Queens Church Mass Companion

The Holy Spirit - Advocate for our Mercy and our Freedom

Reading 1 - Acts 8:5-8, 14-17
Reading 2 - 1 Pt 3:15-18
Gospel - Jn 14:15-21
The Holy Spirit helped convert the Apostle Paul which led to the spreading of the gospel like wildfire throughout the known world.  It is there in the Catholic baptism and many other denominations.  It was there at Pentecost in the tongues of fire and rushing wind.  It was promised by Jesus to be sent by the father as our advocate for our mercy and our freedom.

I’m going there and I’m coming back again - The Cross as Trophy

Jesus is the answer. He said, I am the way I am The truth and the life would echo in the minds and hearts of Christians for 20 centuries. As true today as they were when Jesus first spoke them, He made it very clear to them, You want to get out of here, you want to go to heaven, you've got to go through me.
No one comes to the father except through me, and He is the way that will lead us home. Jesus is the way that will lead us to happiness. Jesus is the way that will lead us out of darkness, into light and from death to new life. But we must go the way He leads us. And that way, truth in life does indeed include Calvary.
Jesus had to bear his cross. He had to suffer that we might be set free. And He said, Whoever would be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me every day, wherever He leads us and we have our own crosses to bear. There are many. They are heavy and the way forward is unclear and full of obstacles.
But when all seem lost, Jesus was preparing for his greatest victory. He will do the same with us. And in us. And for us. And through us. If only we can trusted him not only in the light, but especially when it's dark.

The Catholic Church - House of Divine Mercy

Second Sunday of Easter (or Sunday of Divine Mercy)
Reading 1 - Acts 2:42-47
Reading 2 - 1 Pt 1:3-9
Gospel - Jn 20:19-31
In Johns Gospel we see the Apostles not in a state of celebration upon seeing the risen Christ, but instead we see them in a state of confusion, grief, shame and blame.
After discovering Christs tomb empty John and Peter don’t go out to preach the gospel in Jerusalem like Jesus instructed them to. They run and hide in the upper room. They feared that those who crucified Jesus and now apparently taken His body will be coming after His disciples next.
When Jesus reveals Himself to them they are afraid of Him. Jesus responds by saying Shalom, meaning peace, but then He does something interesting by breathing on them. This is to show them that He is real and not a hallucination; He has air in His lungs. But the divine breath goes all the way back to the book of Genesis. After God creates the heavens and the earth, he creates Adam. Adam becomes animated by the holy breath God breathes into his nostrils.
The breath of God, the word of God, the Holy Spirit; experiencing these send us on mission. But we find in the book of John that Jesus’ disciples have gone exactly nowhere. Jesus was trying to establish the Holy Church but John and Peter have hunkered down in the upper room.
The mission of the Church is to forgive sins. The Easter season is about new beginnings. Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the new Adam, went into the depths of our humanity and thus into the depths of our sin and was sacrificed on the cross so we may all have a new beginning and new life in His divine love and mercy.

Palm Sunday 2023

Palm Sunday
Reading I - Is 50:4-7
Reading II - Phil 2:6-11
Gospel - Mt 26:14—27:66
 
Jesus spoke seven times while hanging on the cross. Two of those times he quoted psalms.  Jesus needed people to know that His crucifixion was a plan eternally in the making.  This was the plan was a rescue mission for our salvation.
 
Jesus quotes Psalm 22 and King David from one thousand years prior when he said “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”  But what else did David say?  “They have pierced my hands and my feet.  They have cast lots for my clothes.”  David didn’t experience that, but this prophecy for his descendent a thousand years was accurate. 
 
Yes, Christ was trying to tell us that this was part of Gods plan to save us and to set us free.  Jesus then quotes Psalm 31 when he says “Into your hands Lord I commend my spirit.”  Jesus’ life was not being taken away but willingly given in accordance with Gods plan.  Gods Son will die that we might live.  Let us live for Him. 

The Resurrection of Lazarus

First Reading: Ezekiel 37: 12-14
Second Reading: Romans 8: 8-11
Gospel: John 11: 1-45
 
Christ performed many mighty deeds.  Of the seven miracles recorded, three of them were raising people from the dead.  First, we have Jairus, the synagogue official’s daughter. Then the son of the widow in the village of Nain. Then there was Lazarus.
 
Raising Lazarus was Jesus last great miracle before His triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem, ready for His Passover and His Passion. This last great act of raising Lazarus was met with great contempt from the cultural and class elite of that time.
 
He is also met with anger and emotion from Lazarus' sister, Martha, who tells Jesus,  "If only you were here sooner my brother would still be alive". But let it not go unnoticed the faith that Martha is displaying in her emotions. She knows Jesus is not a doctor, but she believes He is the Lord. Jesus makes Martha a promise and tells her that her brother will rise, but I think it's fair to say Jesus senses Martha’s faith and then asks her a question that sort of clears the air when he says, "Do you believe this? If you believe I am the Messiah, you should not be afraid."
 
The Lord asks us this same question anytime we face death or fear of death. Anytime we have an experience with death, whether it be a close call with death personally, or a family or friend or neighbor. How we answer that question determines not only how we face death but in a very real way it determines how we face life. 
 
Believe Jesus is God. Believe His power over sin, darkness, and death. And we don't need to be afraid to die. Once we no longer carry with us the fear of death we can live boldly. Knowing the Lord has greater things in store for all of us.

Spiritual Physics of Conversion and Salvation

Fourth Sunday of Lent
First Reading: First Samuel 16: 1, 6-7, 10-13
Second Reading: Ephesians 5: 8-14
Gospel: John 9: 1-41
The Salvific Journey occurs between the lowest points of our humanity and the Kingdom of Heaven.  By his grace, God often selects the lowest, and weakest among us to hear his word and carry out his will.  We see this in his instruction to Samuel to go and find the new king among the sons of Jesse in Bethlehem. Jesse doesn't even bother to include David, the soon to be king, when prompted by Samuel to bring forth his sons.  David was the youngest, the weakest and surely could not be the one God has chosen.
We find the same truth embedded in many of the events and stories of Jesus.  Jesus works miracles for the Gentiles and the marginalized.  He eats with prostitutes, and criminals, and tax collectors.  He touches lepers and heals the blind and raises the dead.  Jesus goes to the lowest of the low in social class and society of the time.  Wherever we see Jesus we see goodness and light, but we also see controversy and shadows as many would rather remain in the dark.
As we read the story of Jesus healing the blind man let us remember that so it goes for many stories of conversion.  The man is born blind.  And upon being given the gift of sight by Jesus, he doesn’t know who Jesus is; some man healed him as far as he’s concerned.  Then he recognized Jesus as a prophet before recognizing Jesus as being of God and finally realizing that He is God.
Darkness to light, blindness to sight, death to new life – that is the process of conversion.  That is the path that God has laid down before all of us.  Jesus is God, let us let Him heal our blindness so we can see the suffering all around us and do something to heal it.

We Thirst for You Lord

Third Sunday of Lent
First Reading: Exodus 17: 3-7
Second Reading: Romans 5: 1-2, 5-8
Gospel: John 4: 5-42
 
The story of the good Samaritan gives us another example of Jesus controversial teaching and outreach to parts of society that were deemed off limits by the cultural and political structures of that time.  Samaria was a land of Gentiles and Samaritans were only considered little better than Lepers in terms of social class.  But Jesus frequently traveled to the land and performed numerous miracles there.  We can see in this context how Jesus truly is a good shepherd, leaving the 99 in flock in search for the single lost sheep to be brought back.  Jesus goes to the people on the margins of society because he wants those last to be first, the least to be greatest, and to give them the hope of heaven.
 
In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus encounters the woman at the well.  She is on her sixth marriage and is an outcast from her own society.  Jesus doesn’t condemn her but forgives her.  Jesus shows her that a love exists that can’t be provided by the people or things of this world.  A Love from Himself, a Love from God, that can lead her to true happiness and to heaven. 

Come, Follow Me. Journey in Faith.

First Reading - Genesis 12: 1-4a
Second Reading - Second Timothy 1: 8b-10
Gospel - Matthew 17: 1-9
 
Any time the shepherd speaks to his flock he is calling us to go on mission, to become disciples and to make disciples.
 
The first story of this kind that we find in the Bible is of Abraham. Abraham, believing in the one God, serving and having faith in Him alone, when other cultures and peoples of this time believed in many Gods, Abraham at the age of eighty is called by God to journey out of his father’s house and to adventure. Without hesitation Abraham follows Gods command and is rewarded. He is elderly and childless but God promised Abraham that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. God keeps his promises as today, Jews, Christians and Muslims can refer to Abraham as our father in faith.
 
We find this theme again in Mathews Gospel when Jesus asks Simon/Peter, "Who do you say that I am?". In a great profession of faith Simon/Peter responds, "You are the Christ". In saying this, Simon, son of John, was saying that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, the fulfillment of all the prophets and of all human desire. He too was rewarded by Jesus, renamed from Simon to Peter (meaning Rock), charged with building the church, becoming our first Pope, and being handed the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
 
The path of faith is oftentimes a difficult one. We may feel uncertain at times along the way. But the story of Abraham, the story in Mathews Gospel tells us that it is always darkest before the dawn. We must be willing to bear our share of hardships. Jesus paid the ultimate price to save us from our sins. During this Lent we are called to bear our own crosses and join them with His on our own journey in the mystery of faith.

A Battle with Temptation

Todays readings are Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 and Romans 5:12-19.
God is not the author of sin, we are. We brought sin into existence when we broke Gods one rule in the garden of Eden, and we ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God does not want evil; we are tempted by it, and we choose it.
But why did God allow that slithering serpent in the garden with us in the first place?  If God knows everything and he knew we would fall victim to temptation presented by the snake, why did he put us in that situation? That is because, in Gods eyes, all of us need to be able to choose.
Jesus spent 40 days in the desert being tempted by the devil. Yes, Jesus was fully divine but also fully human and this was the time when Jesus would enter in more fully to the plights and problem of the human condition. His humanity was being tested but his divinity did not leave him. In the desert He won the battle with Satan, the prince of lies, the slithering serpent and when he was hung on the cross, He won the war.
Now it is our 40 days where we confront our temptations. We pray that through prayer, penance, fasting, almsgiving, service, sacrifice and self-denial we can trim the excesses away from our life so that whatever remains will be for His glory.

2.19.23homily

As Catholics in this upcoming season of Lent, lets go the extra mile. Turn the other cheek to insults and disrespect we may receive.
Go and read Matthew Sermon on the Mount Chapters five, six and seven.  Try asking and praying to the Holy Spirit to incorporate Jesus' teachings in our lives. 
It may not ease the pain we feel in times of suffering. It may not stop the tragedies spread throughout the world. But if I change, if you change, if the people we connect with as Christians change, then the world will be salted, light will blaze, and retaliation will once more mean to return love and kindness.