What should I give my mom?

Homily

Solemnity of the Assumption

Thursday 19OT B2

15 August 2024

St. Ann Church Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What do I get my mom?

No gifts for mom really seem adequate.  I guess it depends on what she likes, what's meaningful to her, and what her love language is - quality time, acts of service, actual gifts, or physical touch.  Maybe a combination of the above.  Still, nothing seems adequate to express appreciation for the very gift of one's life.  Whether it's Mother's Day, her birthday, your birthday, or Christmas .  . . is anyone good at giving gifts to mom?

My mom Yvonne always wanted me to do my best. She believed in my best.  I still feel badly for the ways that I let her down, when I got scared and lost faith and didn't do my best, whether in school, or wrestling, or just life, and for the times I didn't stay in touch.  I especially feel badly for the times I wasn't there when my mom was going through a rough time.  I wasn't always there with the gift of my presence or time.  I regret that very much. 

What did I get right?  Well, I was good at picking green beans, much better than my sibling.  I think that mattered to my mom - that I cared enough to do a great job picking green beans. She could count on me.

She could also count on me to be on time for prayer.  As we started school at St. Ann today, I remember fondly that my family always started our school day with prayer.  At 7:55am in the morning, without fail, every day, exactly thirty minutes before school, we said the Apostle's Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be together. Then out the door we went for the 10 minute walk to school.

It was the greatest offense in my family to be late for prayer. If you don't believe me, ask my brother Norman.  But late for prayer I never was.  I always gave my best there.

Maybe that's the best gift I can still give my mother, who has passed on.

It's a question for Jesus, to be sure.  Jesus knows how to give gifts.  The gift of his presence in the Eucharist, the complete gift of himself in the sacrament of his body and blood, is the purest of graces.  There can be no greater gift that him accompanying us so humbly, so beautifully, so perfectly, no matter what we have to go through.  His presence is his present, to His mom and us, and for that we are here always at Mass, to give ultimate thanks.

Regarding His mom, the four special graces She received from Her Son correspond to the four dogmas of our faith regarding Mary, and entail four holy days of obligation.  Why must be celebrate and honor Mary?  Because through Her we learn something essential about Jesus and about ourselves, truths essential for our salvation.

So we show up for her Immaculate Conception on December 8th, her perpetual virginity expressed in the miraculous birth at Christmas, for her title as Mother of God on January 1st, and today, the Solemnity of Her Assumption.  Today we celebrate that the pattern of our being raised from the dead follows the Resurrection of Jesus, and that His Mother, His closest disciple and highest member of our Church, is the first to fully participate in this new and eternal life through her Assumption Body and Soul into heaven.

I can't give the body of my mom a private one-way first class rocket launch into Heaven, as Jesus gave His mom in Her assumption.  But I can always be on time to pray that He will raise my dear mom on the last day.  I can always show up for Mass, that I can give the grace of my own participation in this saving sacrifice that is infinitely pleasing to Our Father in heaven, may help my mom arrive safely where our Blessed Mother has gone before in Her glorious Assumption.

I can always be on time for Mass and pray for my mom.  Maybe that's the best gift I can always give her.  Still don't know what to get your mom?  Remember to pray for your mother!

+mj

Who should pay?

Homily

Monday of the 19th Week in Ordinary Time B2

+Jane Frances de Chantal

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG 

Who should pay?   This question comes up a lot everyday, whether you're looking at your taxes, as Jesus was in today's Gospel, or looking at your budget and responsibilities.  

Normally, the person who is blessed with much is tasked with the responsibility to be generous, and to use his means to care for others.  The one who is responsible for the relationship is the one who pays.

Jesus rightfully says that since He is a Son of God, that church should be free, and that he has a right to be in the temple without paying.  Yet because his greater responsibility is to establish the new temple in His body, by getting Himself killed, he robs a fish who apparently didn't need money, and pays the temple tax.

The Gospel is sometimes very simple to understand.  Today it's about picking your battles, and having bigger fish to fry, so to speak!

+mj

What is my superfood?

Homily

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

11 August 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church - Prairie Village, KS

AMDG

What is my superfood?

Take care how you answer this question, especially if you're a priest!  Many people assume priests are very lonely, and even more hungry, so people often want to know my favorite food so they can show affection and support.  I made the mistake in my first parish of saying pie was my favorite food, and I gained 20 pounds in 3 years!  I made the mistake of telling people my favorite drink when I was in Topeka, and I ended up with a lifetime supply of something that is not healthy for me!

During my 30 day retreat, when I was fasting and trying to be attentive to the word of the Lord, I ate mostly spinach.  And it worked!  I didn't exactly turned into the legendary character Popeye, but on this superfood I remained strong for 30 days.  Not 40 mind you, like Elijah in the first reading, but 30.  I'll take it!

I think my superfood now is tomatoes.  I can't get enough of tomatoes, and I feel refreshed and sharp every time I eat them. I don't know what nutrients are in a tomato, and I don't care.  I just know it's a superfood for me.

How about you?  How would you answer the question - what's my superfood?

I was asked my favorite food by a 2nd grader once, and I told them pizza.  I think pizza is up there among the greatest foods of all time!  Yet I was ashamed by this 2nd grader, who asked me this pivotal question. Shouldn't your superfood be the Eucharist?

Oof.

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood  has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  Eat any other food, and you will still die, but whoever eats this food will live forever.

Wow. Talk about a superfood.  The 2nd grader nailed me.  Since that pivotal question, I'll never make the same mistake again.

If I am going to fulfill the purpose of my life, to become like God and grow perfect in faith, hope and love, I need to be drawn by God into a relationship where He can both teach and feed me.  I am a unity of body and soul, and my body needs a superfood and my mind a super-teaching, and my will and heart a super-courage, a super-compassion, a super-charity.  I receive all these at Mass, at the Eucharist. Jesus promises that it is here, and only here, that I will learn how to trust to the end, hope to the end, and love to the end.

Here is a superfood that is meant to last longer than 40 days, but is meant to last forever.

In John 6, we are in the middle of Jesus most challenging and annoying sermon.  The dude can preach, and he cuts us by his words all the time.  But never quite like this.  What if I was to tell you that I was born from heaven, and that unless you knaw on my flesh like a piece of jerky and drink my blood, you're a dead man?  Jesus says nothing less.  What if I told you I was from another dimension? What if I cut off my arm and told you to bite into it? What if I showed up with a pint of my blood and told you to drink it?  How many of you would remain.  Jesus says nothing less in John Chapter 6.

How many of us believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist?  The answer is easy.  None of us do, unless the Father draws us by faith into a relationship where He can teach and feed us.

It's Jesus who asks you the question today - what is your superfood?

+mj

Is it who it is?

Homily

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

4 August 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church, Prairie Village

AMDG

Is it who it is?

Jesus in today's Gospel is trying to change the mindset into a new way of thinking.  St. Paul talks about his metanoia, this changing of the mind.  He says we have to stop thinking from our bellies, from our flesh, and the unruly appetites that destroy a person surely headed toward death and destruction.  He says the new man thinks from the spirit of the mind

Jesus is trying to redirect the minds of those who came looking for another sign from him - you who are thinking from your bellies will never stop grumbling, or demanding signs, or asking is it what it is?  Amen I say to you - you are not thinking from the renewal of your mind, which would have you ask a new question - is it who it is?

My poor mother had the hardest time getting dinner on the table for a family of eight every night.  We didn't have much.  My mom was a master at stretching a dollar to feed us.  She cut coupons like crazy, and if there were limits on the quantities of food that you could purchase on sale, she would give each of her six kids a list and send us to the store, with coupons in hand.  I was always mortified that the $20 she gave me wouldn't be enough for the entire cart of groceries I was responsible for getting.  But my mom was good. She was so good.  There was always money left over, like the superabundant feeding of the $5,000, mom stretched a little a long way. She was so good she was asked to stop shopping at our local IGA.  I'm not kidding.

Yet what did we do when dinner was served?  We grumbled like the Israelites.  I missed my first football practice as a freshman because I wouldn't eat my peas.  My dad stuck up for my mom, and all the love she put into dinner, and grounded me when I spit the peas into the backyard after I had been asked to eat at least one bite.  Because I was so focused on what I was eating, I lost track that my mom had put her heart and soul into that meal.  I didn't ask the more important question - who is for dinner.

The word 'manna' literally means 'what is it?' It's the question the Israelites asked in response to the mysterious gift of bread from heaven that rained upon them.  It was the wrong question, then, just as it is the wrong question now as you and I once again approach the Eucharist.  Jesus teaches that it is God himself who gives us bread from heaven, and it is God's deepest desires to feed us unto eternal life through the bread of life.  In response to the question - is it what it is - Jesus says 'I am the bread of life. The most essential question as I approach food is this - is it who it is?

It is the most natural human experience to have the needs of our body and soul met together through the breaking of bread, through the sharing of a meal.  You know you are doing dinner right when everyone is grateful for the food, but the conversation is even better.  It is why we have to give thanks at every meal, especially at this meal of the Eucharist that means 'thanksgiving' because the food we share is a sacrament of our relationship with the One who wants to deliver new and full and everlasting life through the gift of His Body and Blood.

This is how we see the sign of the Eucharist - by answering the question - is it who it is?

How much do I care?

Homily

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

21 July 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church, Prairie Village

AMDG

How much do I care?

It's not lost on me that on my first weekend preaching as your new shepherd, the Church providentially contrasts the difference between good and bad shepherds.  I don't have to tell you the difference.  You already know.  Good shepherds show up. Good shepherds care.  Good shepherds give their lives.  Good shepherds smell like the sheep, as Pope Francis famously has sad.  Good shepherds govern in justice and in truth, bringing people into right relationship by speaking and acting with integrity.  Good shepherds share in the sacred heart of Jesus, a heart that moves with compassion and the desire to have a shared experience of suffering, dying and rising.

Bad shepherds get scared and run.

I beg your prayers that I will try my best in this sacred responsibility for your souls that has fallen to me.  Please pray I don't run away scared at the sight of danger.  I hope you will find me zealous in teaching the faith and witnessing to it with integrity, for I truly believe in its power to bring new life to all of us when taught with conviction.

Most of all, I want to be a pastor that cries with and for you.  In this, I want to be like my grandpa Leo, who cried both when all his family was together, and even more so when someone was missing.  I'll never forget his tears at my ordination, since my mom had already passed and was missing.  I remember the same tears at his 90th birthday, when all 47 of his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, and their spouses, gathered for the Mass and celebration.  I'm not a crier yet, but I'd like to be by the time I'm done shepherding St. Ann's.  A good shepherd cries for his sheep.  A good pastor has a heart that moves.  Please pray that I will try my best for love of God and for you.

Our common pasture is our parish boundary, that extends from 63rd to 83rd, north to south, and State Line to Nall east to west.  Jesus wants us to smash any wall that separates us from each other within this boundary.  Jesus's heart for us will not stop moving until each and all of us are with and for each other, without exception, and no one is missing.  This is his beautiful prayer for St. Ann's - I have not lost one of those that you gave me.  

Here at Mass we worship the source of unity that is God Himself.  Each of the persons in God is with and for the other; hence, those of us who would dare to grow in His likeness must do likewise.  Jesus always loved his enemies first and best. He always smashed hostility through forgiveness.  If you are looking ultimately to create a lasting and meaningful unity apart from the Mass, you're wasting your time.  It is here alone that we consummate our relationship to the ultimate source of reconciliation that is Jesus Himself.

Psalm 23 is fulfilled right here at Mass, for here we are refreshed by the waters of baptism and confession.  Here our heads are anointed with both the oil for the sick and the confirming love of the Holy Spirit.  Here a table is spread before us, even in the sight of our foes!  Within the pasture of this parish, the Eucharist will always be the gate by which we come in and go out, and find true unity and the source of eternal life.

I invite you to pray for me, and cry with me whenever someone is missing.  May our hearts always move in compassion like Jesus' Sacred Heart until everyone is here.

May I be honest with the Lord right now as I answer this question:  how much do I care?

Is the world going to hell?

Homily

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

14 July 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church

AMDG

Is the world going to hell?  Of course it is.  It has been for a long time.  It will continue to go that way.

You think an assassination attempt on the President is the sure tale sign that we have lost our way?  I'm sorry to say we lost our way a long time ago,  History is repeating itself.  We are reaping what we have sown for a long time.  And there's more to come.  A lot more.  I wish I didn't believe that.  But it's real.  Now is not the time to pretend we are all safe, and to play nice. There are evils that need to be defeated. Many of them!  And we are the ones who have to do the work.  Nobody is immune from the evils that are upon us.

Violence and killing are cries for help from a people who are lost, scared, alone, unhealthy, despairing, and in terrible pain.  This is the reality we have all created because we have divorced truth and love, justice and peace.  Worse yet, we have divorced our covenant with God and each other. We reap what we sow.  We don't deserve better than what we have, and it does no good to complain about what others aren't doing.

Jesus trusts His disciples to go out and defeat many evils.  For their own good, he makes them the solution, and he tells them how to do it. He gives them no economic, political or legal solutions.  Go out and tell people to repent of the ways we have divorced God and each other, and to return to faithfulness.  Go, and take only the things that will keep you moving, and nothing that will slow you down or distract you.

Sorry if that's not a nice, safe homily from the new shepherd from Hoxie, Kansas.  It's the same message Amos, the farmer from Judah, had to deliver to the self-absorbed city folks in Bethel.  It's not fun to hear.  It's not fun to say.  But prophecy has to always sting if it's going to do any good.

Am I the reason the world is going to hell?  Of course I am!  Yes, always!  The most urgent thing needed in the world right now is my repentance, and my own commitment to defeating evil by giving life, and not taking it!  

St. Paul teaches of this destiny and dignity we all have in Christ.  We are to pass away to this world that is going to hell, and pass over through Christ, and His passion and paschal mystery, into a new creation, the kingdom of heaven.  Fulfilling this destiny is so simple!  I defeat evil by suffering and dying with Him, and God will use this sacrifice to transform reality into something new, something other than the hell we are living in!

Go!  The first apostles defeated many evils, and became salt and light, simply by realizing that the greatest evils in the world are not political, they are spiritual and moral.  These evils are overcome by faithfulness to God and each other.  

Will you be tenacious?

Homily

Nuptial Mass for McKenna Reilly and Jacob Herbek

6 July 2024

Saturday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

+Maria Goretti

Cathedral of St. Mary, Grand Island, NE

AMDG

Will you come to Grand Island and marry Jacob and me?  Well, Kena, I've never been to Grand Island, but I'm from a farm, so how far and how foreign could it be?  As long as I get a steak, I'll be fine!  And I'll drive anywhere for a Jayhawk!

It's true there's no place I'd rather be, even if my car gets hailed on tonight during an epic Nebraskan thunderstorm.  Nothing changes the world for the better more than a holy marriage, and there is nothing more important than two people giving their lives completely away in faith, with a love strong as death.  Nothing bring more life or hope into the world, than what you're about to do, so of course I'll be here.  I'd love to be here.  Besides, who wouldn't want to visit an Island in the middle of Nebraska?  Where is it again, by the way?

Being from a farm community myself, I get why you wanted to be married here.  This is where people understand how things really work.  Life is received here as a gift, with a responsibility to give it away in faith and love.  It's a simple formula, but one that is increasingly misunderstood, by a world that wants the meaning of life to be relative, with the highest values being privacy and choice.  Yet there is no lasting happiness nor peace, nor fruit that comes from this worldview.  It's only when we use our freedom to choose to die and suffer for something more than ourselves, that our lives fulfill their true purpose.

My German ancestors had a simple formula that I inherited.  Put the wheat in the ground in September, then go to Church until June, then go see what God has provided.  It's not a life of privacy and control, it's a life of trust and sacrifice.  That's what you enter into today, McKenna and Jacob - this is the WAY that Jesus has invited you to live, according to His Gospel.

Congratulations to you both and everyone who has poured faith and love into you.  May the beautiful work God has begun in you, be brought to fulfillment.

Another important lesson you have learned is that love doesn't control!  I've noticed how free you both are to trust the other. Maybe that's the fruit of having known each other so long, and knowing that your friendship is a gift from God that you can put your trust in.  Jacob, most guys would freak out thinking McKenna might end up with a fancy frat boy at KU, but you knew yourself, and her, and your love for each other was worthy of trust.  So your relationship grows in love when you are free to trust each other and include other friends and experiences in your relationship. I commend you for this virtue, which I don't find in everyone.

Finally, Jacob since you're marrying a Jayhawk, you get to hear a homily that I've preached to McKenna many times.  If you're going to go for a great life, do it with tenacity.  Whether or not the Jayhawks ever play or beat the Huskers again, the mascot was created to be a ferocious and nasty bird, one capable of defending freedom and dignity at the highest level!  I don't have to tell you two that because of what you have received, you are capable of living faith with amazing courage and tenacity, and bearing fruit that gives witness to the sacrifice of Christ, and the marriage of Christ to His Church.  By getting married at Mass, you witness with the courage of martyrs that this love from the cross is the most real thing in your life, and that you beg the grace today to let this love be the origin, perfection and destiny of your marriage to each other.  On behalf of all of us, thanks for marrying each other under this sign, and playing for keeps, til death do you part. Amen.