The Steps of St. Paul's

“…humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others.”

Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey…they were all an afterthought to me.  More than anything else on this trip to London, I wanted to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral and sit at her steps.  Those who remember my homily during the Feast of the Holy Family last December will know why (http://fathermanny.blogspot.com/2013/12/saving-father.html).  The song “Feed the Birds” takes place there.  Alas there was no Bird Woman. There weren’t many birds either, but the steps and that giant, iconic dome that survived the Blitz in the war still spoke to me as the song does.  The little things, the small acts of charity, looking out not for my own interests, but as St. Paul writes in the second reading, looking out for the interests of others: those are the lessons from that song and of the steps of St. Paul’s.

In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds us again that the less favored ones in society are the ones that will enter the kingdom of God before the so-called righteous ones of the earth.  I didn’t have much time to sit and reflect on those steps, but when I was in my room that evening looking over the pictures I took, I started thinking of the less favored among us: the poor, the sick, the homeless, the immigrant, the old, the depressed, the unborn, the forgotten.  These are the ones that we must humbly regard as more important than ourselves.  These are the ones we have to feed, shelter, visit and remember.  Small acts of charity to the least in God’s kingdom can go a long way.  Something as simple as a phone call, a card, a visit, a smile can maybe remind someone how much God loves them and how much we love them.  So while I enjoyed seeing the great monuments in the city of London, it was the simplicity of the steps of St. Paul’s that moved me the most because of what they symbolize to me: simple charity goes a long way.  As Blessed Mother Teresa reminds us: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

Bringing Everyone Home

“Let them turn to the LORD to find mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. “ (Isaiah 55:7)

It doesn’t matter how late you came to the party.  What matters is that you came to the party.  So many people feel left out when they come to Church.  I notice this.  Pope Francis notices this.  I’ll get back to the Holy Father later.  In today’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable of people that are invited to work in his vineyard at different stages, yet all receive the same wage or the same blessings.  Again, it doesn’t matter when in your life you encounter the living Christ as you long as you have that life altering, eternal encounter.  Yet many people go through life oblivious to this man called Jesus.  This past week, the priests of the Archdiocese gathered for our annual convocation with the Archbishop, and one priest was telling us of a similar experience that I preached to you about a month or so ago, that we walk down the streets with our Roman Collars on and people don’t know who we are.  They look upon us with curiosity, with confusion, and don’t equate the collar with a follower or priest of Jesus Christ.  Yet we try to bring people back home to the Church so that they may experience the same blessings that we enjoy, for all of us are God’s children and heirs to his kingdom.

Today we celebrate Catechetical Sunday and later on I will commission and send forth our wonderful catechists who dedicate their time to pass on the faith to our children.  The theme for this year’s Catechetical Sunday is “God’s Gift of Forgiveness.”  I am convinced that this is what people need to hear.  They need to experience a forgiving God and this is where Pope Francis comes in as I alluded earlier.  Last year, he was speaking to the Brazilian bishops and pondering on why people leave the Church or don’t come to Church at all.  He compared these people to the disciples of Emmaus who left Jerusalem despondent after the death of Christ with no hope in the resurrection.  They believed that Christ’s mission was a failure.  And maybe people think that about the Church, Pope Francis wonders: "Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas."  The workers that started their labor early in the morning were rigid in their thinking and could not comprehend that the owner of the vineyard would give those who started working late the same wage.  We need to change our way of thinking and start thinking as God does.  Like the owner of the vineyard we need to go out and encounter people where they are.  This is why the Holy Father concludes: "We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning."

But the thing is that Christianity is not barren, nor fruitless soil, nor incapable of generating meaning.  All of you are here on this Sunday morning because you want to be fed.  You want to experience God’s mercy and love and that is what I need to preach to all of you and what you need to share with your brothers and sisters.  The thing is: how do we do it?

Last Friday, the Archbishop was here in our parish along with our mayor to consecrate the City of Hialeah to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  It was a beautiful and significant Mass for our parish and for our city.  Right before the Mass started, a reporter from our Spanish Archdiocesan newspaper interviewed me and asked me, “What is your greatest challenge as pastor of Immaculate Conception?”  Without missing a beat I responded, “Getting the people out there to come in here.”  I went on to say that my church is surrounded by people who don’t know God.  They are good, hard working people, but they live their lives, as the Archbishop said on Friday, “as if God doesn’t matter.”  But God does matter and it is my mandate as pastor of this parish to communicate the love and forgiveness of God to people who don’t know Him.  Again, how do we do this?  Therein lies the great challenge of my pastorate.  I wish I could sit on the top of our bell tower and scream to the entire city the beauty of God’s mercy.  But Pope Francis is right.  We need to go to where they are and like Jesus encounter them in their journey.  And this is something that I have to improve on as I go into the streets and not be ashamed of engaging people when they look at me funny.  Case in point:

After the Mass on Friday night, I went to dinner with some friends down the street to a Cuban restaurant.  I was dressed in my clerical suit, and when I walked into the restaurant, as in my most places, I got clueless stares.  They sat us right in the middle of the restaurant in a table where I was surrounded by booths and I could clearly see everyone around me.  Maybe it is because I had just heard the Archbishop’s message of evangelization in Hialeah, but there came a moment where I had tuned out the conversation at my table and was looking around the room thinking:  “How do I get these people into my church?”  There was a part of me that wanted to go up to each booth and greet the people much like a politician does when he or she is running for office and goes into these places.  Did I do it? No.  Have I regretted is since Friday night?  Yes.   It’s very easy to preach the gospel inside these walls.  It’s a lot harder to preach it out there.  But that has to change.  It must change.   And it begins with me.  I always talk about “takin’ it to the streets” but at some point processions and clerical wear and invitations to church events can only go so far.  At some point, we have to talk about Jesus Christ and his mercy and love.  Witness.  Genuine witness, not proselytism as Pope Francis told catechists last year:   “Remember what Benedict XVI said: “The Church does not grow by proselytizing; she grows by attracting others.” And what attracts is our witness. Being a catechist means witnessing to the faith, being consistent in our personal life. This is not easy! We help, we lead others to Jesus with our words and our lives, with our witness. I like to recall what Saint Francis of Assisi used to say to his friars: `Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.’  Words come . . . but witness comes first: people should see the Gospel, read the Gospel, in our lives.”

This is our mission, which is why I’ll leave you with the same uneasiness that I have felt since Friday night: if you were in my shoes in that restaurant, what would you have done?

The Power of His Presence

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Jesus is always with us.  Jesus never abandons us.   Jesus is always at our side.  We believe this and we profess this, but when things get desperate in our lives, we are so quick to forget this.  When times are tough, we are so quick to ask: where is God?  Friday night, a friend called me after a having a bad day.  She is a woman of strong faith, daily Mass, prayer, but as happens to all of us every now and then, she was having a bad day.  I asked her if she had gone to Mass that day.  Yes.  I asked her if she had done her prayers that day.  Yes.  I asked her where her friends were because they are also strong in their faith, and they were scattered, and I thought of the last verse of today’s gospel.  Sometimes we just need to stop and pray with our friends, with our family, with those close to us because Jesus promises that he WILL be there.  What else do we need?

The readings today call us to be united to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  It is in this unity that Christ is found, and it is in this community that we experience divine love.  St. Paul speak beautifully about this in the second reading where he reminds us that in loving our neighbor we fulfill the law and God’s plan for us to look out for one another.  In loving our neighbor we become Christ for them.  And in that love, when fraternal correction is needed, as Jesus explains in the Gospel, then that correction will be embraced in love.  As I say constantly during weddings, we are responsible for each other’s salvation.  And it is through our neighbors and through those we love that we experience the presence of Christ.

My friend wasn’t the only one who had a bad day on Friday. Mine was not necessarily bad.  It was a rollercoaster, but throughout the day I kept getting reminders through others that Christ was at my side.  Early in the day, it was from the joy of my preschoolers when I walked into their classroom.  At the end of the day, it was from an elderly priest whom I had never even met.  He was here to celebrate our evening Mass because I had a school function, and I went over to the chapel to meet him.  When I entered the sacristy, this wonderful priest looks at me and joyfully said, “You’re the new pastor!” and embraced me with a father’s love.  We chatted briefly because Mass was about to start, and as he was about to turn away to go into the chapel he tells me, “Father, whatever you need, you can count on me!” Then this elderly priest did something that only my father and my mother still do to me to this day:  he traced the sign of the cross on my forehead and said “May God bless you.”  Yes, priests need priests too.  I was tired when I walked into that sacristy, and I left renewed because I had experienced Christ in this priest that I had never met who was so happy to meet me.  This is the love that St. Paul urges us to give to each other.  This is the love that brings the presence of Jesus Christ into our midst.  These small acts of love and kindness can make a difference in the life of someone who is down, who is sick, who is alone, who is desperate, or is just having a bad day.  Always remember that you walk out of this Church every Sunday with the living presence of Christ in your hearts.  Share it with someone in need this week because where two or three are gathered together in His name, Jesus Christ our Lord is right there with you.

At Home on the Cross

"Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God." (Rom 12:2)

Four year olds are some of the wisest people I have ever met.  They're honest, innocent, and can see right through your soul.  This past Monday, I was talking to a school mom who had her four year old little girl with her who all the sudden engaged me in the most profound conversation I had all week.

Girl: "Father! I know where you live!"
Me:  "Really? Where?"
Girl:  "One the cross!"
Me:  (Close my right eye, look up to the heavens and say) "Yea, that seems about right."

Maybe that little girl perceived something that other adults couldn't.  I had had a pretty lousy day up to that point.  I literally had left my office to avoid the work and messages on my desk to get some fresh air and recharge the batteries.  And then this little girl reminded me that the obstacles in the road that frustrate me and the people who try to take away my joy and the constant challenges we receive in carrying out God's plan are all things that Jesus predicted when he told us in today's gospel that we have to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow him.  Carrying a cross is hard.  Being nailed to one is even harder.  So I guess that young 4 year old knew something that I had forgotten.  As a priest, as a Christian, if I am to be like Christ, it's not enought to simply carry the cross but be nailed to it as well.  Yes, that cross was a profound moment of agony for our Lord, but it was also the ultimate sign of victory over sin and death and the powers of this world.

As Christians, and I have said this before, the crucifix that we wear around our necks isn't just a piece of jewelry.  It is a witness.  It is a sign that we are followers of Jesus Christ.  It is a sign that we will not let this world bring us down but rather be a sign that we are called to lift this world up.  St. Paul tells the Corinthians that we must not conform ourselves to this age, to the world we are living in.  The Christian must be a sign of contradiction.  We should be swimming upstream when the rest of the world is swimming downstream.  We should not get caught up in this relativistic culture with it's "anything goes" mentality.  It's so easy to get swept up in sinful mentalities, in ideas that go against the will of God, or as Jesus tells Peter in the gospel, "thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."  And how do human beings think in this age?  Everyone wants to be happy but they go through extraordinary lengths, most of them sinful, to acheive momentary "happiness."  The thirst for money, fame and power.  The thirst for making one's self the center of attention.  The constant need to look after yourself with little to no regard for your neighbor.  'What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?"  Jesus knows that what most of the world seeks is not true life. That can only be found in Him.  And in here.  In this church.  At this altar.  With this community.  In our home.  This church is a home that many have forgotten or simply don't even know exists.  This is where we learn to swim upstream.  This is where we gaze upon that beautiful crucifix over our altar and realize that this is where we belong and that we will not find what we are looking for out there.

So my friends, heed the words of St. Paul and do not conform to this age.  Be signs of contradiction.  Take up your cross daily and follow Christ wherever he goes as he leads you towards the Father's perfect will.  Yes, there will be rough days when we feel like we are hanging up there on the cross with Jesus, but that's to be expected of those who dare to follow the Messiah.  Besides, we can't ask for better company up there, can we?

Home Sweet Home

"I will bring [foreigners] to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer...for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."   (Isaiah 56:7)

There is one word that I have heard constantly over the last seven weeks that you have all used to describe this magnificent parish: home!  Time and again people have come up to me or written to me and told me "Father, this is our home."  And a parish should be our home, should be a part of our lives, for it is in our home that we find our family.  Immaculate Conception is our home. For some it is has been their home since the parish was founded 60 years ago, for others, like me, we have felt the warm embrace of this family only recently when we arrived and from the beginning have felt very much at home.  This is because of all of you who make up this extraordinary family. 

Today the readings go out of their way to tell us that everyone belongs in God's house especially those who are foreigners and do not frequent this house.  This not an exclusive club.  In the first reading from Isaiah, the Lord says: "I will bring [foreigners] to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer...for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."  And this church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception must be a joyful house of prayer, a place where all feel welcomed, and a place where we all find peace.  Here we find peace along our tiring journey.  During the celebration of our 60th anniversary two months ago, Archbishop Wenski told us: "Our parishes, where the community of sojourners meet, are then like way stations along our pilgrim way. Immaculate Conception, of course, is much more than just a simple way station or rest stop: It is truly an oasis."  And this is why we feel this our home because it is indeed an oasis and a place where together we encounter Christ in the Eucharist in this magnificent house of prayer.

But as the great Burt Bacharach wrote so eloquently in song some 50 years ago: "a house is not a home when there's no one there."  There are so many of our brothers and sisters that have forgotten where home is.  They have forgotten that this is the place where they are loved, where they are forgiven, anointed, consecrated, and strengthened in their weakness.  Like the Canaanite woman in the gospel, this is where we find healing and peace.  It is up to us to remind them, to invite them back, and to show them that when we turn on 45^th Place is like a yellow brick road that leads us back to our home. I need your help in bringing our brothers and sisters back home.   I am amazed at how many parishioners we have that live so far from here that still make the long journey to see that beautiful bell tower rise up over 45th Place because no matter where they go, Immaculate will always be home. 

Where Do You Find God?

“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” (Matthew 14:27)

 

This summer I had the opportunity to travel more than I expected.  Everywhere I go, I try to find the presence of God.  I was in Italy where I saw the Pope and obviously felt the Spirit move in that square,  and then was able to celebrate Mass in the Vatican and in basilicas and very sacred places each serving as a different encounter with the Almighty.  I was in New York where in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, undergoing a major renovation, amidst all the scaffolding and workers, there was the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the main altar.  I spent a week at the beach with my family and every day as I gazed out over the water was a new reminder of how great God is during those glorious sunsets.  But out of all these magnificent places I visited over the summer, nowhere did I experience the presence of God more profoundly than I did when I visited Assisi two months ago.  There, where St. Francis first heard the voice of Jesus telling him to rebuild his Church, on the side of a hill overlooking a magnificent green valley, at the church of San Damiano, I was overwhelmed with a profound sense of peace that I had not felt in a very long time.  Yes, I feel peace every time I visit the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and when I pray and when I sit on the beach and watch the sunset as I listen to waves softly crashing on the sand, but there in that most sacred place, I was like Peter during the Transfiguration: I did not want to go.  It was there at San Damiano that I could not help but think about all of you, my future parishioners who at the time I had not met yet.  I kept thinking about the challenging mission that God set before me when I returned home.  But I was at peace.  It was as if Jesus was reminding me of his constant presence and telling me the same thing he told the disciples in the gospel today: “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

 

I’d like to think that the only thing that tore me away from the peace that I felt on that hillside was the running meter on the taxi that had taken us up and was waiting for us or else I would probably still be there.  They had told us that the small little church that St. Francis helped rebuild with his own hands would be closed, but when we arrived there were young people inside that little church worshipping the Lord with four Franciscan Friars who were adoring the Lord during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.  “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  When I had prayed for this parish, for all of you, and for my ministry, I reluctantly started to make my way down the path back to the taxi and saw a beautiful statue of St. Francis sitting on the ground overlooking that majestic valley.  It had been raining for most of the day, but now it was early evening, the sun was maybe an hour from setting and the valley looked serene.  One could imagine St. Francis sitting in that very spot contemplating creation which he so eloquently wrote about.  I did not want to leave because when you find God in a certain place, you want to stay with him and continue feeling the embrace of his peace.

 

The first reading today tells us of Elijah waiting for the Lord.  The prophet did not find the Lord in the earthquake or the violent wind or the fire, but found God in a tiny whispering sound.  We are surrounded by so much noise that it is very difficult to hear the whispers of our God.  This is why I ask you this morning: where do you find God?  Obviously we find him here in church, but Elijah found him in a whisper, the disciples found him amidst the storm walking on the water.  We must see past the storms of our lives to fix our eyes on Jesus as Peter did when he was actually walking on water like the Lord.  When we find God, when we train our eyes intently on him, we must never look away or become distracted by the lures of the world lest we begin to sink like Peter when he becomes more aware of the strong wind and the storms rather than realizing that Jesus is right there.  He never abandons us.  He gives us the strength to do the impossible.  All we have to do is find him amidst the storms of our lives and once we do, never let our eyes wander from the beautiful and protective gaze of our Savior.

Fed By His Hand (And Saturday Adventures in Hialeah)

“The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.” (Psalm 145:16)

After one month of serving here, yesterday I finally received my first sick call, if for no other reason than there weren’t any other priests around.  We were blessed to have three priests visiting last month who helped out and covered all these duties because there were days were I would be focusing on administrative matters of the church and I world turn to my secretary and ask: “When do I get to be a priest?”  Well, yesterday, I grabbed my oils and drove down the road to visit a 92-year-old Cuban lady whose daughter had requested the last rites for her mother. This lady had just woken up when I arrived and when I walked in I asked her if she wanted to pray and she said yes.  She made the sign of the cross with me, said the Our Father with me, and listened attentively though at times I can see that her eyes and her attention would drift off.  When I was done with the visit, I said my goodbyes to her family, and this little old lady kind of sat up in her bed and asked, “Are you leaving already?”  I kind of teased her knowing what makes Cuban grandmothers tick and answered, “Do you want me to stay? Are you going to cook for me?”  Without missing a beat she belted out, “Whatever you want!”  Her nurse and her family shared a good laugh since she has been bed ridden for some time now, but her instincts were still to serve, to cook, to prepare a feast for family and visitors alike.  I remember that towards the end of both my grandmothers’ lives, what hurt them the most wasn’t their illness but their inability to serve their families and more importantly: to cook for them.

Today’s readings are all about food.  They would make my grandmothers and the lady that I anointed yesterday proud.  Jesus feeds us until we have our fill.  He is our Lord and Savior and he serves us!  Here at this altar we are fed from his hand as the psalm tells us.  Which brings me to another story about food and a priest’s hand that happened to me yesterday as well.  As many of you know, behind our school we have a convent of Discalced Carmelites Cloistered Nuns.  There are 11 of them who never leave the convent, and the priests here celebrate Mass for them twice a week.  Since they are cloistered, when I celebrate Mass there are a set of bars that divide us, and during communion they open a little window so that I can give them the Body of Christ.  After Mass yesterday, they had prepared breakfast for me.  Now I thought that they were going to have breakfast with me, but no, they prepared a little table for me on the other side of the bars of their gathering area and handed me my breakfast through a turnstile.  They make a mean hot chocolate by the way.  So these beautiful nuns just sat there watching me, eat and we talked about everything under the sun especially about the new, bigger convent that they are in the process of building in the Redlands (if you want to read more on this endeavor and how you can help them, click here: http://www.monasteriodelasantisimatrinidad.org).  I told them stories about the parish that they didn’t know and we shared some great laughs.  Before we knew it, 90 minutes had passed since I had sat down at the table.  Time is almost meaningless to these sisters.  They celebrate Mass and pray very slowly.  They’re never in a hurry whereas I always seem to be in a hurry.  Even though I didn’t want to leave, I feared that I was interfering with their daily schedule, so as I was taking my leave of them, they greeted me with the words, “Praise be Jesus Christ” and kissed my hand.  The Mother Superior held on to my right hand with great love and said to me, “When I was little girl in Mexico, my mother taught me to always kiss the hands of the priest to remind them that their hands are consecrated and that those are the hands that feed us.”

It’s amazing what happens to a priest when he leaves his office.  In fact, I believe I spent a grand total of 3 minutes in my office yesterday and it was only to retrieve personal mail.  Those experiences yesterday were humbling because they serve as a reminder that my primary mission as your pastor is to anoint and to feed you.  Pope Francis reminded us of this in his Holy Thursday homily last year.  Yet we are all called to be the hands of Jesus Christ.  We are called to feed our brothers and sisters especially those in need.  Every day Eucharistic Ministers go off to homes and hospitals to take the Body of Christ to the sick.  Every Tuesday and Thursday, our food pantry gives the poor families of our community food to put on their tables (by the way, they are running low on food so next time you’re at Publix or Sedano’s, pick up a couple of the items listed in our bulletin and drop them off in the office for our pantry.)  The food that comes down from heaven is meant to be shared, and God gives us an abundance of food because in the gospel all ate and were satisfied.  Today we must pray that we may hunger more for Him, that we heed his invitation to come to him to drink and to eat, and that we realize that we are called to feed those around us not only the poor, but also the poor in spirit that need to be fed the living word of God.  Which brings me to my last story:

The people in our neighborhood do not know Jesus Christ.  This was hammered home to me yesterday afternoon when I went to get a haircut after leaving the convent at a barber shop a couple of blocks away.  I walked in wearing my roman collar, but unbuttoned because so I could be confortable under the apron.  I asked for a simple haircut which is the same one I’ve basically had since I was 2 years old.  Yet the barber proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes sculpted the edges of my hair very carefully with trimmers and razors “to make my look younger” he said.  Finally as the time kept ticking away and I saw other customers walk in, get there hair cut and walk out, he finally asked me what I wanted him to do with my sideburns.  A little exasperated by now, I told him, “Dude, I’m a priest.  I’m not trying to impress anyone with my hairstyle.”  He looked at me funny as if he didn’t understand what I was saying.  When I finally got up, I purposely went to the mirror and buttoned my top button and put on my collar in plain view of everyone.  The barbers looked perplexed, not knowing what to make of me, and I walked out wondering if they even knew what a priest was.  But it didn’t end there, as I drove to the end of the strip mall, there was a carwash and I rolled my window down to ask how much it cost so I could bring it on Monday.  The guy told me to bring it tomorrow (Sunday) since they are open at 8am.  I kind of made sure that my collar was visible and told him that I kinda work on Sundays.  He kept insisting that I bring it it on Sunday morning, and finally I grabbed my collar by its white tab and I said, “DUDE! I am a priest!  I work on Sundays.”  He gave me the same perplexed look that my barber gave me.  If they don’t know Jesus Christ, they definitely don’t know anything about the Church ,which means they probably know nothing about priests.  My friends, it is up to us.  God is calling us to feed those around us in this very neighborhood.  May our response to God’s call be like that little old lady that I visited yesterday who without hesitation responded to my call saying, “Whatever you want!”  (And rest assured I’ll be at the carwash tomorrow morning patiently waiting for my car with a Roman Collar on.  Who knows?  I may even wear my cassock.  Takin it to the streets!)

What Do You Pray For?

“The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night.  God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” (1 Kings 3:5)

What do you pray for?  When you sit down or kneel down to pray, what is it that you want the most from God?  In today’s first reading, God gives Solomon the equivalent of a divine blank check when he tells the young king to ask for what whatever he wants.  Imagine if God approached us with a similar offer.  How would we respond?

Very, very early this morning, I went up to Davie for the first Mass of the season as Dolphins Training Camp is now underway.  I asked the players and coaches the same question: what do you pray for?  Many people tell me to pray for the Dolphins, and I do.  I pray for the coaches and their families, for the players’ safety and health.  The thing is people tell me to pray for the team to win because if they don’t win it’s because I am not praying hard enough.  Does this make sense to anyone?  Like if God didn’t have anything better to worry about than the outcome of a game.  So like Solomon, we have to put thought into what we ask of God.  We need discernment.  There are far bigger things that warrant our prayers:  the war in Gaza that’s tearing up the Holy Land, the persecution of Christians in Iraq, Syria, and throughout many countries in the world, the situation in Ukraine, the influx of innocent immigrant children into our country…this list could take up several pages and this one was just from this morning’s paper.

So we need to be like Solomon who realizes that as a young king he’s (a) in over his head and (b) needs outside help to govern this vast people.  So he asks for wisdom.  He asks for the ability to discern right from wrong.  This is what each of us needs to ask for.  We must kneel before our Lord and implore him to give us what HE thinks we need and not merely what we want.   This is maturity in the spiritual life.  And once we reach that maturity, we’ll be asking the Lord to discover that treasure in the field that Jesus talks about in the gospel.  That treasure is the Kingdom and all its peace and all its joy.  Once we find that treasure, we don’t ever want to let go of it.  People who have a genuine encounter with Jesus Christ don’t want to let him go kind of like Mary Magdalene who clung to him when she saw that he had risen from the dead.

Today we come before the altar of the Lord with many prayers.  May we add one more to that list and ask the Lord for us to be as wise and discerning as King Solomon.  That way we may seek the Lord’s will in our lives constantly and always walk in his ways.  But I want to leave you with a question to ponder this week:  If the Lord approached you as he did Solomon, and told you to ask for whatever you wanted, how would you respond?

God's Gracious Will

“Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.” (Matthew 11:26)

My friends I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled I am to be with you today to celebrate my first Sunday Mass as your new pastor.  I’m not just excited because I’m beginning a new ministry, I’m excited because everywhere God has led me has been a source of great joy as I share Jesus Christ with the people of God.  This is an amazing parish with a great tradition that spans 60 years, and as I wrote in the bulletin, I was humbled when they Archbishop called me to tell me that I was coming to Immaculate Conception in the great city of Hialeah.  While I wasn’t technically born here (I was born in South Miami hospital), my parents did live here when I was born which is why my father has no problem telling people that I was actually born in Hialeah.  We lived here for two years and now I get to come back to a place where I literally took my first steps.  This week I begin to take my first steps as your pastor, for such has been God’s gracious will.  The words of the gospel today are so comforting for all of us as we each go through this parochial transition.  We turn to God and trust in his will.  I remember three years ago, I had this exact same gospel on my first Sunday in a new parish that was undergoing a similar transition, and I spoke about the hidden things that God only reveals to the childlike.  As God’s children, we entrust ourselves to him this day so that he may continue to reveal his will to us and find rest from our burdens in the Lord.

Jesus himself promises us that he will give us rest.  We are in the midst of summer and I know that many are off vacationing especially during the long weekend, but the invitation to rest is a daily one from the Lord.  Where can we find this rest?  Where we can we put on the yoke of the Lord and learn from him?  We are so blessed as a parish that we have a Perpetual Adoration Chapel.  Jesus is there waiting for us, longing for us, and thirsting for our presence.  I invite you to get to know that chapel, to make it your second home.  Since I got here last Monday, I have always found people in their before work, after work, early in the morning, late at night, all of them brining their burdens before Jesus in the Eucharist.  It is an oasis of peace.  Even during the 4^th of July celebration on Friday, there were people there.  There is no greater treasure on this property than the Real Presence of our Lord in that little chapel.  You will find silence in this noisy world.  You will find the peace that you can rarely found out there. 

As we begin this new chapter in the rich life of our parish, may we rededicate ourselves to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  I ask for your prayers as I begin my ministry as your pastor.  Always pray for your priests.  And as we join in prayer, may we pray for each other that we may strive for nothing less than holiness.  During my first nights here, I have walked around the campus admiring the beautifully lit tower that shines brightly and can be seen all around this great community.  My prayer this day is that Immaculate Conception continue to be a beacon like that tower to all who are burdened and need Jesus Christ.  Know that I am here to serve you and to walk with you as we continue to build the Kingdom of God here in Hialeah.  Entrusting ourselves to our Blessed Mother and united in prayer, we thank God for bringing us to this moment, for this has been his “gracious will.”