In our first reading this Sunday, from the Book of Deuteronomy, we hear the people of Israel asking what other nation has a god who lives so closely with them as the God of Israel dwells with them. They believed that by observing the commandments, they were God’s people and God dwelt with them. As the psalmist proclaims: “The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.” As a sign that the Lord lived with them, the people of Israel kept the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments given them by God, in the Temple in Jerusalem.

For us as Christians, the idea that God dwells with us actually takes on a much greater significance. We believe that God sends His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts. We no longer have the idea that God dwells in a building. For the Christian, each human being is called to be a Temple of the Holy Spirit. This reality, that God desires to come and dwell within us, is why Jesus places such a significance on the interior life. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus draws our attention to the reality that it is what is in a person’s heart that determines whether the Lord Himself is able to dwell within that heart. As many of the great spiritual writers of our tradition have written, God cannot dwell in a heart that is full of hatred, envy, pride and greed. The heart must be a place that is open and free to contain the Lord. Continue reading →

This Sunday, after six weeks of reading it at the Sunday Masses, we conclude the Bread of Life discourse from the Gospel of John. As it comes to a close, we hear the reaction of those who have heard Jesus say: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” For many of Jesus’ contemporary listeners, the idea of eating His flesh and drinking His blood is incomprehensible and they reject the idea completely. And yet, while in many other cases when He is misunderstood, He explains himself more clearly, on this matter Jesus does not back away from his insistence that those who wish to have eternal life must consume His Body and drink His Blood. Unable to accept this idea, many of His followers state that it is a teaching that it is difficult to accept. We are told at this point, that many of Jesus’ followers turned away and no longer followed Him. When He asks the twelve if they also wish to leave, they do not indicate that they understand, they simply state that they have nowhere else to go because in faith they affirm that He has the words of eternal life and they have “come to believe and know that [Jesus] is the Holy one of God.” Continue reading →

This Sunday’s first reading, from the Book of Proverbs, contains an invitation that anticipates the great gift which Jesus will make to the Church in the gift of His Body and Blood— “Come, eat my food and drink of the wine….” Since the pandemic, throughout the world, it seems that people have lost sight of the importance of this great invitation. I regret to say, some of the changes in attitude towards the importance of the obligation to attend Sunday Mass, had to do with the message that people might have interpreted Church closures and restrictions in numbers, during these extraordinary conditions, to mean that attendance at Sunday Mass in normal circumstances was not important. However, as we hear Jesus say categorically in this Sunday’s Gospel, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink of His Blood, you do not have life within you,” it is important to emphasize just how crucially important our reception of the Eucharist at Sunday Mass really is to our faith life and our relationship to Christ and His Church. Continue reading →

I always like it when I can start a homily with a good story. I like it even more when I can start a homily with a really good Bible story; and when it comes to Bible stories, they do not get much better than the story about the prophet Elijah.

At a very difficult time in the history of Israel, Elijah was called by God to be a profit and bring God’s message to the people. At the time Elijah was called, the nation was being ruled by an evil King and Queen by the name of Ahab and Jezebel. They had brought false gods into the worship of the country and had taken to worshiping the false god Baal, who was thought to be the god of rain, thunder, lightening, and dew. Elijah was called to tell the people of Israel that there would be a drought for as long as they were unfaithful to the true and living God. Because Baal was thought to be in charge of the rain, for Elijah to claim that the true God had power over it, was a direct challenge to Baal’s authority. Continue reading →

During these summer months, when many people take a break from the hectic pace of life, this Sunday’s readings reinforce for us the importance of stopping to recharge and take a rest. Although we do not often think about it, rest is an important theme in our spiritual lives. The eternal, all-powerful God, who created Heaven and earth, stopped to rest Himself on the seventh day. In doing this, God intended to set an example for us.  The human person needs rest in order to maintain a healthy and balanced spiritual life. As scripture reminds us, the Sabbath Day of rest was made for man, and not the other way around (Mark 2: 27).  Rest allows us time to reconnect with God, ourselves and others. Taking time on the Sabbath is also vital for the human person to reflect upon who each of us is as a child of God and our relationship with God and others. Continue reading →

Last weekend, our parish celebrated the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. Because of this, we heard a Gospel passage read which normally occurs a little after the scene that we hear in today’s Gospel passage. Just as a reminder, the passage that we heard last week, on the Solemnity of Peter and Paul, had Peter confess that Jesus was the Messiah. In the homily, Father Brook Stacey sj, asked us who is Jesus to us and how do we act as a result of this profession of faith. Continue reading →

I think, one of the scariest things that ever happened to me, happened here at St. Peter’s Parish. For lack of a better description, I will call it “The Pandemic.”

On the first night, after the government announced the official lock down, I went to bed frightened about how the parish community would survive if we could not let people into the church. That same evening, at about three in the morning, I was awoken by a non-stop banging. It took me a few minutes to figure out where it was coming from. At first, I waited and assumed that it would stop. However, it did not stop and it sounded like there was someone pounding on the door with a hammer. I soon realized that it sounded like someone pounding on the door with hammer, because it was someone pounding on the door with a hammer. Because it seemed like it was never going to stop, I was stupid enough to go to the door to see what was going on. At the door, I was greeted by a man completely wrapped in plastic from head to toe, afraid of catching COVID and seeking a place to stay. After I explained to him that the fact that he was yielding a hammer made it difficult to feel safe proving him with shelter, I went back to bed and he seemed to understand. Shortly thereafter, I was awoken on two evenings by the alarm system and could hear someone in the rectory in the early hours of the morning. On both occasions, the police told me to stay in my room and wait until they had cleared the rectory. They sent three police cars and six officers on both occasions. Each time, although the man had left the rectory before they arrived, it was the same man who in the daytime had been throwing rocks at the church for no apparent reason. Throughout all of this, I found myself asking, much like the disciples in the boat with Christ in the midst of the storm, Lord, “do you not care that we are perishing.” Continue reading →

The reading from the Gospel of John for this Pentecost Sunday, the last day of the Easter Season, takes us back to Easter Sunday, the day on which this Season began. It begins with the words: “It was evening on the day Jesus rose from the dead, the first day of the week.” These words situate this scene, like so many of the Gospel stories that we have heard on the Sundays throughout the Easter Season on Sunday, on the day Jesus rose from the dead. Whether it was the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or the story of Doubting Thomas, so many of the stories of Christ’s appearing to His disciples in the Easter Season, have focused our attention on the fact that Christ appeared to his disciples after His resurrection as they were gathered together on a Sunday. One of my favorite reminders of the importance of Sunday is actually that which we read in the story from the Gospel of Luke, with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Here, like today’s Gospel story, Jesus appears to His disciples on a Sunday and celebrates with them that memorial supper that He asked them to celebrate in memory of Him. This emphasis that we hear over and over again throughout the Easter Season on the importance of Sunday, is a powerful reminder to all of us that this is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. It is the day He invites us to celebrate together and be reminded of who we are as His people. Continue reading →

Every year on Mother’s Day, I love to tell the story of an episode of Sesame Street that I recall from many years ago.

The muppet puppets were featured in a story in which a little boy was separated from his mother. As the boy was crying in the town’s piazza because he could not find his mother, the king of that town came upon him and asked him why he was crying. The little boy responded that he had been separated from his mother and could not find her. Continue reading →

“By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples” (John 15: 8)

Many of the movies that come out these days are based upon sequels of previous movies. Throughout the fifty days of the Easter Season, the Church has been focusing attention on one of the greatest sequels in human history—The Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles is the second part of the two-part series known as Luke-Acts. The first part of this series is the Gospel of Luke. In his Gospel, Luke, like the other three evangelists, presents the life of Christ and speaks of the way in which Christ revealed God’s love and salvation for all people who place their faith in Him. In the Gospels, we see how Jesus made God present to humanity, saved them and touched them through His divine person. Continue reading →