The Key to the Pro-Life Movement
This was a talk I gave to Catholics and Evangelicals at a "40 Days for Life" a few years ago based on the theology of Msgr. Phillip Reilley, founder of NYC's "Helpers of God's Precious Infants." It is more than simply *why* you should pray at the abortion mill. It is about how to go to Calvary: We move from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the other Calvary, both to simply remain with Jesus crucified, as did St. John and the Blessed Virgin.
23rd Sunday After Pentecost 2016
This homily is about victory in loss and how good comes from evil in your life. We took these pictures in Rwanda two years ago. In the top picture, the Blessed Mother appeared in Kibeho in 1981 and 1982 in a Vatican-approved apparition. Below, we walk in a Eucharistic procession through the streets that—only 20 years prior— the dead had been macheted in the genocide. Now the King of Life and Love triumphs over death on the streets.
Same Sex Attraction: Bearing the Beams of Love
I asked a close friend to write about his experience with same-sex attraction. His life reflects a poem by William Blake: And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face. —The Little Black Boy Each of us has different set of beams of love to bear, so I'm sure that you'll find his life an inspiration.—Padre Peregrino By CJ: I am a child of a God. I am a traditional Roman Catholic. I am a traditional Roman Catholic, a child of God who has same-sex attraction. I have known that I was different since I was young. Ironically, while these confusing feelings were just entering my life, I had discovered the pearl of great price – I had discovered Jesus Christ. I wish I could say that, having [...]
22nd Sunday After Pentecost
How to make of your life an offering to God.
St. Paul and the Blessed Virgin
Everyone knows that Catholics love the Blessed Virgin Mary and everyone knows that Protestants love the Apostle Paul. But did you know that a 17th century woman saint was shown in a vision the life of Mary? Venerable Mary of Agreda (ok, almost a saint) was a Spanish Franciscan nun. She was given the private revelation of the entire life of Mary (from her Immaculate Conception to past her Assumption and Coronation) all of which she recorded in a book called The Mystical City of God (not to be confused with a similar title of St. Augustine, written 1200 years earlier.) This Franciscan nun's private revelation of the life of Mary is over 2000 pages! Jansenists did not like her book. However, Pope Innocent XI, decreed on 9 November 1681, that the Mystical City of God could be freely spread among the clergy [...]
21st Sunday After Pentecost
This homily is on the healing power of forgiveness, borrowed mostly from Fr. Gary Selin (and a little from Jeff Cavins.)
On the Separation of Church and State
When Thomas Jefferson used the term "separation of Church and State" it was to assure a group of Baptists that the State would not trample the rights of their community. He wrote: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the [...]
Our Lady of the Rosary
October is the month of the Holy Rosary. I took this picture outside of the Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei in Italy during Easter week of 2016. The Church was built about 140 years ago by a former-satanist, Bl. Bartolomo Longo, a man who changed his life through the Rosary. He is now up for canonization.
How to be a Better Father
"How to be a better father" is a talk I gave to men last night. It’s based on St. Peter’s first letter to his own men.
19th Sunday After Pentecost
The entire story of Jews and Catholics meet: God marries His people in today's Gospel, Matthew 22.