My New Baby's Heartbeat in the Womb

 

Meet either P.J. or Hope!

 

 

Here is a recording of the heartbeat:

 

The Seeds of Faith, Hope, Love (Homily #34)




Photo credit: meandmymustardseed.wordpress.com



 

HOMILY

The Mustard Seed of Faith, Hope & Love (& the Need to Live and Die in the State of Grace)

Sat., June 13, 2015

5pm Mass

 

Last year, I was eating some apples with a group of little kids.  When I got to the middle of the apple, I literally took out one of the small seeds and showed it to them.  And I said very slowly, “Do you see this apple seed?  The kingdom of God is like this apple seed.  It is small now, but later it will become a big tree.”  With their eyes wide open, they touched the seed.

As we know, the apple seed needs to be first planted in the ground.  It then needs to be regularly watered, so that the seed in turn grows into a large tree where birds can dwell in the tree.

 (1) And like the parable of the mustard seed [in the Gospel], the seed of faith was planted in our souls at baptism.  (2) The seed of faith that was planted in the soil of our soul is watered with regular reception of the Sacraments of the Church.  (3) The birds that come to rest in the branches of the strong tree are fruits/works of love that are pleasing to God.  But it all starts with faith!

I.

Faith is the first of what are called the three theological virtues.  The second theological virtue is hope.  And the third and highest of the three is love or charity.  A Christian is set apart from the world through these three virtues.  We cannot please God without faith, hope and love.  In fact, when we die, we must have faith, hope and love in our souls. 

Interestingly, when the Church examines a candidate for sainthood, one of the first things that is examined is whether this person has lived the life of faith, hope and love.

You see, when you were baptized, God planted through your parents and godparents the little seeds of faith, hope and love in your soul.  Not only was original sin removed, but what replaced sin was God’s very life – sanctifying grace – making us a child of God.

Faith is defined here simply as believing in God even though we do not see God with our physical eyes.  In the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote his Second Letter to the Corinthians that we “walk by faith not by sight”.  Faith goes beyond the five senses, beyond the five senses of sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch.

Take our faith in the Holy Eucharist, for example.  We believe that at the consecration, the bread is no longer bread, but it is changed into the true and Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  It is not a symbol the way our separated Protestant brothers and sisters believe that it is a mere symbol.  It may look like bread, smell like bread, taste like bread, sound like bread, and feel like bread.  But it is NOT bread.  Faith tells us when a validly ordained priest whose priesthood can be traced back to the Twelve Apostles consecrates the bread and wine, faith tells us that it is literally the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

In a Eucharist hymn called “Tantum Ergo” which was written by St. Thomas Aquinas over 800 years ago and sung by the Church when exposing the Blessed Sacrament, we sing:

Praestet fides supplementum / sensuum defectui   Simply translated from Latin to English, it means “faith supplies” (fides supplementum) when the five human senses are defective” (sensuum defectui).  Faith supplies where the senses fail.

This is why, even though feelings are an important part of being human, feelings are not the foundation of a living Christian faith.  Feelings come and go.  Faith is a free act of the will, and one can still have faith even when our feelings are gone.  Faith must go beyond mere feelings and emotions, and it must mature and grow especially when the human senses fail.  When we don’t feel like having faith, we still believe.

II.

The second point is that just because the seed of faith was planted in the soil of the soul doesn’t mean that it will automatically grow by itself.  Faith needs to be watered.  Otherwise, just like a seed in the ground without water, the seed will die.  Faith receives growth primarily through the Seven Sacraments of the Church. 

A sacrament is a visible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, to confer grace.  A sacrament is a visible sign, instituted by Jesus Christ, to confer grace in the soul.  The gateway is the Sacrament of Baptism.  The Sacrament of Confirmation, where we are born again in the Holy Spirit, perfects and completes our Baptism.  The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the third of the Sacraments of Initiation.  The Eucharist is the most important and highest of the Seven Sacraments.  It is the Most Blessed Sacrament.  The City of Sacramento, California, which is also our diocese, is named after the Most Holy and “Blessed Sacramento” of the Eucharist.

Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist initiate us.  Dear brothers and sisters, this is why it is important to nourish the seed of our Faith with weekly Sunday Mass.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said that without the Eucharist, the Church would simply not exist anymore, and the world would have forgotten what Jesus did for the world.  As we prayed in the Responsorial Psalm, “Lord it is good to give thanks to you” or perhaps as we say in the Mass, “It is right and just.”  It is “right and just” that we attend Sunday Mass.

And when we fall from our baptismal promises, Jesus gives us the Sacraments of Healing which are Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick.  The Sacraments of Service are Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony.  In the healing Sacrament of Reconciliation, sometimes called Penance or Confession, a soul in the state of sin is restored to baptismal innocence. 

Remember, at baptism, one is infused with faith, hope and love.  But when we commit what the Bible calls serious or deadly or mortal sin, we lose love or charity in our souls.  Love is killed.  Faith and hope still remain even with mortal sin, but charity and love (agape) in the soul is dead and cut off from God.  The Sacrament of Confession restores us to the state of grace. 

All our good works mean nothing and are a noisy gong if we are not in the state of grace, in the state of love.  We must be in the state of love when we die to go to heaven.  Those who die in the state of serious or deadly or mortal sin cannot ever enter heaven, but the Good News is that the Sacraments of the Church will help us nourish the seed of faith, hope and love so that we live -- and most importantly die -- in the state of grace and love. 

III.

And the third point is that the seed of faith, that was planted in us at baptism, ends with sight.  In heaven, you will not need faith anymore because you will see God as He is— in the face to face vision of God—the beatific vision.  Hope ends when you are in heaven.  Why?  Because you’ve attained heaven, so hope is no longer needed.  But while faith and hope end in heaven, love still remains [in Heaven].  All our works, especially for the vulnerable and the poor and the least of our neighbors, will carry into the next life and will define us for all eternity.  [Departed from prepared text here.]  Our acts of love define us for all eternity. 

When the Second Reading talks about walking by faith and not by sight, St. Paul also reminds us that with faith we seek to please God so that when we stand before the awesome judgement seat of Christ, we too will receive our recompense.  And like the First Reading and the Gospel, the birds of the air that rest in the branches of our souls represent the fruits of many good works of love and mercy that the saints in heaven rejoice for all eternity.

 

So, to summarize: (1) First, the seeds of faith, hope and love were planted in our souls at Baptism.  (2) Second, the seeds of faith, hope and love are watered with regular reception of the Seven Sacraments of the Church.  (3) The birds that come to rest in the branches of the strong tree represent the fruits of the works of love that are pleasing to God.

So whether it’s an apple seed that I showed those little children, or a little mustard seed from the Gospels, or the seed of faith that was planted in our souls at Baptism, let us live the life of faith, hope and love.  As it is written in the Word of God from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, may the seed of faith that was planted in you “put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar.  Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it…and all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, bring low the high tree and lift up the lowly tree.  As I, the Lord, have spoken, so will I do.”

Amen.

 

The Word of God at Holy Mass Deeply Moved Me Today

Today, when the lector said "The Word of the Lord" to end the reading, I had warm tears in my eyes and was so choked up that I could barely whisper the customary response, "Thanks be to God."  I then made the reply in my heart, too, with my eyes closed looking up to Heaven.

I was standing at the very back of the church -- the narthex area -- by myself with my one-year old daughter who was strapped to me in a baby carrier.  She must have noticed something about me because when I looked down at her face after opening my eyes, she was just staring at me which she doesn't normally do.  Her hands were on my cheeks.  Her look all the more melted my heart which at that moment was already in deep gratitude to God.

My heart felt lighter, and I felt consolation for my years of service to Him which is only a blink of an eye to Him.  I felt physical strength and reinvigorated to once again endure the hardships for His name.

Following Christ is not always easy, especially when the persecution is internal by liberal Catholics who have an agenda to change the Church's teaching, and especially when they exile you for trying to promote the authentic teachings of the Church.  This type of persecution is, in some ways, worse in that the Catholic loyal to the Magisterium is made to look like a rebel and the virtue of obedience is used against the loyal Catholic.  People -- both within the Church and those outside looking in -- do not understand that there is an unprecedented internal war even within the highest ranks of the members of the Church herself.  But wisdom is vindicated (or at least someday will be). 

I highlighted the parts of St. Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians that profoundly moved my heart.

 

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 365

Reading 12 COR 6:1-10

Brothers and sisters:
As your fellow workers, we appeal to you
not to receive the grace of God in vain.
For he says:

In an acceptable time I heard you,
and on the day of salvation I helped you.

Behold, now is a very acceptable time;
behold, now is the day of salvation.
We cause no one to stumble in anything,
in order that no fault may be found with our ministry;
on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves
as ministers of God, through much endurance,
in afflictions, hardships, constraints,
beatings, imprisonments, riots,
labors, vigils, fasts;
by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech,
in the power of God;
with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left;
through glory and dishonor, insult and praise.
We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful;
as unrecognized and yet acknowledged;as dying and behold we live;
as chastised and yet not put to death;
as sorrowful yet always rejoicing;
as poor yet enriching many;
as having nothing and yet possessing all things.


 

 



Blessing of 45th Wedding Anniversary (w/Renewal of Vows) Outside Mass

Order of Blessing for Married Couples Outside Mass w/Renewal of Vows (for my in-laws)
His Lordship's Restaurant, Berkeley, CA
Sat., June 6, 2015

New (Transitional) Deacon

"Father's Love & Christ's Divinity" (Homily #32)

Homily #32c (5pm Mass)

 

 

Homily #32a (10am Mass)

 

 

Partial Homily #32b (12pm )

(cut off due to lack of space on recorder) 

 

 

 

 

HOMILY 32a-c

Most Holy Trinity: “The Love of Abba & the Divinity of the Son and Spirit”

St. Catherine’s, Vallejo

10am, 12pm & 5pm Masses

 

 

I.                   "I LOVE YOU"  = "FATHER-SPIRIT-SON"

I love you.  These words are some of the most powerful words in the English language.

En Español, “te amo” is literally “you I love”. 

In Vietnamese, “Anh yêu em” is “love you I”

In Tagalog, “Mahal kita” is “love I to you”.

But whether we mix the word order as in “love I you” or “you I love”, the idea is pretty much the same.  There are 3 principles in operation, in relation to, or in communion with each other.

 

The first principle is “I”.  The second principle is “you”.  And that which connects the first principle and the second principle is a third principle “love”.  “I” and “you” are connected with “love”.  They form 1 sentence.

At least in English, we say there is 1 sentence but 3 distinct words.  “I love you.”  We do NOT say that there are 3 sentences and 1 word; rather, we say 3 words in 1 sentence.

[SLOW DOWN HERE]  And so, too, in God there are 3 living, divine, co-equal Persons: The Father, Son, and Spirit.

In the Gospel of Matthew today, Jesus himself revealed this mystery, the 3 Persons of the one Holy Trinity.  We do not say there are 3 gods, but 3 Persons in 1 one God.  In the Creed, we profess that we believe in only 1 God.

 

In the one Godhead, the Father loves the Son.  And the Son loves the Father.  And the love that unites them is the Spirit.  To use the words of the Creed at Mass, the first principle, the Father, begets the second principle, the Son.  And the Son, is begotten of the Father.  And from their communion with each other, the Holy Spirit proceeds.

The Son is NOT the Father.  The Son does not beget the Father.  And the Father is not begotten of the Son.  Those of us men who have physical children beget children.  Children don’t beget parents but are begotten of their parents.  Our earthly fatherhood is in the image of God the Heavenly Father since earthly dads carry the seeds of life to beget new life.

 

II. THE DIVINITY OF GOD THE SON

[Light and use candle here!!]

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.

Jesus is “God from God”.  Light from Light.  Jesus is “true God from true God.”  Jesus is “begotten, not made”.  We never say that Jesus was created, but rather that he is begotten.

And just like [this] light is of the same substance as this other light, Jesus is of one substance with the Father.  He is “consubstantial with the Father”.  One substance of light but two distinct candles. 

Through him – Jesus the Word of God – all things were made.  No other founders of world religions can claim this.  God speaks one Word and one Word alone.  As we see in today’s Responsorial Psalm, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their host.  For he spoke, and it was made; he commanded, and it stood forth” (Psalm 33).

And just as when human beings speak words, what comes with those words?  Our breath, right?  Wind from our lungs.  Pneuma in the Greek.  (That’s where we get the word pneumonia.)  When God speaks His Word, he sends Pneuma, His Breath or His Spirit.  Through this Word, all things were made. 

And the Word became flesh!  God became one of us.  In the Creed, we profess to all the world, “For us men and for our salvation, he [– Jesus – ] came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”

Jesus is God.  For a baptized person to deny this teaching is a heresy called “Arianism.” A R I A N I S M.  Arianism.  Arianism denied that Jesus is God.  And when a baptized person denies that Jesus is God, then one eventually denies the Holy Trinity, too.  Both mainline Protestants and Catholics commonly believe that Jesus is God.  But there are groups (claiming to be Christian) that deny Jesus is God, like Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons.  Iglesia ni Christo, which was founded by a human being Felix Manalo about 100 years ago, denies Jesus’s divinity.  They are Arians.  For them, Jesus is just a great guy, a great prophet/teacher, not divine.  But Christians have always believed in the divinity of Christ and in the Holy Trinity.

 

III. THE LOVE OF GOD THE FATHER

We just reflected on God the Son.  Let us now reflect on God the Father.   When the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them to pray, Jesus clearly revealed God as Father or in Aramaic “Abba” which means a very intimate “Daddy”.  Or “Papa” in Spanish or “Tatay” in Tagalog or something that shows a very close relationship, a term of endearment. 

That means that Jesus did not reveal God as mother, even though God has motherly-like qualities, God is not God our Heavenly Mother.  Rather, as we see in the liturgy, the priest says, “At the Savior’s command, and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say”, we dare and confidently and boldly call God Father / Abba / Daddy.  As we heard in the Second Reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Paul says that we cry out “Abba, Father!”

I myself didn’t really get this point about God and our loving Father for many years until I heard renowned biblical scholar Dr. Scott Hahn who was a Protestant minister that became Catholic by studying the Bible.  He once had a conversation with a fellow scholar that was Muslim.  And in that conversation, Scott Hahn said, “You mean you don’t refer to God as a loving Father?”  The Muslim said, “No, Muslims do not believe God is Father.  Because when you say that God is Father, that means that he has children.  And for Muslim, we do not believe that God has a Son or children.  It is an insult to us.  God is Allah, which means “submission.”

Scott Hahn asked, “What do you mean submission?”  The Muslim scholar said, “If my dog does not obey me, then take it outside and shoot my dog.”  My brothers and sisters in Christ, in my 25 years of teaching the Catholic Faith, I’ve had handful of good Muslim students.  Whenever I asked my Muslim students if this story is true about not calling God a loving Father, all my Muslim students would always say yes.

[SLOW DOWN!] For us Christians, God is a loving Father that will not take us outside and shoot us like a dog.  Rather, He runs to us!!  He takes in His arms around us and He kisses us and He hugs us!!  And like a daddy holding his baby daughter trying to smother her with love and tickle her, Our loving Heavenly Father comes to us ALL THE MORE when we mess up!!  The words of St. Paul hit home today, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear (and terror), but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, “Abba, Father, Daddy”.  You are an adopted daughter of God; you are an adopted son of God.  And if you are a child of God, then you are joint heirs with Christ our Brother inheriting eternal life.  So when we pray the Our Father, let’s pray the Our Father with all our whole heart and ponder deeply the love of the heavenly Father as revealed by His Son for you (and me).

 

IV. THE GIFT OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

One brief point about the Holy Spirit since we already celebrated the Person of the Holy Spirit last week at Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit is God.  The Spirit is not an impersonal Force; rather, as we profess in the Creed, the Spirit of God is the Lord and Life-Giver.  He, the Spirit, is adored and glorified equally with the other persons of the Holy Trinity. 

 

 V. 2 PRACTICAL WAYS TO LIVE IN THE HOLY TRINITY TODAY

So, you may sit there and say, this is fine, Deacon, you preached about the Son, the Father, and Holy Spirit, but what does the Holy Trinity mean for me now?  Well, if we are in the image and likeness of God, then that means that human beings have dignity and are in the image and likeness of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.  Just as the Persons of the Trinity are in communion with each other and give themselves totally to other in the service of each other in a sacrificial way, so too, we human beings should be in communion with each other.  Here are two practical ways to live this out.

First, for the nuclear family, the family is in the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity.  Daddy loves Mommy, and Mommy loves Daddy, and from their love, in time, proceeds a third person, new life.  And then in our parish community, we are called to be in communion with each other with the Holy Eucharist as the source of our unity.  The devil today seeks to mock the Trinity and the family and divide parishioners.  The devil wants to set up a false image of the family, an anti-Trinity and an anti-family lifestyle that is diabolical.  But the future of the Church and a healthy society passes by way of the family in the image of the Trinity.  Just as the persons of the Trinity selflessly give themselves to the other, so too the family must be in communion with each other (not this perpetual class warfare) as a community of life and love.  It is the family, not the state, not the individual, that is the basis for a healthy society. 

And this leads to the second practical point about the Holy Trinity.  The Trinitarian model is the foundation of Catholic social teaching, justice and action.  When the family is in communion, then the city will be healthy.  And when cities are healthy and in communion, then states and counties are in harmony.  And when nations, and diverse cultures, races and countries are in harmony, and in communion, living out the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity, then there will be peace not war and suffering.  The international community cannot have peace without God!

On this Holy Trinity Sunday, let us reflect on God the Father who is our loving Abba, the divinity of God the Son, and the gift of God the Spirit.  We close with the words from the First Reading in the Book of Deuteronomy.  “This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God…and that there is no other.  You must keep his statues and commandments…that you and your children may prosper...and have long life on the land the Lord your God is giving you forever and ever.  Amen.