How did you do in answering last week’s questions on the sacraments of initiation?    Here are the answers:

1. What are the sacrament(s) of initiation?

a. Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist.

The sacraments of Christian initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist—lay the foundations of every Christian life. The faithful are born anew by Baptism, strengthened by the sacrament of Confirmation, and receive in the Eucharist the food of eternal life.

2. True or false: After Baptism takes away original sin, our will is no longer inclined toward evil. Continue reading “The Sacraments of Initiations – Quiz Answers” →

Today our society has many self-inflicted anxieties about material life and success.  St. Paul would like us to be free of anxiety and able to concentrate on our natural ability as human beings to be in union with God.

Moses speaks with alarming clarity, “A prophet like me the Lord your God will raise up; to him shall you listen.” Listen for what? Listen for the words of Jesus Christ. Here, today, in this place, our parish gathers to listen and to understand. ‘Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.’

The first action we performed as a People was the sign of the Cross and the greeting: The Lord be with you! And as a People you responded: And with your spirit! We were opening our hearts, extending our spirits to the Lord of Hosts so that he may enter, so that we might be ‘astonished’ by what he teaches us.

The gospel says he comes with the authority of God. Jesus has the authority to change hearts, to obliterate fear and to destroy anxiety over material concerns. Jesus approaches a man with an unclean spirit, who, like us is afraid of change. He cries out, just like we might, ‘Have you come to destroy my comfort zone? Have you come to change me?’

Then the man confesses as we do in the Creed: ‘I know who you are, the Holy One of God!’ Immediately Jesus rebukes the fear and says, “QUIET” “Come out of the man!” Jesus’ one command obliterates the man’s anxiety and fear; he destroys his old self-inflicted wounds, and ‘with a loud cry the fear came out of the man.’ All were amazed because Jesus is God with a “new teaching with authority”

When Jesus says, ‘Quiet,’ should we be enslaving ourselves to worry about the things we need to do? Should we be anxious and afraid that we don’t have the time to finish what we started to do?  Should we be worrying about what the future has in store for us? No! When Jesus says “quiet” we should be let our whole body and soul be still and be united as a People in our silence before God so he can heal us by driving out any unclean spirit that possesses us and can speak clearly so we can understand his will for our parish and our families.

My friends, our destiny lies in our union with God. All will be well if we root ourselves in that one priority: God first, God always, God alone. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt 26:6)

The Psalm in today’s Mass bids us to be here and do what we are meant to do. With determination, focus and with great humility, let us open our hearts and minds to Him, “Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the Lord who made us. For He is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.” (Psalm 95)

“Here I am Lord, I come to do Your Will.”

As our parish comes together this weekend in its weekly worship of God, we enter this holy place with a sense of the sacred. This place is different than our homes, our workspaces and our marketplaces. Here, at the footstool of God, we rest our love, our worries, and our material responsibilities and we stand before God with nothing but our hearts opened to receive Him.

We have listened to the Prayer, the Readings and the Psalm and what have we heard; that we are members of a larger Body than ourselves; that this Body is Christ and with this Body we should glorify God.

The Gospel reveals this conversation with the disciples, reflecting our own search for God; “Teacher, where do you stay that we might come to You?”

Jesus answers us: “Come and See.” In other words, drop everything that clings to you, material things, emotional things, things that hold you back from righteousness, like sin. Understand clearly what is happening here before you: “God has prepared a table for us, and how precious is the chalice that quenches our thirst.” (Ps 23)

And what do the disciples do in their quest; they find Peter and they go and stay with Jesus. We have our own Apostle in the person of our Archbishop and we walk with him to Jesus.

And finally, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own,” you are a part of the whole.

Suddenly our parish, our Archdiocese is back with Samuel, resting in the night, hearing the voice that beckons us here into God’s presence. What should we do? Say to the Lord, “Speak Lord, You servant is listening” and in the silence of our hearts sing gently with the psalmist: “Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.”

In this new year of grace, the Church contemplates Mary, the Mother of God. The virgin Mary was born to be a mother. This vocation is made holy for all mothers as they live their lives dedicated to their husbands and to their children. The supreme consolation that Mary receives at the cross of her Son is the assurance that this vocation as Mother does not end with Christ’s death.

Jesus commands the world, you and me, “Behold your mother.” Mary then is eternally bonded to us and we to her “behold your mother.”Mary leads us to Christ, and Christ leads us back to Mary, for without Mary’s motherhood, the incarnation would be a mere concept and abstraction.

The Lord wills to ‘let his face shine upon us’ through the face of the Mother of God. May the Church, who is Christ, ever be mindful and respectful of motherhood through Mary’s faithful and joyous prayer for us. May we who are her children, lead others to Christ in this New Year through Mary.