The Eucharist: A Parish Mission In Two Senses

March 18-22 I was blessed to be able to offer a four-day Lenten parish mission at my parents' church, St. Louis de Montfort in Fishers, Indiana. 

Their pastor, Fr. Thomas Haan, invited me as part of the parish's ongoing renewal and encounter with Jesus, and especially with Him in the Blessed Sacrament, in anticipation of the Eucharistic Congress hosted by Indianapolis in 2024. 

I preached the weekend Masses as a preview, and then gave spiritual conferences on three topics the following days, once in the morning and once in the evening.

Mass Homily: The Treasure and the Revival

Monday Evening: Worship and the Mass

Tuesday Evening: The Eucharist and Justice

Wednesday Evening: Adoration and Prayer

                                                     photo credit: Fr. Ben Rynearson, St. Wenceslaus, Wahoo

We are Broken; God's Mercy is Greater

The 1st Sunday of Lent hits you pretty hard with the sinfulness of man, leading off with Genesis 3 and Psalm 51. In some circles, St. Paul gets critiqued as being negative, dour, or moralistic, but his 5th chapter of Romans that we hear right after that is the definition of good news. The gift is not like the transgression; the "physics" of sin are not like the dynamic of grace. Truly, there is a wideness in God's mercy. 

There are definitely a lot of personal stories in this one. This week I was thinking about how when you have a retreat day or a witness talk, you don't get convicted by hearing the theology of sin, you get it from hearing a person's stories and having that resonate with your own brokenness. So, we still have to be nerdy with Romans 5 a bit, but theres some big stories in there too. 

2 Homilies: Lessons from Septuagesima. Waiting for the Beatitudes.

So, here's two homilies. The first up is from just yesterday, about these last few days before Lent. 

The other one is actually from January 29, the start of Catholic Schools Week, but I started showing Covid symptoms that night and was a salted slug the next 10 days and never posted it.

Posting Homilies Again. Here's Three of Them.

One of my goals for 2023 was to get back in the habit of posting homilies. We're now halfway through January so I suppose I should get around to that. Here are the homilies for January 1st, 8th, and 15th. 

January 1: "Octaves, Sheriffs, and Posses"

January 8: "Christmas Wasn't Really Meant For You"

January 15: "What Lambs Don't Do"