Saint + Elizabeth + Ann + Seton + Parish

Mary is the epitome of what it is to be human in the world. Her respect and esteem for everyone she came into contact with is the model for all humanity. Mary was, in a word, the first Christian. When we need to see a true Christian, to know what a Christian ought to be, and have a model to follow, Mary is that exemplar—that superlative example of how we ought to be and act toward one another. Then, assumed into Heaven, Mary points the way to eternal life.Download Transcript

Mary, in her exaltation as mother of our Lord, was given the privilege of being the first to enter fully into all that her Son has won for us. The Assumption of Mary is a sign of the fullness of salvation that is ahead for all who belong to Jesus Christ.Pray for us, most holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.Download Transcript

"You and I are on a journey. We want to get to the mountain of God: eternal life. How do we know that we are believing and listening and learning (which is another way of saying 'obeying')? What results can we expect? What should be the effect in us when we eat the living bread? We find that answer in the Epistle reading: our faith affects us in basic, tangible ways."Download transcript

When we’re facing these kinds of difficulties in our own lives, these painful periods when we feel like we just want to give up and throw in the towel and forget about it, God sends a messenger our way: Maybe just the smile of a little child, maybe a friend, maybe someone offering a prayer for us. We don’t even know it’s happening, and suddenly we feel a little strength coming on, and we can persevere and move forward in the promise that we will reach the mountain. 

Saint Paul tells of an old self and and a new self. We’re all too familiar with the “old” and it’s not very good. God did not intend awful things; he created us to know and obey him, but he also gave us the dignity of choice. Long ago the choice was made to disobey God and choose by ourselves what is right and wrong. That is why something is horribly wrong in the world. We were not created to live without God.Download Transcript

Paul tells us that, in Christ, those who have authority and those who have power in God’s kingdom are to be the servants and the last and least of all. They are there to meet the needs of the people, to heed their complaint, to fulfill what it is they need to thrive. So it’s inverted. In the world, it’s how many people serve me. But in the kingdom of God, it’s how many people I can serve. 

The infinite God is able to “condense” himself totally and faithfully into the person of a human being! If God, the Maker of heaven and earth, is miraculously able to become a Man in the person of Jesus Christ, then that same God-Man Jesus is miraculously able to come physically again and again into what looks to us like simple bread.Download Transcript

What are we to do when those responsible to care for us, hurt us or, worse yet, threaten to destroy us? What are we to do when those claiming to be God’s people reject—even hurt—us? Now there’s no denying that this is one of the most damaging, destructive things that can ever happen to us. Like abuse and neglect within a family, religious failure and abuse strikes at our core, our soul, our deepest self. It contradicts the moral claims of our religion, and threatens to destroy our confidence in those claims, and leave us doubtful and bitter.Download Transcript

I want to highlight some important things from the Gospel that actually extends the Amos model as our paradigm for interacting with society. First, I love the fact that Jesus uses the motif of pilgrimage, journey. He sends them out, two by two, on a journey. Our Christian life is a pilgrimage. Your life and my life—we are on a journey. 

Paul tells us that every suffering has a meaning. And what makes you overcome your suffering is to begin to locate and find the meaning in your suffering. Paul tells us that for him as Paul, the meaning in his suffering was the fact that vulnerability makes him spiritually humble. And when we are spiritually humble, we now become malleable in God’s hands. When you are spiritually humble, God can now mold and re-mold you according to His will. 

Death is troubling whenever it comes. Death is never, ever, a convenience—and, on an emotional and relational level, never welcome. So it’s always troubling. And perhaps we’re not ever more troubled than when death is drawing near, and we—if we are facing death ourselves, or we are representing someone we know and love—we have to make a series of decisions. Download Transcript

The Gospel tells of the power of God and the gracious healing action of Jesus. This is the essence of the Good News. God is more powerful than the awful things in this world. Jesus has come into our world to turn what seems “natural” upside down and to give a hope that the brokenness we see and experience in the created order will be healed.Download Transcript

Among the nameless millions of people  who span history and inhabit our world right now, God chooses to manifest himself in conspicuous ways in some (actually, a very few). This is meant to open our minds and hearts to wonder…. and to hunger and thirst for God.Download Transcript

From the beginnings of nation-states, the issues of immigration and providing for refugees has been problematic. Every nation has the right to provide for the integrity of its borders. No nation has the right to protect its borders by unjust means, however.Within the past week, the United States bishops discussed and offered some critique to the current immigration practice of separating children from their parents at the United States borders.Download Transcript

In fact, the Church teaches that the family is the first cell of a civilization of love, and that the family is the first church, and the parents are the first pastors of their children —in fact, the first face, voice, and touch of God for a child.And so rightfully, as a society, we’ve chosen to honor mothers and fathers, because we have this innate knowledge of the potentiality—not only of parents biologically, but more importantly, spiritually, socially, and emotionally.Download Transcript

The way to be a good father is to take the Fatherhood of God as the preeminent calling of what fatherhood is all about. The way to honor our fathers is to practice the Truth of God through love. Fathers, love your wives and children the way God loves us and all will be well. But when we dishonor the Fatherhood of God in any way, individually or on a national scale, we are sowing seeds to our own destruction.Download Transcript

Our roles and our relationships are complicated, and they switch up. They change out with each other, and it is sometimes complicated. It is most certainly complex. And those relationships certainly have a bearing on our roles and responsibilities and vice versa. And it’s true also within the members of the Godhead. And that should not be strange to us because, after all, we are created in the image of God and after His likeness. So if our roles and responsibilities are complicated and complex, so is true with the relationships in the Godhead. This is why the Holy Trinity has been so complicated. It took centuries for the Church to work through the identification of the individual Persons within the Godhead and their roles and responsibilities. Still today, it’s complicated to contemplate and talk about the Most Holy Trinity. 

Here’s the astonishing thing, and Saint Paul tells us about it in our second reading: there are some people who do, in fact, spend more time nurturing seeds that grow toxic fruit than they do nurturing seeds that grow healthy fruit. Saint Paul tells us that there are two kinds of crops that can grow in the garden of our hearts: one kind is toxic, the other is healthy. You and I can grow healthy food within us, or we can grow deadly fruits. We bear fruit in our lives from the seeds we nourish.Download Transcript

At the end of the day, the feast of Pentecost reminds you and reminds me that we are now reconciled reconcilers. The Lord has reconciled himself to you, and now he wants you to reconcile with each other. And so our prayer this morning, as we join Catholics all over the world to continue to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, is that the love of God, the true peace of Christ, will abide in our world—that the peace, which Christ and Christ alone can give, will abide in your heart and abide in my heart today. Amen. 

You are the redemption of humanity. Because of Pentecost, humanity can be redeemed and made holy. Again, Saint Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, writes, “I say, then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want.” … The fruit of the Spirit is what makes humans truly human. The giving of the Spirit on Pentecost makes us who we were originally created to be.