  

Yet an even better tactic is to make us comfortable going to Mass, to make you think going to Mass isn't dangerous.  Whenever we are comfortable, we stop pursuing a love strong as death.  When comfortable, we don't put our life on the line through the sacrifice of Jesus, we stop choosing to fear the Lord for love of His holy will.  We just sit on the sidelines, complacent and distracted.  Or out of complacency we don't show up at all.

Jesus knows we all need resistance training to grow in courage.  Blessed are you when they insult and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.  In order to be the most courageous people in the world, we can't hide our faith.  It should be clearly evident in my life and yours that we know a love stronger than death, and would die in an instant for what we believe.  Acknowledging this through a worthy participation in the Mass is the most courageous and dangerous thing we do.  

Dads too are meant to do dangerous things.  Dads have an irreplaceable role in leading a family courageously to overcome those evils that threaten to discourage us. Dads have a role in teaching a family to live vertically.  Everyone should know what Dad lives and dies for, and where He is going to show up with courage.  If a dad doesn't show up with courage, there is no substitute.  

That includes at Mass, the most dangerous place we can be.  The biggest predictor of Mass attendance is whether dad shows up.  The other  is whether it's easy or hard to go to Mass.  Whenever it's easy, nobody goes.  Whenever it's hard, even in danger of death, the place is packed.  Do you know why that is?

This doesn't meant that we should be reckless, nor that we shouldn't take every precaution to make our Masses safe, and to defend against and deter evil.  But Mass can never be complacent or comfortable.    Mass is never less than a place to put your life on the line, to live the vertical dimension of your life through worship, and to participate from the heart in the exploration of a love stronger than death.  

If Mass isn't the most dangerous thing I do, I'm not doing Mass right.  

If not Mass, what is the most dangerous thing you do?

+mj  

How's your royal priesthood going?

Homily

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

14 June 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village   

AMDG        

How's your royal priesthood going?

I've told you many times one of the most terrorizing questions is this - Father, how are you?  A close second is this - Father, how can I help you?  It can be so threatening to receive the care and help of others.  So many of you worry about my burning out.  You ask about my time away, and my vacations.   You ask me all the time when I'm going to get more priestly help.  You ask me how I'm holding up in the midst of scandal.  

The sheep care deeply about the welfare of the shepherd.  I thank you for that.

What do I need mostly from you though?  How can you help?  I need you to exercise your priesthood!  What are you talking about?  I am not a priest!  But oh my would you be so wrong!  You are a priest.  By virtue of your baptism, you are a member of Christ who is priest, prophet and king.   The promise first made to Israel through Moses, that you would be a chosen people, a kingdom of priests, has fallen to you through Christ.  

So I need to flip the terrorizing question back to you!  How's your priesthood going?  My priesthood serves yours.  The best way you can help me is to fulfill your priesthood.

That's not all.  You are also royalty.  Last weekend I baptized the only grandson of a very royal family, the grandson of a Royals Hall of Famer.  Maybe some of you saw it.  It was glorious and a dream come true.  I've been a Royals fan since I was 7 years old.  Never would I have dreamt I would baptize the grandson of the bluest of blue Royal.  

Here in Kansas City we should know more than anyone what it means to be Royal.  It goes deeper than fandom in our baseball team.  You are a royal nation, and a kingdom of priests.  Your deepest identity is your royal priesthood, sealed, deepened and strengthened by the anointing with chrism at your baptism and confirmation.  

I hope this new royal grandson is a future Hall of Famer.  Yet I know even moreso that you share in the same destiny, to be a royal and holy priest in the ultimate Hall of Fame, the communion of saints in the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's why we are going to improve our church here at St. Ann.  It's why we must.  There can be no question when you drive by St. Ann or come into the royal temple of God, that your deepest identity and mission is to be a royal priest.  Until we leave no doubt of this, our mission remains unfinished.

What do royal priests do?  Look at what Jesus says in the Gospel!  They pray for shepherd kings like David and the promised Son of David with hearts that move.  They fight against evil so that people can experience healing and fullness and newness of life.  They let themselves be called by name into God's lineup to win eternal victories for the glory of God and the building up of the kingdom of heaven.  

That's your royal priesthood.  Be ready the next time you ask me how my priesthood is going, for me to fire the terrorizing question right back at you.

How's your royal priesthood going?

+mj