Really Sharing Jesus - Homily Christmas Day

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122523-Day.cfm

Praise Be Jesus Christ, forever & ever Amen. Merry Christmas everyone.

Before I proclaim the Gospel, I bow down to receive a blessing from Father. As I walk to the ambo, I offer my own prayer. As I hold the gospel up, I pray for the Holy Spirit to be upon me in boldness and strength to proclaim the Gospel, and be with me so that my lips will not stumble and my tongue does not trip. I pray the gospel touches each of your hearts.

If I give the homily, I offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the message given me and offer it for God’s glory.

Last night, I gave the homily at the Catholic Campus Ministry's 8 p.m. Christmas vigil mass on short notice. I was tired. It had been a long day and all I had to eat since breakfast was sample taste from the gifts of candy and cookies given to me by so many people. 

I did not offer those prayers before I proclaimed God’s word. I did not thank God the message given me. I had prayed over the scriptures and written down thoughts in my prayer journal. I knew what God had put in my heart. I failed to surrender that message to God.

I knew it. I felt it. I focused on my imperfections.

I know the Holy Spirit was in the message but my pride got the better of me. I became apprehensive afterwards. I became the same way about my message today.

I prayed on it during morning prayers.

I reflected on my homilies over the years. The stories I share. The vessels use to carry my message. I considered how I expressed the truths the Word of God has revealed to me. Maybe the stories of my grandchildren or work or my childhood are a little too much sometimes.

I read the first passage from scripture this morning. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation...” And, I remembered Bishop Duca placing the Gospels in my hands saying, “Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.”

The answer came to me in the profoundness of today’s Gospel, which are probably some of the beautiful scriptures of the Bible.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 

All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.

In the incarnation of Jesus, the Word of God meets us where we are. The true light of God came into the world so that we do not have to leave this world or relinquish our humanity to know God.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. All we are to do is to be open to that light. Receptive to his word. 

The problem can be is that we want the spiritual stuff without the fleshy part. We want that cosmic spiritual picture John paints but truth is God came to be amount us in the reality of the nativity. A stable filled with the smells of the world. We live in this smelly world, which makes the the Word we share real to others.

Those who believe in his name are sent into the world to spread and share the saving power of the Word. To love the Word and share the Word of God we must live it making it concrete and ordinary.

God wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it. That real, concrete, and ordinary truth is given to us even in the high cosmic Christological spiritually found in the Gospel of John.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.

Spirituality has to be experienced in the flesh. The saving power that is Jesus Christ has be found and experience in the world. The Word comes to the a person’s life in this broken world - as a single person or a member of a family. As a spouse with a large family or a childless couple. The experience as a student or laborer or professional, man or woman, child or adult. In that concrete and ordinary experience of the world the word of God speaks to you.

God speaks to us through the Son, the Word made flesh. For into the nativity of our life, God is perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed.

I have told you about my fears. How many of you have the same and are afraid to share? To overcome troubles pray for the grace of a spirituality filled with an even temper, a cheerful heart, sweetness, gentleness and brightfulness of mind to walk in his light and live by his word. This is really sharing Jesus.

Be good, be holy and in your ordinary and concrete lives in this world – preach the Gospel, the good news of the Word of God to the world.

Praise be Jesus Christ forever and ever – Amen

Merry Christmas.

Rich like Them - Homily Gaudete Sunday

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121723.cfm

Praise be Jesus Christ – forever and ever. Amen.

This Gaudete Sunday I want to share this story: A rich man wanted his child to see what is was like to be poor. He took him to visit poor rural sharecroppers to see how they lived.

As soon as they arrived, the child felt the difference. He pulled off his shoes and wriggled his toes in the dirt. He made friends with the children and they screamed with joy as they ran across the fields and swam in the bayou. He had cookies made from scratch by smiling lady who laughed a lot and told great stories.

When they left, the boy remembered everything he did. Running everywhere without care compared to only having a back yard at home. In the city, hardly any stars are seen at night; but in the country, more are seen than can be counted. He remembered people living their life with happiness and joy.  

After the family returned to their wealthy world. The father asked, “Would you rather be rich like this or poor like them?” The child answered: “I want to be rich like them.”

Jesus proclaimed 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’

 Who are these poor?  In Hebrew, they were called Anawim? (ann-a-weem) the “poor ones” or the “faithful remnant” The people who remained faithful to God in difficult times. To the faithful remnant, the poor, and the broken heart, God sent Isaiah to prophesize. The poor ones yearning for God sent a man followed John, a voice crying out in the desert.   

The Anawim sang, “Rejoice in the Lord always; everyone rejoice! The Lord is near.”  This Sunday remember Gaudete means, “everyone rejoice.”

Sadly, many people do not know joy. Maybe the reason is that so many in this world have forgotten the 10^th commandment. “You shall not covet.” That sin can bring to the world the opposite of joy, which is suffering.

There is much suffering in the world - poverty, violence, war, disease, and oppression. Covetousness, human greed, makes these things rampant in the world. The most desired things are power, prestige, and possessions.

In the story about the rich father and his son, the father considers the poor as those with less things than him. The world is the same. It considers the poor those without the things the world says they must have. For many suffering is not in being poor, it comes from the sinfulness of coveting things.

This sin can numb a heart and deaden the spirit so one cannot know joy.

The things most covet, desire, and lust after becomes the real passion of a soul. They become the world’s false gods that many worship. These false gods bring false joy.

Most of the time, it is not even a conscious choice. Between here and home, each will be told the worldly things we need many more times than we will be told how much we need each other or how much we need God. This wounds the human heart.

The enemy has always encouraged humanity to put self as the center of the world.  

How often do we hear, “What about my feelings?”

Many pout, “What about my opinions.” And demand, “it must be done my way.”

The world tells us, these things are important. In these things, you will find joy.

But, all of this can bring a person to a place far from God. They oppose true happiness and Godly joy and allow a hardened cocoon of sinfulness to develop around the heart.

From that harden cocoon, many will say, I know Jesus. In that place, many will say they find joy.

After the father and son returned to their wealthy world. The father asked his son – would you rather be rich like this or poor like them? The child answers, “I want to be rich like them.”

God is found outside the hardened cocoon of self. To know Jesus and to find true joy requires a move to a place beyond the self-centeredness of this world. Then you will be able to feel the difference. Like the boy, pull off your shoes and wiggle your toes in the dirt. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil.  

You cannot truly know joy if you covet the passions dictated by the world. To know joy, we must recognize a pure Godly joy –trust in it, believe in it, and pray unceasingly. Rejoice heartily in the LORD, in God is the joy of my soul….

Joy is not in the love of the false gods of power, prestige, and passions. Love only the one true God. In God’s love is where the human heart can find true and profound joy. The joy that comes from the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, which strengthens us - The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me…, my spirit rejoices….

The poor and faithful remnant are rich in the joy found in God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “I want to be rich like them.”  

Be good, be holy and in this advent season everyone proclaim the good news -   “Rejoice in the Lord always; everyone rejoice! The Lord is near.” 

Praise be Jesus Christ forever and ever. Amen