At the beginning of today's Gospel the Apostles James and John make a startling demand of Jesus. They say, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." This presumes, of course, that whatever they think is best for them is actually what is best for them. But how does God want us to pray? Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Father, take this cup away from me; but what I will, but what you will." Jesus is happy when we bring our desires to him, but always with a heart that accepts what he gives -- believing that God's will is best for us -- whether it is what we wanted or not.

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29th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Who Knows What‘s Best for our Life?

In today's Gospel, a young man goes to Jesus and asks him how he can achieve eternal life. Jesus inquires if he is keeping the Commandments, and the young man assures him that he is. The young man is desiring more from his relationship with God. So Jesus looks at him, loves him, and shows him what is lacking in his heart and thus an obstacle to divine life: He is attached to his possessions. If we want an intimate relationship with Jesus, we must not only keep the Commandments and follow the precepts of the Church -- which constitute the foundation of our life with God -- but there must also be nothing in our heart competing with God for first place. When Jesus identifies an attachment in our heart that inhibits our relationship with him, he will attach that attachment with the relentlessness of a jealous lover.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Jesus is the Most Jealous Lover

In today's first reading we hear the second creation story (found in Genesis chapter 2), where God creates the man and places him in a beautiful garden surrounded by everything he could possibly need. Yet something was not right. The man was alone. Out of God's merciful love, God responded to the man's need and created for him a helpmate: woman. The story helps us to see the Truth that God did not create us for independence but rather to for dependence: on God and on another. This is why he gives us the great gift of marriage.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time: God did not Create us to be Independent

In today's readings we have a couple examples of jealousy and factions within the believing community. What is really helpful for us is how Jesus responds to this -- by pointing back to himself. If we keep our eyes on Christ and his love for us we will be able to avoid these pitfalls.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Freedom from Envy and Judgementalism

In last Friday's Gospel, Luke gives us an important detail about the number of women disciples of Jesus and how they provide for the Lord and the twelve apostles. This glimpse into the life of the early Church gathered around Jesus reminds us that women have an essential role to play that is different from the men. And it is the same today! We need spiritual fathers in the Church to lead and pastor us, but we also need spiritual mothers -- i.e. consecrated religious women -- to support God's family with their attentive love. Just like every family needs a father and a mother to flourish, so too the Church! Let us pray that God call and bring back many consecrated women religious to our parishes so that we can have the spiritual mothers we all need! Homily from our school Mass.

The Need for Spiritual Motherhood in the Church

If we meditate on the life of St. Joseph, we realize that he had an awfully exalted task: To be husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Immaculate One, and to be father of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son of God. And God called Joseph to be this despite that he was a "sinner", unlike his bride and adopted son! St. Paul reminds us that husbands and fathers are to be "head" of their family as Christ is head of the Church. He says this not because the men are the best in the family -- usually they are not -- but rather because he wants men to step into this leadership so that they take responsibility for their growth in faith, which may not come natural to them. They learn to rely on God to give them the grace to do what seems like a very difficult if not impossible task. This was the call of St. Joseph! And this is the call for all husbands and fathers.

National Shrine of St. Joseph: God Calls Men to be Spiritual Leaders of their Families

In today's Gospel Jesus heals a man who is deaf and mute. Hearing this Gospel is a good reminder for us that Jesus, who is still present in the Church today, continues to heal through the Sacrament and through the prayers of Christians. The physical healings that Jesus performs are also symbolic of the equally -- if not more important -- spiritual healing that we need. Of what do we need Jesus to heal us? Let's respond to this invitation to ask for the healing we need and for the healing that those around us need!

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Physical Healing, Spiritual Healing

Our Sunday readings today focus on the Law. It's helpful for us to see how Moses rejoices in the laws that God gives to Israel, and he says that the nations around Israel will consider Israel to be blessed because of how God has spoken to them through the Law. The question for us this week is, 'How do we receive the laws given to us by the Church?' Do we receive them negatively -- with skepticism or indifference or disdain? Or do we receive them as God wants us to receive them -- with gratitude for this gift that actually promotes freedom and shows us how precious we are in His sight?

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time: What's our Attitude towards the Laws of the Church?

In today's 2nd reading from the 5th chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we are reminded that human marriage, a tremendously important natural good, also serves as a sign of the more important spiritual reality of Christ's real marriage with the Church (us). The physical and spiritual union of Christ and us (analogous to the physical and spiritual union between bridegroom and bride) is achieved as Christ offers His Body to his Bride (us) in the Eucharist.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time: Christ the Bridegroom

This Sunday we celebrate the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven. We might wonder why the Church insists on the importance of this event in Mary's life and in the life of the Church. Meditating on the "twin feast" of the Solemnity of the Ascension, when we commemorate the Ascension of Jesus's body into heaven, helps us to make sense of why it's so important that Mary -- body and soul -- has joined her Son, who is also there with his human body, in heaven. 

Assumption 2021: Why it Matters that Mary was Assumed into Heaven

Today's Gospel reading, which introduces the 6th Chapter of John, is an apt start to the most explicit teaching on the Eucharist in all of the Gospels. It's no coincidence that John describes a meal in which everyone attendance ate abundantly with lots leftover. Our stomachs don't get full when we go to Mass, but because the bread of the Eucharist is not mere bread but Jesus Himself, our souls leave Mass full of God.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Coming to Mass Empty and Leaving Full

After the disciples return from their first missionary journey, Jesus tells them to come away with him to be together by themselves. And this is precisely what Jesus invites us too to do with Him ... daily in prayer. 

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Necessity of Prayer (a.k.a. Love Takes Time)

In today's Gospel Jesus gives the instructions to his disciples that when they go out on mission they are to bring nothing with them except a walking stick: "No food. No sack. No money in their belts." They must have felt pretty vulnerable setting out from Capernaum, yet that is precisely the point.  When the return, they aren't starving, and all of their needs were met on the journey. God wants us to learn that He wants to provide for us, and He will do so if we let Him!

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Our Poverty and God's Providence

I'll be on my annual retreat this weekend and so won't publish a Sunday homily. But here's a homily from the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (June 12) in which we reflect on the meaning of the Immaculate and Sacred Hearts...

Bonus: The Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

It's interesting to keep our eyes on Jairus during the reading of today's long Gospel. It begins with the synagogue official's desperate plea for Jesus to come and heal his 12 year-old daughter, who is dying. As they are on the way to Jairus's house, Jesus gets detained (one could argue unnecessarily). Yet Jesus allows himself to be detailed so that he can dialogue with this woman who had been healed by touching his cloak. In the meantime, Jairus's household sends word that his daughter has indeed died. Jesus has a plan for Jairus through all of this, and it does include raising his daughter from the dead, but it also includes a lot of walking with Jesus through the darkness as we do not understand what He is doing. Pope Francis says that faith is not a light that scatters all of the darkness but rather a lamp that accompanies us faithfully through the darkness. May we learn to ask for the healing we desire and to trust during the ensuing darkness!

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time: A Lamp in the Darkness

Homilies by Fr. Matthew Wiering, Diocese of New Ulm, MN

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Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

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