Do not be afraid; just have faith.

 

Thirteenth Sunday in OT B  2024

 

This week’s Gospel speaks of the healing of two women.  It tells two different stories that are woven into one.  They both involve women in crisis.  We don’t know them by name, just by their need.

 

The Scriptures reveal to us the heart of God.  As in the case of the woman who been afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years in today’s Gospel, Jesus did not see an unclean woman with uncontrollable bleeding, he saw a beloved daughter of God who is suffering.  May we too see in those who are suffering God’s beloved sons and daughters.

 

We may ask ourselves at times what keeps us from recognizing people in need as God’s beloved sons and daughters.  I find the words of Mother Theresa as very helpful.  Mother Theresa says:  “When our hearts area filled with judgments about others, there is no room left for love.”  May we repent of our judgments so that we may be able to love others as God loves them.

The words of Mother Theresa give us such an important message.  When a person’s skin color, when a person’s way of praying is different than ours, when a person’s speech is different than ours, when a person’s sexuality is different than ours, whatever it is, we ask for the grace to see that person as God’s beloved son or daughter.  We ask for the grace that our hearts can be filled with love toward one and all.

May we always be mindful of the words of Jesus:  “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.”  The people of Jesus’ day were sometimes scandalized because Jesus seemed to be too welcoming to sinners and people who stood in need of healing and forgiveness.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s scriptures also invite us to consider what areas of our life stand in need of healing?  If you were to ask the Lord this day for healing, whether this be physical, emotional, relational—if some relationship in your life needs healing, or if it is an addiction that brings you down from being your better self; perhaps it is financial shipwreck; perhaps anxiety or depression.

In our personal suffering, may we hold onto our spiritual identity as did this woman afflicted with uncontrollable bleeding.  Her deeper spiritual identity gave her the courage to reach for God’s love as it was manifesting itself in Jesus.  God’s love is for God’s children, and she is one of God’s children.  This is her faith. 

 

She touched the clothes of Jesus and was healed.  Do you believe that the healing touch of Jesus is meant for you as well?  Jesus is here today, and you have a chance to touch not only his clothes but his very body.  This is what we are privileged to do in the Eucharist.  Let us put our heart and soul into that privilege.  May we trust that the healing grace is meant for you and me.

 

Also, In today’s Gospel, there is a girl of 12 years of age who is near death, struck down by an unknown illness, driving her father to extremes in his desperate search for help in going to Jesus.  Jairus risks being ridiculed and risks missing the last precious minutes in his daughter’s life.  When the news of his daughter’s death arrives, Jesus preaches the shortest sermon of his career.  He simply says:  “Do not fear, but believe.”  That sermon Jesus preaches to us as well who suffer from those human conditions in which we cannot control.  “Do not fear but believe.”

The meaning of faith is that we are not to fear; rather we are to trust in God’s love for us.

 

 

 

 

In the eyes of Jesus, there is no death, only a passage from one form of love into another form of love.  In the words of the preface of the funeral liturgy:  in death, life is not ended; it is merely changed.

When Jesus arrived at the house of Jairus,  he put the crowd outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.  He took her by the hand and said to her:  “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”

As we pray over today’s Gospel, may we be reminded that Jairus’ daughter lies dying today in little girls jeopardized by illness, lack of food and water and the necessities of life, the safety and the security they deserve.  Jairus’s daughter can be found in the children of Haiti, the children who live in Gaza nd Ukraine, the immigrant children at our border and all the children in need who live in this the wealthiest nation on the planet. 

What can we do to affirm the sacredness of the lives of all children?  What can we do as a Church which affirms our desire to form our own children and all children after the mind and heart of Jesus?

If you will, imagine ourselves as that 12 year old girl and Jesus taking us by our hand and telling us to rise and live:  “Talitha koum.”   Jesus gives life not only to the dead but to those of us who are only partially alive.  Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves because of some illness or setback, may we hear the healing of Jesus being spoken to us.  In deep gratitude, enjoy the blessedness and giftedness of this day and make a difference in someone’s life as a way of sharing your giftedness with people in need.  Our life really, really is a gift of God.

 

May God give you peace.

May we trust that Jesus brings a calming presence to the chaos in our lives.

 

Twelfth Sunday in OT  B  2024

 

In the first scripture reading, Job suffers great calamities –  destruction of property and debilitating illness.  He asks the question WHY in the sense why do good people endure such hardships in life?  That is our question as well.  God speaks to Job and asks him to trust in God when we don’t understand why bad things happen to good people.

God’s love for Job doesn’t suddenly remove the struggles and crosses of his life, but God does accompany Job in the midst of the calamities of his life and leads him to trust in God even in the midst of life circumstances he cannot control.

The Job reading prepares us for the Gospel.  The disciples were traveling in a boat on the Sea of Galilee that seems unequal to the weather it faces.  And so, a violent storm and the waves came crashing in over the side of the boat.  The disciples were in a state of panic fearing for their lives.

That boat on the Sea of Galilee symbolizes us and our Church as we seem overwhelmed by the storms of life?  The storminess on the Sea of Galilee represent all those situations in life that cause us to be fearful.

The disciples were concerned about the inaction of Jesus who was asleep in the back of the boat.  From the disciples’ perspectives, Jesus wasn’t getting it.  It’s like our current axiom: “Houston, we have a problem.”  This was the disciples of calling 911.  The disciples wanted immediate action from Jesus. The disciples had lost the confidence of their prayer life and the question they asked took on the tone of a hostile accusation: “Teacher, don’t you care about the crisis we are facing?

 Can we identify with the fear of the apostles about the seeming absence of Jesus at times in our life?  In what situations do we lose the confidence of prayer and resort to fear and anxiety? 

We ask the question why does God allow the war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, too much violence in the streets of our cities?

 

When it comes to the health of our children, when it comes to a break in a significant relationship, when it comes to job pressure, money pressures, when it comes slipping into fear and depression, do we wonder whether the boat we are in can withstand the storms of life?

 

The question is ever-present:  what happens when we are caught in spiritual storms?  Do we have confidence in God or are we filled with fright?

For the first disciples and for us who also are disciples of the Lord Jesus, Jesus calls us back to our true center with two tough questions:  Why are you terrified?  Do you not yet have faith?

I invite you to consider the temptations of your life as the violent squall and the surging sea that threaten us and make us fearful.  When we’re insulted, it’s like being buffeted by winds?  When we’re angered, it’s like being tossed about by waves.  When we’re insulted, our instinct is revenge.  But revenge produces an even worse situation – shipwreck.  Consider temptations as windy squalls and surging seas.

In these situations of fearfulness, do what the disciples did.  Wake us Jesus who is asleep in our hearts.  Then like the wind and sea, we are called to quiet down and be still and trust that Jesus who is the master of the sea and the waves is the Lord and Savior of your life.

As we seek to wake up Jesus who seems to be asleep in our hearts, we need to discern who is asleep.  Is Jesus asleep and indifferent to the cross we are experiencing or is it we who are asleep when the fears of our life control our inner space so much that our trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior has been completely eroded?  The tire hits the road in our spiritual journey when the storms on the Sea of Galilee invade our personal space and when we are gripped with fear.

Psychiatrists tell us that toxic fear and worry is a disease of the imagination.  Fear robs us of the inner peace we seek.  It keeps us from enjoying the present moment.  How much of our lives is controlled by the fear of what might go wrong?

The very first words out of the mouth of the angel Gabriel when he speaks to Mary are: “Do not be afraid.”  Scripture scholars tell us those four words are repeated 365 times in the Scriptures.

Why so much attention to the single emotion of fear?  Fear cripples our ability to become transformed – which is the whole purpose of the Gospel and of the coming of Jesus Christ into our anxiety-ridden world.  Jesus is focused:  we cannot move forward in faith until we have learned how to deal with our fears.

The Sea of Galilee is a gift of God to us for its beauty, and the storminess of the sea is our challenges to convert the fears of life into trust in His abiding presence in our life. 

The Gospel calls us to be mindful of God’s faithfulness towards us.  We need to discern who is Jesus for us amid the storms of our lives.  May your take home message in this storm story is that the Lord remains with us in the storm.  Hat th Lord is present to his fearful and faithless disciples.  His presence is creative and life-giving.  Jesus brought calm out of the chaos and saw to it that the boat reached the other side.  The Lord remains stronger that the storms of our lives.

One more thing:  may we also discern how the Lord calls us to help others to navigate the storms of life as they need and value the compassion care and presence of a calming friend and a fellow traveler.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

Celebrating with Fr Delmonte his 60th anniversary of his priestly ordination

 

Eleventh Sunday in OT B  2024

 

It is a privilege for me to be with you celebrating Fr Al’s 60th  priesthood anniversary.  I had the great privilege of serving as your pastor for twelve years from 1993 to 2005.  One of my best moves as pastor was to invite three great senior priests to live and minister at St Louis == Msgr Gerry Krieg, Fr Ray Booth and Fr Al Delmonte. I remember clearly inviting Fr Al to come to St Louis to live and minister among us. At that time, I thought I was the young and handsome pastor giving these old guys a place to live. It didn’t take long before parishioners were seeing Fr Al as the young and handsome priest, and I was one of the older guys…I guess it’s good to be humble.

Now Fr Al and I are golfing buddies.  Now I must admit some of my drives off the tee go a bit astray.  Thankfully, Fr Al has eagle eyes and always is able to find my ball.  When we come to this desolate place on the golf course tracking down  my golf ball, Fr Al usually remarks: “I have never been to this part of the golf course before.” Then we get to the putting green. I putt the ball toward the hole and Fr Al remarks:  “That’s a great putt.”  But then as the ball continues past the hole, He adds: “I changed my mind.”

More than golfing buddies, Fr Al is a man of God celebrating 60 years in praise of God in and in the service of God’s people.

Additionally to celebrating Fr Al’s 60th anniversary of priesthood, we celebrate Father’s Day in which we give thanks to all the dads in our parish community, and we thank them for the love they share with their children and thank them for the love they give to all in our parish community.  We remember our deceased dads as well as we entrust to the fulness of god’s eternal life.

Reflecting on the Scriptures which the homilist is supposed to be doing.

Then Jesus told us parables to explain the mystery of the KINGDOM OF God.  In today’s parables, our focus is drawn to seeds and how they grow.  The farmer sows the seeds, and miraculously they grow. 

 the first parable is sometimes called the “Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly.”  “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God:  it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. 

The MESSAGE FOR us in this parable is in the Kingdom of God, God is in charge.  God gives the growth. your heavenly father never sleeps, never stops loving, never stops reaching out.   INDEED, there is a profound truth in us reaffirming that God cares and god is in charge.

This Kingdom of God that Jesus is announcing isn’t one that happens from the top down. The Kingdom of God is planted, it begins in very small ways, and over time it grows and grows. And it doesn’t grow because we do things to make it happen, it grows because God is secretly at work, in ways we don’t see or know or comprehend. The Kingdom is a divine work, not a human achievement.

This is the good news. The Lord is at work, the Lord is faithful, the Lord plants and waters and makes it grow. It sounds like a horrible idea (because we’re not in control!) but it’s the plan the Lord has started—and it works.

Our response is what we call “faith”: trusting in this Jesus, following him where he leads us. If we listen to the little promptings he gives us, act on the little whispers  that is how the Kingdom will break in—and break in powerfully. You don’t have to wield earthly power to make things happen. You just have to have faith that the Lord’s power, the power of the Kingdom of God, is real. And the point? It’s very real.

 

In the second parable, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed sown in the ground; it is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth.  But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.”

The message is there is a mustard seed planted in the heart of each one of us on the day of our baptism.  It is the life of Christ Jesus that is within us.  This mustard has incredible potential to become within us the wellspring of eternal life.

A most important message is we must never forget who the sower is and who is the seed.  Yes, it is God who gives the growth.  As St. Paul in the second reading, we walk by faith, not by sight.

A couple of examples:

St Therese of Lisieux, the little flower.  She did not see herself to be the mighty rose but just a mere little SUNFLOWER, a mustard seed if you will.  Her mantra was simply to do little things with great love.  For THERESE, ALL is grace.  We can be assured the grace of God is at work in the most insignificant of ways.  St Therese is known as one of the great doctors in the history of the Church but she saw herself as a little flower, a mustard seed.   but  she did know that all is grace, all is a gift of god.

In the simple ways that you serve and help and love in your family like, like Therese, do little things with great love and believe that all is grace.  The grace of God is present to you 24/7.

 

Another example is our own fathers.  From birth, they have placed within us a tiny mustard of their love.  with divine assistance, our dads have nurtured us from the day of our birth to this day.  they have revealed to us god’s unending love for us by the example of their lives.  we are their grateful sons and daughters.

Another example  of a father’s love is the life and ministry of Fr Al Delmonte.  this young man from Auburn, NY, a student at St Bernard’s Seminary that is now closed was ordained to the priesthood in 1964.  sixty years later as a priest, father al’s tiny mustard of faith and ministry has blessed us in abundant ways over all these years.  For father al and for all of us, god is in charge.  thanks be to god, god called father al to the ordained ministry as a priest who to this day and hopefully many more days to come serves the people of god in faithful and loving ways.  thank you father al.

 

Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

 

Body and Blood of Christ  B  2024

In this liturgy, we are celebrating Fr Bob’s 70^th anniversary of his priestly ordination and his 96^th year of life.  This is cause for celebration, is it not?

Today we also celebrate the Feast of the Eucharist; the Feast of Corpus Christi; the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.

May we ponder in faith and in awe the mystery that we celebrate.

Today as we receive Communion, as we receive the host in our hands at Communion, we are holding the Body of Christ.  We are holding Jesus who taught us his parables of love and forgiveness for one and all.  We are holding in our hands Jesus who walked on the water.  We are holding in our hands Jesus who died on the cross to save us from our sins.

What a profound privilege we have to receive the Body and Blood of Christ!

Regrettably we too easily take for granted this mystery of the Eucharist.

 

I must confess that too often skipping breakfast is easy for me as long as I get my caffeine jolt with a cup of coffee.  I am not bragging about this.  As we all know, this doesn’t make for a healthy diet.

Sad to say, it is also easy to neglect spiritual food.  It’s too easy to skip daily prayer and the weekly celebration of the Eucharist.  We often don’t seem any worse for the wear and tear.  But over the long haul, we can get out of touch with our deepest spiritual hungers.

The thing of it is with spiritual hungers; we can be spiritually hungry without being in touch with our deep hunger.  As the great St. Augustine, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.

 

Far from being a pit stop for fast food and entertainment in the journey of life, the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ is the necessary sustenance for the spiritual growth of each member of the community and for the community itself.

Thanks be to God, we have the priestly example of Fr Bob Kreckel over the last 70 years to be an example to us of one who lives a Eucharistic life 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The daily celebration of the Eucharist is part of Fr Bob’s DNA.

As we reflect on the mystery of the Sunday Eucharist, we are reflecting on the central prayer of our faith tradition.  We are part of a tradition that is nearly 2000 years old.  The Sunday Eucharist is our participation in the paschal mystery of Christ Jesus.  The Sunday Eucharist satisfies the deepest hungers of the human heart.

I suggest our deepest spiritual hungers are for Jesus’ power to love and forgive his enemies rather than embarrass and crush them.  What we hunger for is Jesus’ power to be bighearted; to love beyond one’s own family, and to love poor and rich alike; to live inside of charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, despite everything in life that militates against these virtues.

Left to our own will power and our own desires, we get too easily trapped in self-centeredness.  The truth of the life of all of us is that we are deeply flawed by sin.

With great joy, we have recently celebrated two First Communion weekends in the parish.  The spiritual joy experienced in our First Communicants and in their families is so very precious.  The ritual of our First Communion celebrations is so inspiring.  It is a moment of joy for me as a priest to give First Communion to our younger parishioners.  In age-appropriate ways, they celebrate the life-giving presence of Jesus within them. Thanks be to God.   

The challenge we have as a parish community is to sustain our Eucharistic faith and joy continuously throughout the year.  Even though our First Communicants won’t be wearing their communion dresses and suits Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, nonetheless the God whose love for us is unending continues to offer to us the Bread of Life and the Cup of salvation always.

As the congregation approaches the altar and receives communion, it is as if the Church is filling up with Christ.  We are not only in union with Christ, but we are also in communion with all those who receive him.  The Eucharist is a community affair, not simply Jesus and me.  We are not only in union with Christ; we are in communion with all those who receive Christ.  This is the meaning of Church.  The Church is a people of God who are in union with Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist.  We are also a people in communion with all those who receive Christ Jesus in the Eucharist.

At the Last Supper, Jesus gathers his disciples with the context of something very old – the Passover meal – to give them something very new -- the Eucharist.  He creates for them a new covenant.  These disciples must carry on the work of Jesus.  They will be able to do his work through the empowerment of His presence.  The Eucharist has a social dimension.  It is always an encounter of the Church, the people of God, with the powerful presence of Jesus in the new covenant of His blood.  This is why the Eucharist is so central to the life of the Church.

The Mass is our greatest prayer; we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  Yet it is what we do outside the Mass that also determines the genuineness of the offering we make at the altar each Sunday.  By our mutual love and by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ.  Go in peace glorifying the Lord by our lives in all that we say and do this day and every day.

As a Eucharistic community, we gather with an attitude of gratitude.  We gather to give, to give thanks to the Lord our God. We give thanks for the friendship and priestly ministry of Fr Bob. We give thanks because we have been fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord with a food that enables to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves, to forgive as Jesus forgives.  Amen

 

Have a Blessed Day.