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     When St. Paul speaks of his service of Jesus Christ, he talks as one who struggles to live out his faith. He does not see himself above his disciples, but companions with them in the faith, and he is trying to lead by example. Part of that leadership is admitting his weakness. He is far from the perfect Christian.

     He writes to the Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Rom 7: 15-16, 18-19) There is no law outside of himself that will force him to do the right thing. This goodness must come from within. Thus for St. Paul, it is not the Law that makes him to do good, but rather it is the action of the Holy Spirit working within him.

     We too are faced with this challenge. We know the right thing to do, but it is sometimes hard for us to muster the power to do it. Different things may stop us: fear, laziness, lack of self-control, fatigue. The only power that can help us overcome our moral apathy is the Holy Spirit. With the many gifts of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us through faith in Jesus Christ, we are carried beyond our weaknesses and given the ability to act. This is a daily challenge for us. Every day we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to make us bold, give us confidence and trust to do the right thing not by the force of the law, but by the love of Jesus Christ and our neighbor. May God give us this gift every day, that we can overcome our spiritual apathy, and do what is just, right and holy for the love of Jesus Christ.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.

     When St. Paul writes about the various gifts in the Church, he recognizes that it is through the diversity of the gifts that the unity of the Church is built up. He writes to the Corinthians: “Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit; and there are a variety of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God that inspires them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1Cor 12:4-7)

     St. Paul makes it clear that these gifts are not for one’s personal benefit or profit, but for the glory of God and the building up of the Church. It is up to the Church to determine how these gifts are to be used and when they are to be used. God has given each person unique talents that he/she alone possesses. The Holy Spirit is the source of these gifts and helps us to use them to the best of our ability. As we discover them about ourselves or others discover them in us, we need to cultivate the generosity of heart to use them for others. If we do not choose  to make these gifts available to the service of the Church, we diminish the ability of the Church to make Christ known in the world.

     In order to serve Jesus Christ faithfully, we must eagerly seek to serve his Mystical Body, the Church. For St. Paul, Christians are obliged to do more than just “pray, pay and obey.” They must actively desire to share the faith that is within them, making use of the unique gifts given to them. Each person is essential to the Church. May we recognize our responsibility and faithfully live it out.

     We do not know whether or not St. Paul had a good singing voice, but he was always exhorting his disciples to sing to God. In the Letter to the Colossians, he writes: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col 3:16)

     When persons are filled with the love of Jesus Christ, they can raise their voices in songs of praise to God for Jesus Christ. When people’s hearts are heavy with sorrow and suffering, raising their voices in sorrowful laments lightens their burdens. Jesus Christ has sent the Holy Spirit upon all believers so that they might be instruments of his divine music. The melodies and musical notes stir the depths of human hearts to express in a more intense way what they feel and believe.

     The song of God’s love that the Holy Spirit pours into human hearts needs to come out. The gift of music offers blievers a unique way  to communicate the depths of their hearts to God. St. Augustine must have had St. Paul in mind when he wrote, “He who sings, prays twice!” God’s words to his people are music from his Sacred Heart to their hearts. May the songs, hymns and spiritual songs to the Lord lift our hearts so that we may raise our voices in praise, worship and thanksgiving.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.

     When St. Paul reflects on the life of Jesus Christ, he realizes that Christ’s glory as the Son of God made man is the fruit of his sacrifice on the cross. He quotes this line from a hymn to the Church of Philippi, “Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has higly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. . .” (Phil 2:6-10).

     The path to glory that Jesus teaches us is the path of the cross. As human beings we may think of glory as fame, recognition, celebrity and wealth, but all of that will ultimately pass away. The only glory that lasts is the glory of God himself. For us to become partakers in that glory, to possess the dignity of the children of God, we must be emptied of all those things which are selfish, prideful and possessive.

     God created is to be a glorious people. The human race rejected this through the sin of Adam and Jesus himself restored it through his death and resurrection. Let us follow the path that Jesus has already walked. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us to empty ourselves of all that is not life-giving and grace-filled so that, having surrendered all the passsing desires of this life, we can focus on the one lasting thing that God wants to give us, his glorious love.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and suport Sacred Heart Radio.

Coming soon: what is Ecce Sacerdos?

     St. Paul makes an interesting comment in the Letter to the Colossians: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s affliction for the sake of his body, that is, the Church, of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the Word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now made manifest to his saints.” (Col 1:24-26)

     Paul does not mean that Christ’s sacrifice was in any way incomplete or unsatisfactory. His sacrifice was total and prefect and has brought about our redemption. Once Christ ascended to heaven, we were commanded to continue his mission in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, we unite our actions and sufferings to Christ and thus continue to make known his sacriice and the redemption it brought to the whole world. The mystery of evil is conquered and destroyed by the mystery of grace, made fully known in Jesus Christ.

     If Christians did not carry this message and continue Christ’s saving deeds, the world would not know the grace it has been given. All Christians possess a great gift and a serious responsibility. The gift is the love of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the responsibility is to continue to communicate the message and person of Jesus Christ through our words and actions. As members of His Mystical Body, the Church, we continue to embrace Christ’s sufferings and ours, so that the life and death of Jesus never loses its impact on the world.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians, and support Sacred Heart Radio.

Coming Soon: Ecce Sacerdos

     When St. Paul speaks of Christianity, he does not speak of higher or lower levels of Christian faith as if there are “cliques” of better Christians or worse Christians. All Christians possess the same goal: union with Christ in heaven. Therefore, it is important for all Christians not to divide themselves into different groups, but rather to work together. The strong need to help the weak; the bold need to help the timid and no one should cause scandal to the young believer.

     This is what St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians in his first Letter: “Be at peace among yourselves. And we exhort you brethren, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good for one another and to all.” (1Thes 5:14-15)

     No one gets to heaven under their own power. They have the help of the members of the Church, the communion of saints, the grace of the sacraments and the power of the Holy Spirit. We help to carry others, and there are some who will carry us from time to time. It is clear for Paul that the Christian faith is not just an individual practice, but the union of all the members of the Church who are working to help others to gain their common goal: holiness in this life, and heaven in the life to come.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.

St. Clare, pray for us.

Coming soon: ECCE SACERDOS. Stay tuned for more information

     When Paul began his life as a Christian, he knew it was going to be a difficult journey. Having spent part of his life as a persecutor of Christians, he knew what such people were capable of. Even faced with embracing the cross and persecution by those who were once his friends, there was no turning back for St. Paul. He met the Lord, who gave him his cross and who promised him glory in heaven. From this time on, it seems that Paul’s motto was clear: ‘No matter what happens, keep your head up. Do not be ashamed of Christ and his cross.” Paul confidence came from the fact that as he grew in Christ, he died a little more to himself.

      Paul expresses this confidence in one of the most hopeful passages of all his writings. “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies.” (2Cor 4:8-10)

     It is through our wounds that we are united to Christ and that we can make Christ known to others. It is only by undergoing the trials of the cross that we can experience the joy of the resurrection. We do not have to go and seek out persecutors. If we live as Christ lived,  and love as Christ loved, we will have to suffer, but we know that because Christ is in us and we are in him, we will conquer, because Christ has already conquered.

    We often have a fear of being seen as different from others and so we desire to just go with the flow. But Paul’s heart tells us not to be afraid to be bold in living out our faith. Paul passes on the love of Christ crucified by serving all people, even our enemies, in love. May we have the courage to do the same.

Please pray for al priests and seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.

A Blessed Feast of St. Dominic to all today, especially the Friars at St. Gertrude in Madeira and the men who received their habit as they prepare to enter the novitiate!

Contemplate the Truth, and then pass on the fruits of that contemplation to others!

     There are some people who believe that God punishes people when they do wrong. God is a hersh judge who is quick to influct pain and suffering whenever he is slighted. However, those who accept this image of God cannot be Christian. Jesus clearly portray the Father as just, but also merciful and gentle to those who repent. St. Paul clearly sees God the Father in the same way.

    Paul writes to the Galatians that the source of man’s punishment is man himself. ” Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh; but he who sows to the Spirit will reap from the Spirit eternal life.” (Gal 6:7-8)

     Paul words are those which our own parents have passed on to us. You sow what you reap. You may not suffer the consequences quickly, but in the end, those who mock or reject God bring about their own demise. The same is true for goodness. The good we do may not be noticed at first glance, but our constancy in doing good will not go without its reward.

     Paul’s hope is that the corruption brought about by our sinfulness  may lead us to conversion, and that goodness brought about by love may lead to greater holiness. Paul’s mesage for us is clear. God is not some arbitrary Judge. our lives and our actions stand as a living witness as to whether we are in Christ or if we reject Christ. God’s judgment is simply a recognition of how we have lived our life. For that reason, let us pray everyday that we possess the clarity of vision so that we can see whether we are sowing good seeds that lead to everlasting life, or sowing the weeds that will lead to the everlasting fire.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and upport Sacred Heart Radio.

Also, happy Birthday to my classmate, Fr. Bernard Weldishofer, pastor of St. Francis de Sales in Lebanon, who is 43 today!

     What is the meaning of freedom? It is a word that is used often today. As Americans, there are many freedoms that we possess, but for some, freedom means the right to do whatever one wants, to whoever one wants, whenever one wants. People with common sense realize that this is not freedom, but license, and it is not a good thing.

     The freedom that St. Paul preaches is something quite different. Paul writes to the Galatians: “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Gal 5:13-14)

     By Christ’s death on the cross, Paul realizes that God’s grace has restored us to freedom to choose the good, the right, the true and the beautiful. Freedom is not given to us for our self-satisfaction alone, but for the glory of God and the building up of one another. To give ourselves over to bodily pleasures and selfishness is to give ourselves back into slavery. We surrender our freedom to something less than we are! But if we give our minds, hearts, bodies and souls over to Christ, we become truly free. There will be pleasures and joys as well as sorrow and tears. When these are united to Christ the pleasures and joys become purer and the sorrows are lightened.

    St. Paul knows from his own life that the greatest temptations we face come from a focus on excessive bodily pleasures. They can consume us and distort our lives. When we allow these things to rule our lives, we sell ourselves for very little and reap even less because in the end, the love of God will be drained from our souls. It is clear to St. Paul that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us the opportunity to be free from sin so that we have the freedom for doing good and glorifying God. Christ has given us this freedom. May we never forget where it has come from, and the cost that Jesus Christ paid for it, his own life.

Please pray for all priests and seminarians and support Sacred Heart Radio.

     We human beings like to be in control of things. We want things to happen according to our plans in the ways that we expect. If we can control everything, we think we can have a pretty good idea of how things will turn out.  Before his conversion, it is clear that St. Paul was just like the rest of us, a control freak. He did not like to be suprised. He always wanted to control the outcome.

      After his conversion, Paul learns something different from his new teachers, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, teaches St. Paul that our desire to control everything can in fact contradict the will of God. If we want to do God’s will, we need to allow God to control things. In fact, what is needed is usually the humble recognition that we never had any real control in the first place, it has always belonged to God.

     Paul writes so eloquently in 2Cor 5:7, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith is not about taking a step into the darkness, but rather it is taking a step into the light of Christ. Seeing with the eyes of faith allows us to see God’s plan as it mysteriously unfolds in our daily life. At first, it is frightening to walk by faith, because we put our lives in God’s hands. But really, it is assuring that we walk by faith because God places us in the real world, not the world of our own creation and illusion. We can see joys and sorrows in places where we would have never looked before. Our stepping into faith helps us to realize just how dark the world is without Christ, and how bright the world becomes when the light of Christ’s truth illumines it.