Jesus

Sunday – Ordinary Time – Week 22 – Year B

Fr. Jason Homilies , , 1 Comment
Sunday – Ordinary Time – Week 22 – Year B

Have we ever had a conversation with a non-Catholic, and got the sense that they thought we were modern day Pharisees? To them we seem like Pharisees, because we have many customs and traditions, many “laws”. If we combined all the laws of the Church into books and stacked those books from the ground up, that stack might be as tall as Fr. Roy. =) Today Jesus is reminding us that church law, church customs and traditions, are not on the same level as the Law of Love instituted by God. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for allowing their own changeable laws to blind them to God’s very presence before them. The external devotions they invented, like ritual washing, were supposed to help them draw close to God. But when God drew close to them, becoming Christ Jesus, they did not recognize him. Do the laws of the Church keep us from drawing close to and following Christ?

Sunday – Ordinary Time – Week 21 – Year B

Fr. Jason Homilies , , , 0 Comment
Sunday – Ordinary Time – Week 21 – Year B

Let us think back to when we were children and wanted something. Perhaps we wanted to go over to a friend’s house. Do we ever remember calculating in our minds which parent we were going to ask? -with which parent, we had a better chance of receiving permission, a better chance of receiving a yes for our little desire. Maybe mom and dad had different opinions on how often we could spend time with that particular friend, or maybe Dad was out a lot, and so when he was with us he only wanted to say yes and make us happy. [I mean, it couldn’t be that Dad was completely clueless when it came to raising children, could it? =)] Regardless of the reasons, at an early age we detected differences in our parents, differences in their teaching, different in what they taught us through what they allowed us to do. Now Christ is our ultimate teacher, he has the words of eternal life, but St. Paul tells us that the Church is united to him in marriage. Given that their bond is a “great mystery” as St. Paul says, do we expect to find the same differences in teaching between Christ and his bride as we did between our parents? read more