Catholic Prayers for the New Evangelization

"Catholic Prayers for the New Evangelization"

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Notitiae

Blessed Feast Day of St. Michael!

There will be no homilies for September 23rd or 30th, as we are having Finance Council presentations and the annual Pastor's sermon on stewardship at all Masses.

Father Matthew's Mass Schedule:
October 6/7: 4pm and 7:15 am
October 14: 8:45 and 10:30 am
October 21: 12:15 and 5:30 pm
October 28: 7:15 am and 5:30 pm

You may look at the parish website (http://www.stmichaelcanton.org/) in the coming days for a new series titled "The Popes Speak.' comments and suggestions of quotes welcome.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Homily Twenty-Fourth Sunday of the Year 16 September 2007

There is a poem about coming home by August Davies Webster…

Oh, how my mother's eyes will turn to me, half unawares, then fix upon her book that none may see them growing large and moist; and how my father will look stern and frown, hiding the treacherous twinkles with the shade of knitted brows, lest any watching him should think him moved to have his son by him, and proud like foolish fathers; but the girls will be all smiles and flutter, and look round elate as if no other girls before had had a soldier brother.
Plenty of birds this year, my father writes; we'll see next week, and--There's the long shrill yell! Home! all but home! Oh! there, between the trees, that light, our house--they're waiting for me there.

The emotions of coming home…
to the place where we belong…
to where the love of family is enough for us…
are some of the most powerful emotions the human heart knows.

Today’s Gospel is a story of a homecoming…
of a son returning to his father, to the place where he belongs.

This son has sinned…and wasted…and lived a life of immorality…
and yet his father welcomes him with compassion…
and in his father’s embrace he finds the love that sustains him.

God our Heavenly Father welcomes us in the same way.

When we have gone off on our own and tried to do things our own way…
and finally realize how much we depend on God…
we return to find Him always faithfully waiting for us.

When we have sinned and need God’s mercy…
we can always find Him waiting to bestow that mercy
in the Sacrament of Penance.

God is our Father…
and He is always waiting to welcome us home when we run to Him.

Perhaps someone you know has strayed from the practice of the Catholic faith.
We have in our parish a program called “Catholics Returning Home”
which helps to re-connect people to the Church.

The Church is our home…
and she is always willing to take us back.

[PAUSE]
The sad element of today’s Gospel is the scene with the older brother,
who greatly disapproves of the joy and celebration
surrounding the prodigal son’s reconciliation with his Father

He resents the fact that his brother has squandered the family fortune…
and yet their father throws a great celebration on his return…
meanwhile the older brother has been faithful and receives nothing.

He is not able…because of his anger…to recognize how wonderful it is
that his brother has recognized the evil of his ways
and has returned begging forgiveness.

He knows only his anger and frustration at being passed up.

He is not able to see the moment through his father’s eyes…
which no doubt are filled with tears of joy…
as his fatherly heart melts…
at the sight of his son running down the lane.

He is not able to welcome his brother when he finally comes home.

What an embrace that father and son must have had!
What tender love and instant peace both must have known in their hearts!

What a shame that the older brother could not have shared their familial love…
for his anger and his jealousy stand in the breach.

The actor Buddy Hackett once remarked…
“I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge.
You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing.”

In the Gospel, the family is celebrating and dancing,
while the older son is outside harboring hatred toward his brother.

How true it is that,
while we might be holding a grudge or harboring jealousy over something,
the person who we perceive as having offended us has moved on
and is enjoying their life, not even thinking about what happened.

In the end…we’re the ones who suffer.

Surely most of us at least could find something to hold a grudge about…
and perhaps we are right now.
Perhaps we have been passed over for a promotion…
have gotten tangled up in a family dispute…
or are unable to forgive another person.
Whatever the circumstances…
by holding onto past problems and offenses…
we only hurt ourselves… and we miss out on so much in life.

Perhaps someone you know was hurt by a priest or layperson in the Church…
and because they hold onto those feelings
they cannot “come home” to the life of the Church.

What blessings and happiness are we missing out on…
because of feelings and grudges we hold onto?

Are we harboring anger and resentment while everyone else is dancing…
killing the fatted calf…celebrating…and enjoying life’s blessings?

It is good for us to bring our burdens to God in the Sacrament of Penance…
and share them with someone we trust…
who can help us learn to let go of them.

Today the Lord calls us to search our hearts…
and to lay aside every ill feeling and burdensome thought…
so that we might come to know the tenderness and peace
that our Heavenly Father desires us to enjoy.

Today the Lord calls us to come home to His peaceful embrace.

Notitiae

Mass Schedule

September 22nd 8:45 and 10:30

Spetember 30th 7:15 and 5:30 pm

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Notitiae

Father Matthew will celebrate Mass on Sunday, September 16th, at 7:15 am, 8:45 am, and 5:30 pm.

Father may be heard on Living Bread Radio, offering Gospel reflections throughout the day from September 16th through 22nd.

AM 1060

www.livingbreadradio.com

Homily Twenty-Third Sunday of the Year 9 September 2007

The priests of the Diocese of Youngstown
returned Friday from a 4-day convocation with our bishop.

It was a time for us to socialize, to get to know one another better,
to gather in a spirit of fraternity as brother priests…
with our spiritual father, the bishop,
to learn and grow in knowledge of the challenges we face as priests,
and to be refreshed, so that we may return to our flocks
renewed in our commitment to ministry in the Church.

At the end of the convocation, Bishop Murry presented a concluding summary,
in which he offered a challenge to all of us:

He challenged us to let go of all that might keep us divided…
all that may have burdened us in the past…
all that keeps us from being open to grace at work in us…
and to move forward with him to a bright future.

[PAUSE]
Such a challenge is given to us by the Holy Scriptures.

It is clear that to embrace the Lord’s call to discipleship
means to leave behind all that does not lead us closer to Him…
so that we might journey ahead unencumbered to a bright future.

We are called to renounce anything we have
that stands in the way of putting Christ first.

And yet, the radical call of the Gospel
is more than renouncing physical possessions.

It means leaving behind the kind of relationships that lead us to impurity…
leaving behind ideologies and ways of thinking
that do not conform to the will of God and the mind of the Church…
leaving behind attitudes and behaviors that do not please God.

True love requires giving up that which we might desire to hold onto…
in order to follow our beloved.

This is true of marriage and family life…
where a man and a woman leave behind all other potential spouses
in order to commit themselves to one person for life…
and in which mothers and fathers often must leave behind what they desire
for the sake of their children.

In the Christian life…
true love means renouncing not just possessions…
but relationships, ideologies, and patterns of behavior…
in order that Christ might reign in our hearts.

There are some things we simply cannot have and cannot do…
if we are to be truly Christian.
[PAUSE]
In his first encyclical…Deus Caritas Est…God is Love…
Pope Benedict XVI writes of the ancient understanding of two kinds of love.

First of all, “eros,” from which we derive the word “erotic,”
is passionate, possessive, covetous love.

Secondly, there is “agape,” oblative, or self-giving, love.

The Holy Father teaches us that the true nature of love is realized
when the two find unity in the one reality of love.

As human persons…our minds and bodies experience the passion of “eros”…
of that possessive and self-seeking kind of love.

True love and happiness is found when “eros” is transformed by “agape”…
when our self-serving passions
are exalted by the holiness of self-giving love.

In this we are most fully ourselves as human persons…
and most closely in union with God, who is love itself.
As Pope John Paul II wrote…
“Man is most fully himself when he makes a sincere gift of himself.”

[PAUSE]
To live this challenge from God well
requires that we possess and exercise the gift of discernment.
In the Gospel today, the Lord presents two examples of discernment.

The wise contractor calculates his plans and finances to see if his work is prudent.
The wise commander calculates the battle plan to see if attack is prudent.

If we are to order our lives around God and the Church…
as we are all called to do…
we first must discern what in our lives must be left behind.

In prayer and in peace and in purity of heart…
we reflect on what we have and where we stand before God.

We ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance…
to make clear and prudent decisions about our lives.

In a spirit of discernment…
united with God in prayer…and open to the grace of the Holy Spirit…
we can prudently and joyfully renounce all in our lives that is not holy
offer ourselves as a gift to the Lord
and journey ahead in true love with our God.

The Lord calls us to renounce all that keeps Him from being the center of our lives.
The Lord calls us to love in a way that seeks Him above all else…
and seeks the good of others before ourselves.
The Lord calls us to a spirit of discernment
wherein we allow Him to direct our lives.

With our lives centered always in God and in the teaching of the Church…
we will be able to journey together
as the members of the Mystical Body of Christ…
to a bright future where holiness reigns in our hearts.

This day we offer our lives to Christ…whom we receive in this Holy Mass…
renouncing all for His sake and pledging our lives in His service…
until we are united with Him and all the angels and saints
in the eternal feast of Heaven’s glory!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Notitiae

Pray for the priests of the Diocese of Youngstown, who join together with Bishop Murry for the 8th Priests' Convocation September 4-7, 2007.

Pray for the success of the Third Annual Eucharistic Procession to honor Respect Life Month, October 14th, 2007 at St. Michael Church in Canton, Ohio.

Father Matthew will have the 4:00 pm Mass on September 8th and the 7:15 am Mass on the 9th.

Homily Twenty-Second Sunday of the Year 2 September 2007

Surely we have all had the experience of standing before something
that takes our breath away…
or makes us pause and simply wonder.

Natural wonders often have this effect…
The Grand Canyon…Niagara Falls…Yellowstone National Park…

Sometimes the work of human persons…
created in God’s image and infused with God-given talents…
has this effect…
Mount Rushmore, The Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Great Wall…

The natural and man-made wonders of the world humble us…
for we seem so small compared to their splendor…
and so completely incapable of fully grasping what lies before us.

The experience of encountering the beauty and the splendor of creation…
reminds us of our place as stewards of creation
and humble servants of God,
who in his wisdom has fashioned the whole world to work in harmony.

[PAUSE]
We who have been baptized into the Church…the Mystical Body of Christ…
come to this holy place…this house of God…
to celebrate the Sacred Liturgy.
We come mindful that we stand before a sacred reality that takes our breath away.

We come mindful of our calling to be humble servants of the mysteries of Christ.

We come to the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God…
the banquet in which we are guests…
and God Himself is the host.

Jesus exhorts His listeners…
“When you hold…a dinner, do not invite your friends…
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather…invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”

Jesus says this because He Himself has done just this with us.
He has established the banquet of the Eucharist…
He feeds us the finest food our souls can receive…his own Body and Blood…
And He invites us…poor, mortal men and women…
who cannot ever hope to repay Him for His marvelous gift.

Jesus tells us…
“When you are invited…to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
Rather…go and take the lowest place…”

When we gather to celebrate the Holy Mass…
we are invited to a feast…the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.
Before Communion, the priest elevates the Host and Chalice and says…
“Behold the Lamb of God
Behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.
Happy are they who are called to His supper.”

The original text actually says…
“Blessed are they who are called to the banquet of the Lamb.”

Which is a reference to the Book of Revelation, wherein it says…
“Blessed are they who are called to the wedding banquet of the Lamb.”

The Holy Eucharist is a wedding banquet…
in which Jesus Christ and His Bride the Church become one.

The priest…
who stands in the person of Christ the Head of the Church…
and consecrates the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ…

together with the faithful members of the Church…

are united in the sacrament of love with the person of Christ the Bridegroom.

The Church becomes one with Christ as she celebrates the Eucharist.

This is a mystery and a sacred event before which we are left in awe…
for such love as Christ has shown us in giving us Himself
is beyond our human power to understand.
And so we ought to come to this Altar in a spirit of great humility.

We do not come here to exalt ourselves.
We come here to praise and give thanks to Jesus Christ…
our Lord, our God, and our Savior.

It is good to reflect on our liturgical participation and ministry in terms of service.
We are not here because we have a right to be…
or because we demand a privileged place
but because we have been invited by the Lord
to share in the banquet of His love.

As priest and as liturgical ministers…
we do not exercise our roles and duties four our own glory
but for the glory of God alone.

We are not here to be seen…
but to accept our place as insignificant instruments
of what Christ desires to do in us.

To hold in our hands and receive into our bodies
the flesh and blood of the person of Jesus Christ…
ought to leave us breathless…speechless…
standing in awe and wonder.

We celebrate the Liturgy as the Church asks us to…not as we want…
out of humility…and out of love for Christ and for the Church.

I am reminded of the famous song “I Can Only Imagine” Surrounded by your glory, What will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus, Or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence, Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Hallelujah,
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine…

We are surrounded by God’s glory here and now…
We stand in His presence even this morning…
We are left in awe of His goodness to us…
and we fall to our knees in adoration!

May we this day…and in every Mass we celebrate…
contemplate the sacred reality that surrounds us…
place ourselves in humble service of this great mystery…
and live our lives always mindful of the incredible love
of the God who has made us.