send workers!

Homily
Tuesday 14OTII Year of Mercy
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at KU
5 July 2016
Readings

Today I will begin to meet with the staff at my new assignment at KU.  They are workers in the Lord's vineyard, and there are too few of them!  In many ways, my new assignments is off to a 'quiet' start. Compared to the hectic daily schedule and many visitors to Christ the King each week, the campus center in July is slow.  But the mission entrusted now to me is to connect to the Gospel of Jesus Christ the students of KU, their families, and the extended network of alumni and friends of KU and St. Lawrence.  Though somewhat invisible in comparison to a parish, the network and opportunity is vast.  We need workers for the harvest.

I'm thinking of all those today whom I have had a chance to work with in my 12 years as a priest, and even before as an employee and seminarian of mother Church.  I'm grateful for each of them, but as Jesus says rightly, there are never enough workers.  There is opposition to be overcome, and so many souls that are lost, that need the light of the Gospel to enter into their full dignity and destiny as persons, revealed to them personally and intimately by Christ Himself.

May our reception of him personally, perfectly and intimately in the Eucharist today be a mandate for evangelization.  May those who love Him, and are loved by Him, be willing to be sent by Him.  Amen.

don't quit on America

Homily
Monday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time II
Year of Mercy
4 July 2016
Independence Day USA
AMDG +jmj +m
Daily Readings
Readings



I'm not pessimistic about our country.  I see too many signs of hope all around, too many signs of the resurrection.  I see the renewal of the church at its core among our young people, a real thirst for holiness and greatness.  The call of Jesus and the teaching of His Church are clearer and brighter when the culture is darker.  Yes, there are reasons to fear and doubt.  There are plenty of signs that our country is headed in the wrong direction.  Yet we should remember that holiness is forged most often not in times of complacency, but in times of adversity.  We should welcome the challenges before us, as each great generation has before.

Jesus chastises those in the Gospel today who give up!  He is short with those who had given up on the little girl who was merely sleeping.  It would have been easy for the woman with hemorrhages to have given up, afflicted as she was for such a long time.  But she didn't quit - she mustered the faith and strength to get near Jesus.  His touch made all things new for her, and the girl whom everyone else had given up on.

Don't quit on yourself
Don't quit on the United States of America!  Her promise is ever new for those who believe and act with integrity and courage.

Happy 4th of July friends!

God Bless the USA

Homily
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
Independence Day Weekend USA
First Homily as Director of St. Lawrence Catholic Center KU
Readings


Rejoice with Jerusalem, be glad because of her, all you who love her, for lo, I will spread prosperity over her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.

Happy Birthday America!  240 years young!

Now I know we don't have a history as a country like the history of Jerusalem.  For the ancient city of Jerusalem, so lauded by the prophet Isaiah in today's first reading, 240 years is but a blip on the radar.  Isaiah's great exuberance is related to the hope of the restoration of Jerusalem to its glory, to its destiny given and guaranteed by God Himself.  Our country in her brief history has had her ups and downs, but has never been conquered nor its people enslaved and exiled.  We have been down but not out, at least not yet.


Yet today's first reading has some relevance to a country that is in many ways the new Jerusalem and the hope of the world.  God has blessed the United States as an exceptional nation.  We say as much when we sing 'God Bless America.'.  There is a feeling of joy, gratitude and responsibility in being 'blessed' as the most prosperous, powerful and free nation the world has ever seen.  Shame on us if we do not appreciate that we live much differently than most men and women in history, who have lived under slavery and tyranny.


To say that the United States is a light to the nations today, much moreso than the ancient city of Jerusalem, is a great understatement.  Our country's greatness has been produced by the most heroic, generous and virtuous people the world has ever seen, and we give exceeding thanks for those who have believed in our country and sacrificed greatly to make Her the greatest nation.  Yet there is also the sense that God has ordained the United States to be the new Jerusalem, and that His hand is upon us.


I know all that is hard to believe if you just put on the news and see the bickering between Trump and Hilary.  You might even ask yourself where the greatness of our country has gone, and whether we are in sharp decline.  This is why St. Paul says in the reading to the Galatians that everything that the world considers valuable - prosperity and power and popularity - is vanity unless it is grounded in something deeper.  St. Paul says that Christians must boast in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Compared to the cross, even circumcision, which marked one as a member of the nation of Israel, means nothing.  Nothing.


Does St. Paul forbid anyone being a proud Israelite, or for that matter, a Christian being a proud American?  By no means!  Yet he points out rightly that there is something more fundamental than one's nationality.  It is one's relationship with God.  Our Church has thus been trying to remind our country the last few years of the most fundamental and important rights that a country can and must give her citizens, the freedom of religion that must not be compromised in a nation that purports to serve its citizens, not be served by them.

A worthy nation only exists, then, to produce the citizens of highest virtue.  Jesus Christ is the measure of man - and whether we are a selfish people, or a people who can give their lives totally to a mission greater than themselves - whether we find something worth dying for and something that produces life in greater abundance.  To put it another way, the United States exists for one reason, and for one reason only - not to provide the most prosperity and license to its people, but to enable true human flourishing.  The United States is exceptional only if she encourages citizens to choose the spiritual goods that lead to human happiness - truth and goodness, beauty and unity (from the mission statement of the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center).

St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians says that nothing else matters save the opportunity he has to witness to the love of Christ and complete his mission.  The Catholic Church exists for one reason, and for one reason only, to produce saints - men and women of heroic virtue.  Jesus Christ sends the 72 ahead of him to proclaim a Gospel of truth and goodness, made effective by the presence of God Himself, that will produce the happiest, most free people that world has ever seen, people destined for the kingdom of heaven.

I have been sent here to St. Lawrence Center as its new Director to proclaim that presence of God and that call to heroic virtue and sacrificial love that helps every person find their best self.  Jesus Christ alone reveals man to Himself.  I pray that I can serve this University community with the same humility and credibility demanded by Jesus in the Gospel.  I humbly ask for your prayers.

Thanks be to God, that we have a chance to pursue the greatest truth, goodness, beauty and unity in what is still for today the new Jerusalem, the nation that has not yet lost her destiny to be a light to all nations.  Happy July 4th everyone. May God bless the USA.

Fr. Agustin Martinez
First Mass of Thanksgiving as a Priest of Jesus Christ
29 May 2016
St. Agnes  Church, Roeland Park, Kansas

Conform your life to the mystery of the Lord's cross.

Let's get this party started!

Conform your life to the mystery of the Lord's cross.

Dear Fr. Agustin, not to take anything away from the glorious and exceedingly beautiful day yesterday that was your ordination to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, a joyful day for you, for your family, for the entire Church.  A culmination of so many things, all from God!  Not to take away either from the perfect day that is your first Mass of thanksgiving today.

Still, those words pronounced to you by His Excellency Archbishop Naumann colored yesterday's celebration, and still haunt us in this happy occasion.

Conform your life to the mystery of the Lord's cross.

Yesterday, Fr. Agustin, the Archbishop threw down on you, like a good father should.  The Archbishop issued a challenge, most of all because he loves you and believes in you.  He threw the great Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney right in your face because he is the shepherd of God's people, and he needs you to be a holy priest.

It is my great intention and privilege today to 'pile on' Fr. Agustin.  I love you and so I tease you.  But more than that, I believe in you.  The church that I love needs your heart.  So I beg for it today at your first Mass - for God's people - I beg for your heart.  More than that, you know that Jesus begs for your heart.  He has always thirsted for yours.  Today as you begin service as one of his beloved priests, he begs for your heart even more.

The Archbishop said rightly that even though you have so many more gifts, Fr. Agustin, than the great patron saint of priests St. John Vianney, that his prayer is that you become half the priest he is.  Ouch!  That had to sting, Fr. Agustin!  It has been joked among priests that our dear pope Francis loves and forgives everyone except his priests!  He is hard on us.  Yet he too knows that his mission of unity in the Church cannot be accomplished without holy, humble, zealous priests.  Jesus himself trusted his ministry to the apostles.  Every good pope and bishop entrusts his ministry to his priests.  He has to, in imitation of the Lord Jesus Himself, who wanted things this way.  Pope Francis disciplines us priests because he loves us and he needs us.  Whenever we do not have the heart of Jesus, Pope Francis loves us enough to tell us so.

This is what the Archbishop told you Fr. Agustin.  You will have a hard time giving your heart.  By the grace of God you have received the gift of the priesthood.  By only giving a small piece of yourself, in saying the holy words of the sacraments, you will effect new miracles and new realities.  Yet the hard part - dare I say the impossible part - will be for you to give your heart - when you say these sacred words.  The Archbishop predicted rightly that it is one thing to get A's and to show great promise and to look the part, and to be capable of the myriad duties of the priesthood.  You are very capable!  It is quite a different thing to be a priest in name and a priest in heart, for the priesthood is exactly what our patron the Cure says it is - the priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.

Conform your life to the mystery of the Lord's Cross.  Have fun with that Fr. Agustin!

Don't get me wrong, the priesthood will be a happy life for you because the Lord desires it for you.  In many ways, the Lord spoils his priests - putting them at the intersection of so many personal, spiritual and material riches.  Even though if you work as hard as Fr. Jerry your new pastor plans on you working, you will make only $.10 an hour, nobody here is worried about you starving Fr. Agustin! Whatever you give to the Lord will come back to you a hundred fold.

Yet in the end the priesthood must be a way not of fulfilling your dream or destiny or even your myriad desires but must be a death to self.  The priesthood is a uniquely mysterious vocation, and a deeply personal gift of Jesus to those He chooses and loves, to give your entire life away.  Never will the reality of your priestly identity be more intense than when you utter the words of consecration - today for the first time as principal celebrant - the words of sacrificial and total love - the words of Jesus Himself - over the sacred species of bread and wine.  Corpus Christ, the solemnity of your first Mass of Thanksgiving, is the Sunday of the year when we intentionally intensify our faith and devotion to the Holy Eucharist.  The opportunity before you, Fr. Agustin, is that each time you will be privileged to say Mass, to say not only the words, but to also give your heart - not just a piece of your heart, but all of it!

It sounds like great hyperbole when the Cure says that if a priest realized what He was doing at Mass, he would die.  But it's not.  It's precisely true.  The problem is that most priests will always remain afraid to pass over and to give their whole heart.  The Archbishop knows it.  I know it.  Fr. Agustin - even now you can feel the fears and doubts in your heart - you know it too.

If a priest realizes what He does, He will die.

The sacraments of the Church flow from the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Your office of priesthood, Fr. Agustin, is but the place where Jesus places his own sacred heart.  Never make your priesthood anything else, or anything less.

I entrust you, without hesitation, Fr. Agustin, to our beautiful Lady of Guadalupe.  Jesus gave his Mother to the Church, and more especially to be the Mother of Priests.  Entrust yourself completely to her.  Those to whom much is given much is expected.  Our Blessed Mother, who receive the gift of the Immaculate Conception, received the greatest responsibility, to be the Mother of the Church.  She filled this role Fr. Agustin, in your native land like nowhere else, as she became at Guadalupe the apostle and evangelist of the Americas.  Her thirst for souls led to the conversion of your native land.  Allow her thirst for your soul to make possible the biggest conversion that lies ahead of you, the gift of your entire heart to the priesthood.  Mary makes Jesus present like no one else . . ask her to give you the courage to replace the fears and doubts still present in your heart with Her Son's sacred and priestly heart.

This you must do, Fr. Agustin, if you dare to be not just a good priest, not just a successful priest, but a holy priest.  This last step is the great adventure of your life.  This last step very few priests ever make.  When you say Mass the rest of your life, always try to give your whole heart.

Conform you life to the mystery of the Lord's cross.  Amen.

Come Let Us Adore Him!

Homily
Christmas Eve 2015
Christ the King Church Topeka
24 December 2015
Daily Readings

O Come let us adore Him!  Christ the Lord!

Why are you here tonight?  Have you come to adore the Lord?  What does it mean for us to adore our Lord?  My dearest friends, on this most holy night, coming to adore the Lord Jesus can only mean one thing. It means that we have come tonight - each one of us - to fall in love again!  It means that we have come tonight - each one of us - confessing that we have fallen out of love with God and each other, confessing that we need this night - each one of us - to fall in love again.  If you have come to Church tonight for any other reason that to fall madly, completely, hopelessly in love with God, then you are in the wrong place!  For the scene of Bethlehem that we contemplate together tonight is way too absurd for any kind of lukewarm response from us.  The biggest and most invincible person imaginable, the one through whom everything was made, the one before whom the entire universe is but a speck of dust, the one who doesn't need any one of us for anything - that person shows his ultimate power in allowing Himself to be made small.  Irresistibly small.  Helplessly small - begging us to hold Him and take care of Him.  Our Lord at Christmas desperately wants to break through our fears and indifference.  He shows tonight that He is ridiculously in love with each of us and everything it means to be a human person, especially our weaknesses.  Knowing that we have an amazing capacity to resist love and to fall out of love and to fear love, even rejecting the depth of His love revealed on the cross, Christ comes as a baby at Christmas, begging our love, pleading that if He comes among us poor, naked and helpless that we may no longer fear God. Do not be afraid, the angel told Mary.  Do not be afraid, the angel told Joseph.  Do not be afraid, the angel told the shepherds.  Do not be afraid of this baby. God is desperately in love with you.  Yes you!  He loves every circumstance of your life exactly where you are this Christmas. Do not be afraid to allow Him to be born in your heart tonight, and if you have come tonight to do anything less than to fall madly, completely and hopelessly in love with God tonight, so much so that after tonight you can never be the same, then you are in the wrong place!  Come, let us adore Him!  Jesus Christ our Lord!

Tonight we fall in love with God more than ever, and we come to rediscover what it means to be a human person.  For not only have we fallen out of love with God, we also confess tonight that we have forgotten who we are.  Our smart phones make us capable of so much more, and we are busier than ever, but we are horrible at keeping things simple.  We are worse and worse at communicating with God in prayer and having intimate, personal and spiritual conversations with each other.  We are less capable of falling in love, being in love and staying in love, and making and keeping promises to God and each other!.  We have forgotten that to be a human person is to be known and loved and desired beginning at our weakest point.  We don't become persons by getting big and smart and important - we do not become persons by gaining the freedom and intelligence to create our own reality and the meaning of our own existence.  We do not become more human by pretending that we do not need God!  No, we become persons by remembering where we came from, and by finding a way to remain small and poor and vulnerable.  We become persons only insofar as we remain like children, by keeping things simple, and by entering with awe and wonder into the great adventure of discovering reality and who we are rather than giving into the temptation of trying to manufacture or control it! Man has forgotten how much He needs God - and by giving into the agnosticism of the day we are making ourselves miserable.  Man needs God - not as a slave needs a master, but as each one of us needs to be known and desired and loved at each moment of our life to reach our highest destiny and happiness.  Love is man's origin, love is his constant calling, and love is his perfection in heaven!  And only God can know us, desire us and cherish us in the deepest parts of our soul, where we cannot love or change ourselves.  Man needs God - this Christmas cannot pass with our giving into the pride and laziness of pretending we can manufacture the meaning of our own existence.  It's a lie that makes our world increasingly miserable.  Tonight we come to remember who we are, and if we remain like a baby - poor, and vulnerable and dependent upon God and each other, we will always be able to realize the meaning of our life - that for which we were created - to fall in love, to be in love and to stay in love.

When we remember who we are and fall in love again, we participate as well in the remaking of our poor world from the inside out.  Tonight is a night chock full of hope! The sign of a baby born of a Virgin mother is THE SIGN that a new creation has dawned on the earth, a creation stronger and meant to last longer than the first creation of everything out of nothing by our virgin Father! Jesus who alone has the power to recreate our poor world, makes himself as small as possible, being born through a tiny, insignificant mother, with complete vulnerability and poverty, at the darkest hour of the darkest night, adored at first only by the most uneducated and mangiest of shepherds, to show us that our world is being remade beginning with the weakest.  Jesus walks every second of his earthly life in perfect humility, always taking the lowest place and preferring the poor, the weakest and most neglected, the greatest sinners, to show us that the recreation of our world will follow a different path.  For the first creation of everything from nothing began big but will be reduced to nothing.  It started in goodness but has been touched by evil.  It started with life but will end in death.  But the new creation is different.  It starts small but ends big.  It starts weak but ends strong.  It starts in poverty but ends in riches. It starts with sinners but ends with saints.  It embraces death, but rises to everlasting life.  Caesar's kingdom that seemed so intimidating when Jesus was born is now gone, as will every kingdom that does not belong to Christ. But Jesus' kingdom that started with nothing is still gaining strength, and His kingdom celebrates with exceeding joy throughout the whole world each Christmas.  Whenever you choose the path of sacrificial love you participate with Jesus in building this kingdom that will last forever.  Do not fear or give into discouragement regarding the evils that threaten our world and our lives and our souls.  Choose to love, no matter what, and the hope of Christmas will continue to grow until the enemies of evil and sin and death are destroyed forever!

All that would be enough for tonight - falling in love, remembering who we are, accepting our mission to build with Christ a kingdom of love, truth and peace that will last forever, but those three things are not the final and full meaning of Christmas! Christmas takes its name not from the birth that took place in Bethlehem, but from the birth about to take place on this altar.  For as small as Jesus made Himself at Bethlehem, He makes Himself much smaller, and more vulnerable, and more beautiful to fall in love with, as He allows Himself to be born on this altar.  We fall in love with Jesus tonight not just by remembering Bethlehem, but in encountering Bethlehem becoming real for me at Christ's Mass.  It is through Christ's Mass that with Joseph we allow Jesus to be born under our roofs, and with Mary allow Jesus then to be born in the deepest recesses of our hearts.  The precise and original meaning of Christmas is what changes in our lives when we receive the Eucharist at Christ's Mass.  Let's put the Mass back in Christmas this year!  Let us recognize the richness of our faith, and confess that Christmas makes no sense at all without Christ's Mass.  Let us be present to the reality that Mary, the mother of our Church, is more excited for this Christmas than she was for the first Christmas, for what is happening tonight, yes even here in Topeka, Kansas - is more dramatic than what happened in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, if any of us, yes if even just one of us, humbly accepts Jesus' desperate plea to be born in our hearts.

Jesus is begging us to receive Him worthily in tonight's Mass.  Do not be afraid, my dearest friends, of this Christ who once came among us as a helpless baby, but who comes to you now - yes you - even more helplessly at Christ's Mass.  This is the meaning of Christmas - right here, right now!  The stage is set now for you - yes you - to receive the Eucharist with greater devotion than ever.  If you resist Him tonight, can you honestly say that you will ever receive Him?  I beg you!  Do not let this Christmas moment pass with fear or indifference.  Do not be afraid to fall helplessly, desperately and completely in love with God tonight, so much so that your life will never be the same.

Now is the time for Christ's Mass!  This most irresistible of babies begs YOU

to hold him now, and allow Him to reach a place in your life where you have never let Him be born before!

Come, let us adore Him - Christ the Lord!

LeRoy Brungardt Funeral Mass

LeRoy Brungardt Funeral

18 December 2015

I pray that where I am you also may be!  Where I am going, you know the way!

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Hey everybody!  It’s LeRoy.  I’m back.  Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again so soon, but God is good!  I made it . . thanks for the prayers.  Needed a few of those for the trip through purgatory . . . in a life like mine, I got mad at my kids a few times.  I lost patience with some of my students, players, parents, fans and colleagues.  But all in all, purgatory wasn’t too bad - was a quick trip!  I thought I’d have to pay more for all those times I lost patience with Linda, but St. Peter let me by on that one . . he said - we all know Linda!  That’s a good sign babe - they all know you up here!  JK - you’re the greatest and I miss you and I love you!  I’d do it all over again . . in a heartbeat!  We did good! I’m sorry I’m not there beside you anymore.  I’m so sorry!

Maureen - the choirs sound great up here!  But they could use another soprano, so please listen to you fantastic boss and pastor, Fr. Mitchel, and do whatever he tells you, so that you make it to heaven.  You have no idea how lucky you are  to have him guiding you!

God is good everyone!  Trust in God with all your heart!  Love Him with your whole mind and strength!  The same God who blessed me throughout my life is the one who asked me to carry my cross in faith and leave you all behind and trust His plan!  I gave it all I had and Jesus was there waiting for me as He promised!  God’s plans are mysterious - beyond our understanding - but they are mysteriously beautiful.  He knows what He is about.  He is always doing more, in life and in death.

To my dearest family and friends, I miss you too!  I love you with all my heart.  Yet the view from up here is incredible.  I wish I had this view as a referee . . it would have been helpful to have this view as a parent (although some things my kids did are better left unseen I am sure).  This view is better than any seat I’ve ever had in any auditorium or stadium or gym.  And I can watch all of you at the same time. I love it - God is good! Trust in God!

When Jesus ascended to heaven, his disciples were scared and lost, but He promised to send the advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with them always until He would see them again face to face!  Jesus found a way to be with everyone always, in a different way but a better one.  He allows me to be with you all now in a new place - in a deeper and better place - in the depth of your heart and soul.  I am still with you . . look for me there in that same place where you love God and pray to God.  I am there.  I will always be there.

When Jesus left, he told the disciples that it was ‘game on’ for them - that they would go out and do greater things than He did. The apostles received the Holy Spirit and became the most passionate and courageous persons the world has ever known, founding our beautiful family, the Catholic Church, that will prevail against the gates of hell for all time!  So no more of this fried bologna (which is the only thing that I knew how to cook - thank God you all kept me well fed!) - no more of this fried bologna of me being the best person you’ll ever know!  I taught you all to compete - go out and do greater things than I did!  I believe in you.  I didn’t raise you to worship me . . go beyond . . dream higher . .  go farther . . compete to be the best!  You can do it!

You my dearest family and friends, are God’s gift to me.  I pray that where I am you also may be!  Love heaven more than anything.  Hope with all your heart to remain a child of God forever!  You are my dream team, each one of you God’s gift to me, and starting today you have me as an advocate - a mentor, a coach, a servant  - a husband, a daddy, a papa - rooting you on like crazy from heaven.  So dust yourself off, and get back in the game!  I miss you too . . but I want you to keep going until we see each other again!

Jesus said to his disciples that if they loved him, they would keep his commandments.  Jesus loves our weakness, even our sinfulness, but He loves us too much to let us stay there.  Jesus believes in us. More than we believe in ourselves.  He loves us enough to believe that we are made for greatness, to be heroes, to be holy!  His commandments are challenging but exciting and awesome for those who love Him.  

I can’t believe you’re all here today!  I can’t believe God brought you all into my life and how you changed me for the better!  I love you so much - but I love you enough to leave you my commandments of life.  I hope I was sent to you to make each one of your lives better!  If you love me, keep my commandments.

God blessed me with 9 grandchildren - so how about 9 commandments

• play to the whistle - Death is God’s gift.  A strange gift, but a gift nonetheless.  Have no fear!  No class makes sense without a final exam, no performance without a finale, no game without a final horn.  Don’t ever forget that we are playing the game of life for keeps and there is a final score . . and that’s a good thing!  Choose what you will give your whole life to, and choose to die for someone and something bigger than you long before death comes for you!  Get it the game and play to the end!
• make yourself small . . . even if you’re a giant.  I was no small guy.  Yet Jesus teaches us how much fun it is to make ourselves as little as possible!  Serve others.  Think more of others than yourself.  Make yourself the least important person in the room . . and see if people trust you and want to be around you!  Be merciful . . if you win an argument but lose a relationship everyone loses.  Your life is not about you . . it’s about God and others!  Make yourself small!
• leave it all on the court - Be sacrificial and generous at all times!  Everything that you have is meant for someone else - is meant to be given away.  All of it!  Live the great paradox that if you want more of something, give what you have away!  Try it . . it works!  Leave it all on the court.
• embrace your role - once upon a time, a young man named Mitchel Zimmerman came for a seminary interview in my basement.  I asked him how he treated women and what kind of man he was when nobody was looking.  I am pretty sure he lied to me, but he was from western Kansas and had a great German name so I gave him a pass . . who knows, in God’s plan I might need his help someday in shepherding my family.   at any rate, all of you - my dream team - you all have a critical role to play in the beautiful story God is writing.  Whatever your role is - whatever his dream for you - whatever His will - embrace your role . . find your mission and vocation and embrace it . . we are all counting on you!
• cheer on Hayden - Go Wildcats!  Dang I love that school and love watching my kids and grandkids perform!  Invest in Catholic education.  We learn the most important lessons of life, and all our learning goes deeper, when we are connected to the source of love and truth, our Lord Jesus - we compete better when we are trying to glorify Him!  Hayden holds our Topeka Catholic family and greater community together like no other institution!  Believe in Hayden . . always and forever!
• follow through - let your yes mean yes and your no mean no, and be faithful to the promises you make.  You will be remembered in life for the promises you broke and the promises you kept!  Thanks Linda for choosing me . . . we followed through, and it made all the difference!
• Go to Mass!  It’s one of the greatest cop-outs and lies out there today that you don’t have to go to Church to be a good person.  That’s like saying you can be a good fan and not show up to the games, or a good grandpa and never show up for Christmas dinner.  It’s a lie.  The truth is we show up for the things that matter, those things we believe in! We have to love God not on our terms, but on His, and He has invited us to be with Him in His family the Church and not live our faith in isolation, but in a way that builds up His family and kingdom that lasts forever.  Get to Mass.  No excuses. I never missed.  Ever.
• write a fairy tale with your life - my life ended listening to a fairy tale from my youngest granddaughter..  You get to write the story of your life.  No one can write it for you.  Only you get to choose if you will slay the dragon, and be faithful to death to those God has given you to love and serve.  Write a fairly tale with your life!
• always be there - I died with my wife and five kids at my side - the best gift I ever received!  Did anyone show up at my funeral today?  Can you see Fr. Mitchel amidst all the flowers?  I’m not saying this to brag . . I don’t deserve any of you or any of it . . I did only what I was obliged to do by God, who created me and loves me and has called me home.  I say it as my last commandment to remind you . . that the ultimate  thing people will remember about you is if you were there.  Did you care enough to show up?  You must be present to win at the game of life.  Do whatever you need to do to be there . . always get there . . in the end, it makes all the difference.  Don’t let anything pull you apart!

That’s it, dear family and friends.  There are your nine commandments. With that I’ll sign off, resume my conversation with St. Peter about getting Danny a free pass for having to endure all those sisters, and send graces your way and beg God to allow me to speak to you and be with you in the depths of your hearts.  I love you.  i can never say it enough.  It’s fun having the view of an angel, but there’s a reason it’s better to be a person than an angel - our bodies are a gift for sharing our soul and our heart and our love. . I miss seeing you all face to face - I miss hearing your voices - I miss being able to give you a smile, a hug and to tell you I love you . . to give back to you the joy you all have given me.  I’m sorry to have gone . . I will miss you always until that day when Jesus completes his magnificent work.  Until then, Linda - hug them and kiss them for me and remind them of how much I loved them.

It’s game on for you all now, my dear family and friends - go out and do greater things than I did.  I believe in you.  If you love me, keep my commandments.

Ready, set . . . . tweet.

I pray that where I am you also may be.  Where I am going, you know the way.

we need this King

Homily
34th and Final Sunday in Ordinary Time
Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe
20/21 November 2015

Fr. Zarse is old.  I think he confessed as much last weekend in his homily.  In high school, he didn't fit in.  He couldn't stand how impulsive and shallow his peers were.  I know he is 29 years old and our 'baby priest' - and I know he has incredible preaching talent and amazing zeal for the faith, and many of you have remarked he is wise beyond his years, but it's true - trust me I'm his roommate.  He can be really old.

We were driving down to the Hayden game this Friday, and no we will not talk about the outcome of that game.  The topics of MMA fighting among women and sexting among teens came up.  Fr. Zarse could not understand either phenomenon.  Why would any two women go into a ring and pulverize each other for entertainment, and why would anyone watch it, and why would any teen send indecent photos of themselves by text for all to copy and see?  It was beyond his comprehension.  I know most of you agree with him - it's crazy what's going on in our culture.

I had to chuckle at him.  Fr. Zarse is a classical guy.  Post-modern man befuddles him.  Let me attempt the same explanation for you that I attempted for him.  Postmodern man is desperately and with great futility trying to replace God, and is making himself miserable in the process.  Man is made for God.  Man is at his best when he enters into that incomparable and transcendent adventure of pursuing God, the source of all love, life, goodness, truth and beauty, with all his heart and mind and strength.  When this adventure and pursuit is absent however, man become pathetically desperate.  His only other alternative to pursuing God is to become a God himself.  If even only for 5 seconds, we are desperate to become a God, even if it means becoming the meanest, most violent and savage woman on the planet, the Queen of the MMA ring, or seeking transcendence by sending the most unique and provocative photo ever.  We either pursue God or we try to replace Him.

Such is postmodernism which sees no need for God, no need to follow in obedience with others a Church that points them toward transcendent happiness, no need to worship anything but themselves. The greatest religious phenomena we see now is not conversions to the Catholic Church, nor great converts to atheism, but a growing body of NONES.  These are those people who just don't care -they are in your family and mine.  They are those who pretend it is impossible to know if there is a God, and to settle for whatever meaning they are able to create for themselves.  It usually hits our ears like this - I don't need to go to Church to be a good person.

That's true - you can be good for no reason, but if this is your reality, then you have no reason to continue being good.  It is the height of pride to know that we are not the authors of our own existence, that the universe and us are completely unnecessary, to know for certain that in the backdrop of all history and the scope of the universe, that none of us count as more than a speck of sand, and yet to make yourself the center of the universe by saying I can find meaning and do good by myself, for no reason, without any reference or abiding connection to a source of truth or goodness.

There are the self-proclaimed 'brights' in our society who pretend to be smarter than religious people . The brights say that us religious pretend to know the source of truth and goodness when we really don't.  These same 'brights' however, can not provide a single reason why anyone should listen to them.  If we are only random matter and energy, and all free will is an illusion, it does no good to try to convince someone else that what you are saying is more true.  At best, it's a futile effort, since matter and energy can't freely change their behavior.  At worst, it is inviting people to an illusion much more destructive than religion, to tell people to base their lives only on scientific truth, when the brights can provide no evidence other than their assumption on faith, that the universe can be understood.  To try to make a truth claim that all reality is just random matter and energy is circular and self-contradictory.

In the end, all people must put their faith in something.  All people must be obedient to something.  We are not the center of the universe nor the source of our own existence, nor the source of truth and meaning.  We all must worship something. I'm sorry, there is no other way.

Then there are those, of course, who are lazy enough to assert that religion is what leads people astray and is the greatest source of evil.  Without a doubt, false religion is a great evil that must be stopped.  ISIS, for example, must be stopped.  But to say that religion is the source of evil and the world would be happier without religion is the height of laziness . . any honest look at history will show that the values that elevate man to his greatest freedom and happiness, are values that have been delivered to modern man and culture by religion, by people pursuing God, the source of goodness, truth and beauty, with all their heart and mind and strength.  I guarantee you with all my heart, without Christianity, and especially the Catholic Church, the world would have destroyed itself many times over!

To say with atheists that the only meaning that is real is the meaning that we create for ourselves is the most absurd and offensive thing that can be said.  Sure a high-level college professor who enjoys respect, reputation and lives a secure life can say that he can create the meaning of his own existence.  But how negligent and cruel is it to assert such a thing, when legions of human persons who are suffering famine, illnesses, disabilities, injustice and the lack of education have no such luxury of constructing the meaning of their own existence?

It is much more straightforward and honest to say that the yearning man has for the transcendent, the attraction that he has for truth, goodness and beauty, his insatiable desires, and the free will that is readily apparent to him, are not illusions, but have a source and a fulfillment.  This weekend we proclaim that the source of all truth, goodness and beauty, and the fulfillment of every human desire, is a person - Jesus Christ - the King of all the universe!

The universe is not necessary.  We are not necessary.  Much less so did God have to reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.  But not only did God reveal Himself - He humbled Himself beyond our imagination.  The King of Kings before demanding our worship and obedience at the end of our lives and the end of the universe, was first the helpless baby born in completely poverty out in the cold - He is first the innocent lamb slain to take away the sins of the world.  My dear friends - we do not have a King that we reluctantly worship because we have no other choice - we have a gorgeous and magnanimous King who would rather beg to be King of our hearts than demand it, so desperately in love with us in this King.

This is the King who will one day judge each one of us and the universe.  We could not ask for a more merciful judge.  He is the one who with His almighty hand will straighten out the injustices of history - inviting to His kingdom first those that the world considered least - the poor, the lonely, the meek, the long-suffering.  How can we not be ready in an instant to thrown down our lives before the throne of this King, and beg Him to be the King of our hearts?

Bow down before this King, not because you have to, but because you want to with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength.  For He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the reason we live, and the one for whom we are ready to die!  All glory laud and honor, now and forever, to Jesus Christ our Sovereign King, who is the world's salvation!

Amen!