Saint + Elizabeth + Ann + Seton + Parish

Homilist and pastoral musician E. Louis Canter invites us to Forty Hours Eucharistic Devotions September 8 to 10 at 7 pm to explore the connection between Franciscan spirituality and the Eucharist. In his introduction at Mass, he said: "We indeed are brothers and sisters together, because we believe that He who we have taken into our bodies has now made us His Body, the Body of Christ. And so as we come together, we dare to ask questions: How am I being transformed by the Body that I have just received? How is the Lord Jesus Christ making room within ourselves, so that we can be so filled up that we can't wait to go out of this building to proclaim what God has done for us?"

What was the "secret" of the holiness of Saint Francis of Assisi? Listen to this excerpt from the first evening of our Forty Hours Eucharistic Devotions, with homilist E. Louis Canter, OEF. Join us on Monday, September 9, at 7 p;m for the second evening.

The readings today remind us that when our focus is on ourselves we will try to use every situation to our own advantage. A focus on self will be mostly concerned with personal comfort and security. In contrast, following Jesus reverses the way we usually think and live in everyday life. We are invited to enter into the incredible grace of being loved by God so that we ourselves become channels of his love and grace and mercy. That is what Jesus taught and modeled.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

It's a narrow road, and not everyone who cries out, "Lord, Lord" will end up on that narrow road, but only those who accept the grace. And there will come a time--we don't ever like to think this, but it is true. Our Lord said it so many times that we have to believe it. There will come a time when the invitation is no longer offered, and either we are in the household of God or we're locked outside.

Our expectations place limits on the grace of God and the activity of Jesus in our lives and homes. We expect a mild Savior to be at work, giving us positive things and gifts. But to listen to Jesus, there's an urgency to His message. The Lord wants to bring fire upon this Earth--to burn away all that is not of God, to usher in that age of peace which alone comes from God. 

Each week we come to hear God’s Word. Each week we come to eat our Lord’s Body and drink his Blood. This is the very life of the Church. This is meant to hold us steady as we live in a confused and conflicted world.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Saint Paul tells us just where our value is in this phrase: Your life is hidden with Christ in God. The true, essential value--the eternal value of your life--is hidden. It can't be measured, it can't be weighed, it can't be valued by the things that you have or the paycheck you earn or the money that you bank. Your value is eternal. It is intrinsic. It is spiritual. It is hidden in Christ.

We know that this meal took place as Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. In fact, tradition has it this occurred the night before what we call Palm Sunday, the Lord's final entry into the city. He had already told His apostles that He was going to Jerusalem, and there He would suffer and die. He stopped at Bethany, only two miles away from the city of Jerusalem, there for a dinner and an overnight visit with friends. We can only imagine what in the heart and mind of Jesus that evening, but we can be certain he was there, aware of the onslaught that would come soon enough, to spend a quiet evening with friends.

Remember that no one who struggles deeply with personal faith is alone. It is common to humanity to have critical questions which go to the core of one’s being. It is even more common to face circumstances that strike at the heart of life’s meaning and purpose (that is the effect of the original disobedience). If you have deep questions . if you have been hit with suffocating circumstances ... you are not alone.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

The very excuses we have for not following Jesus instantly, giving ourselves totally into his arms and care and providence ... the very obstacles that keep us from being true disciples, through and through ... the fears we have ... may be the doors through which Jesus can most clearly enter our hearts. Not obstacles at all, but entry points for grace if we but turn them around.

No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks back at what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God. The number 12 stands for those who, in spite of the challenges and difficulties they face--with the yoke, the oxen, the furrowing, the planting, the reaping, with obligations to farm and family--nevertheless plowed forward in the plan and purpose that leads to salvation.

Everything that God intends for us is encapsulated in the life of the God-Man Jesus. In Jesus, the Incarnation is the permanent unification of the Spirit of God with the human body. That is what Christmas is all about. It is the beginning of the story of what it truly means to be a godly human being.DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

Our Lord reduced the whole corpus of commandments revealed in the Old Testament to three of them: relate to God, relate to one other, and relate to yourself in an appropriate and respectful manner. And that is the summary of the whole Law. So it is the relatedness in the Holy Trinity--the Father to the Son, the Son to the Spirit, the Spirit to the Father and the Son--there's where we can grasp how important our relationships are in our lives. They literally form, shape, and define who we are. We're not just islands, isolated, developing entirely apart. We're related.

The truth is, when we are brought into Jesus by His Love, we share in the love that the Father has for the Son, and the Spirit of God is in us because of that love.

I wonder if you've had someone in your life who you just could get along without? And you wonder, why is this person in my way? It's like when we received a gift. We don't like it; we put it in a drawer. And then it comes out of the drawer with a new appreciation. Our Lord reframed and redefined the relationship between the disciples and himself, between himself and the disciples, when he said, "Father, they are your gifts to me."

Around the world and throughout time, the whole human race has a record of seeking God. As Christians we know why: There is a “God-shaped hole” in our hearts––we are the result of special creation in the image of God. DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT

In this homily that really began at the beginning of Mass, Monsignor King asks us to consider the words of the "I confess" prayer and what they mean to us as a community of believers.

Father Schenck gives us a quick overview of this special day.

We don't celebrate motherhood and we don't affirm motherhood in our culture as motherhood deserves to be affirmed. Let's always keep in mind that the image that we have and the language given to us of the Church is not masculine and is not paternal. It is feminine and maternal language. We speak of the Church as "she" and "her." We have the feminine image of the Church and we have the maternal image of the Church given to us. And we speak of the first Disciple, the first Church, embodied in Mary, who is called the Mother of God, the Mother of the Church, the Mother of us all. We can't lose sight of that.

There is a wildness to God's mercy. We like to think of religion as peaceful and calm and gentle. But that's not always the way of the Lord. There's a wildness to the mercy of Jesus, and if we let Him loose in our lives, He will tear our lives apart because, as the Good Shepherd, He will stop at nothing to get rid of those things that harm us, those things that endanger us, those things that will imperil our immortal soul.