January 01, 1970

All that we have is a gift from God, yet all we become, and all we do with what we have received, is our gift back to God! Read more »

January 01, 1970

How serious am I in my pursuit for salvation? How much do I truly desire to be with God, and how much am I willing to sacrifice to grow in my relationship with Him? Read more »

January 01, 1970

Terror. Violence. Fear. Sorrow. Anger. Hatred. These are only a few of the emotions that can pass through our minds whenever we encounter a violent and tragic event like the recent happenings. Read more »

January 01, 1970

How beautiful it is to live lives of gratitude and thanksgiving. Living with such a spirit transforms our whole perspective on life. We won’t focus on what we don’t have, or on what others have. Instead, we thank God for each and every blessing. Read more »

January 01, 1970

First they came for the illegal immigrants and criticized the Mexicans, and I did not speak out, because I was neither an illegal immigrant nor a Mexican. Then they started to refuse Syrian refugees... Read more »

January 01, 1970

70 Million Christian Martyrs! 70 Million people, since the birth of Christ, have been killed because they were followers of this newborn baby we celebrated this past week. That’s quite an incredible number of people who have suffered and died for their Christian faith! Read more »

January 01, 1970

To become new men means losing what we now call 'ourselves.' Out of our selves, into Christ, we must go… the Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self changed into a Christ self… One's most private wishes, one's point of view, are the things that have to be changed. Read more »

January 01, 1970

Storge love, Friendship love, Romantic love, and Agape love. Today on Valentine’s Day, let us reflect on each of these loves, and let us thank all those who have offered us these different types of love throughout our lives. Read more »

January 01, 1970

To become a new creation implies becoming something that you weren’t before – you are new, better than before, fulfilling the potential that God has given you. This new life in Christ, becoming a new creation, is a central part of our journey with God. Read more »

January 01, 1970

When we encounter God in our final judgment, He will look over our lives and see how we have treated other people, how we have responded to those in need. Have we reached out to others with simple acts of love, with random kindness, with disciplined charity, with joyful generosity – because when we reach out especially the marginalized of society, we are reaching out to Christ Himself. Read more »

January 01, 1970

In today’s Palm Sunday epistle reading, we hear St. Paul offer similar words - “Rejoice in the Lord always” - to the persecuted believers in Philippi, while he himself languished in a prison cell. Read more »

January 01, 1970

You need to have an "attitude of gratitude" an amazing prisoner shared with me. What made it even more amazing was that he was spending a life sentence in prison. Read more »

January 01, 1970

What we give for others lasts forever. How we serve others lasts forever. What we do in love for others lasts forever. This is the eternal legacy of Christians. It’s NOT what we did for ourselves. Or how we enriched ourselves. Or how we were all about our own family and our own loved ones. A legacy that lasts into eternity is one that is about giving to others, loving others, and especially serving those in need. Read more »

January 01, 1970

Mother Teresa of Calcutta offered a powerful witness to life. ‘The greatest evil in the world today is abortion,’ she would say, “because it is a war against an innocent, defenseless child. Any country or people that accept abortion are not teaching their people to love the defenseless. Instead, we are teaching them to use whatever violence is needed, to dispose of the unwanted and to fulfill their own desires.” Read more »

January 01, 1970

If we choose to participate, truly partake, in Christ’s Resurrection, our perspective of life radically changes! We will never remain discouraged; we will never lose hope; we will never despair; we will never allow darkness to prevail in our lives; for we know that Christ is Risen and He has defeated all darkness and evil. He has overcome sin. He has annihilated death itself! Through His resurrection, we see all of life through a joyous and victorious prism. Read more »

January 01, 1970

Fr Luke asked me to speak about “What God and the Church mean to me and why I give back to the Church.” We know WHY we are here – we come to encounter God, to pray, to ask forgiveness, to seek spiritual guidance and inspiration, and for so many other things. But do we know WHAT we are supposed to do as followers of Jesus Christ? Read more »

January 01, 1970

“If you want to ENTER INTO LIFE, keep God’s commandments.” What type of life is Jesus talking about? Our “everyday existence” life? A normal life, filled with the typical challenges and joys, struggles and successes? A fun life? A rich life? A successful life? Or is he talking about something more, something different, something more meaningful? Read more »

January 01, 1970

Over the past decades the medical world has helped us understand addictions as an illness or disease that must be treated, rather than a moral failure that must be judged. Just as one wouldn’t condemn a person with diabetes, or cancer, or some other physical illness, the medical field has studied and researched substance use disorder, concluding that addictions affect and even change the brain chemistry and body make-up of an individual, and thus, need to be understood and treated in a holistic way. Read more »

January 01, 1970

This idea of God’s superheroes, the saints, are what I want to focus on today. I’m going to use, however, the beautiful new 10-foot icon we just hung on the wall of our Church Read more »

January 01, 1970

I begin my sermon today with this introduction about how all of creation is affected by the fallen world we live in, because this past week we witnessed what the National Weather Service called an “unprecedented and beyond anything experienced” natural disaster with Hurricane Harvey. Imagine, more than 52 inches of rain falling in such a short span of time, a record for the continental United States. Read more »