Homilies - Fr. Joe
Breath of the Soul
Among our young athletes present, are there any swimmers among us? For those of you who do not know this future Olympian here, what is your name? Megan. And how long have you been swimming, Megan. I think three years. So you are pretty good by now. Megan, have you been taught how to breathe when you swim? And how do you do that? What is the secret? If I am not a swimmer and you are teaching me a first time swimmer how to breathe while swimming, what is the key thing? Turning your head. And that is when you breathe out or in? In. So you have to breathe above the water or below the water? Above water.More...
Where Did Jesus Go?
Where do people go after they die? This is a tough question especially when it is asked by a 6-year-old in kindergarten. It is amazing how intrigued young people are by this question. The usual response is that they go to heaven; they go to a better place; they go to a place where they meet all their friends and family and God. Often times, we use physical location to describe where they go. And because we do that, it makes it even sadder. The children respond, “Well I would like to go! I don’t want them to go. I want to go with them.”More...
The Best Defense Attorney
A couple of weeks ago, I had the great privilege and honor to do my civic duty and be on Jury Duty. (I have a couple of suggestions to make the Superior Court a more hospitable place. I think they should have a hospitality committee outside and maybe sing a couple of songs before the proceedings start.) It was very interesting to see the whole thing play out (this was my first time in court). There was the Deputy District Attorney (God love her, she is probably a good person but she did not look like it)—a serious looking person, slick hair, dressed in black, the tallest high heels I’ve seen (probably for an intimidation factor). Then there was the Defense Attorney (her heels were not as high as the Deputy DA’s). As the jury was being selected, many of the potential jurors were questioning why they were there in the first place since they thought it was a pretty clear cut case—he broke the law, he’s guilty. They were dismissed.More...
Reaching the Raised Bar
One of the most popular parts of our playground here is the monkey bars. The children love to play on them so much they don’t even realize they are blistering. They feel free and happy and you can see it on their faces (and hear it from my office).
Now it would be cruel to take the monkey bars and raise them to a height that they could not reach. You could just imagine the disheartened faces of these young children helplessly reaching up to no avail. That is how the Jews would have felt with the new commandment that Jesus introduced in today’s Gospel.More...
My Plan Meets God's Plan
You all are mostly second graders. As second graders, you have your entire life planned out right? I know you have an idea of what you want to be when you grow up. So what do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher. A veterinarian. A baseball player. A hair stylist. Excellent. Now that is your plan.
What do you need to do to be a ball player or to be a veterinarian or be a teacher or to be a hair stylist? What do you need to do? What is the plan for that? What do you need to do? More...
Eating Salt
First I want to congratulate for getting up this early for your First Communion! I have a question to ask you. What is your favorite food? Let me ask you a different question. Who would you love to have dinner with? Anyone in the world today? If you had dinner with Jesus wouldn’t that be a memorable dinner?
You know, it was a memorable feast and that is why every single Catholic Church in the world is listening to this Gospel today—because it was so memorable—it wasn’t pasta; it was fish. It was a fish and chips breakfast. “Come and eat with me,” says the Lord. It was so memorable they remembered how many fish they caught. The meals with Jesus were so memorable that all four gospels include meals with Jesus both before he died and after he resurrected. More...
Expanding the Universe
In the 1930’s, there was a Belgian, Catholic priest, a cosmologist, a physicist, who looking at the universe devised a theory explaining that the universe in all of its expanse had originated from one small ball of energy. And cosmologists and physicists have since endorsed that theory which we know today as the “Big Bang Theory”. It is amazing then to see the universe in all of its galaxies and stars and planets and all of its expanse. We know now last year that cosmologists say that the universe is expanding much faster than we had ever thought—at around 74 kilometers perMore...
Looking Forward to our Funeral
Three years ago, I was ordained and it was a joyful celebration. When I got into the office here at Holy Spirit I was riding the high of ordination. I remember sitting down at my desk the first day and there was a big manila envelope from the Bishop for me. I thought, “Wow, the Bishop is so considerate, he must be welcoming me to this great ministry.” I opened it up and it was a planning document for my funeral! He just ordained me and he wanted me dead already!More...
Christian: Victor or Loser?
Nobody likes to be called a loser. (After my CAL Bears lost, some have called me a loser. I’ve forgiven them). I think March Madness says a little about what we value in our culture; here we have 64 teams all thinking that they are going to win. When it comes down to it, we do not value losers. We do not ever want to be called a loser ourselves.More...
Repent or Perish
In a private, Catholic, all-boys high school in this area, part of their discipline system is a system called JUG. Recently I overheard these boys talk about these things—JUG this and JUG that. It definitely was on their conscience—this system called JUG. So I had to ask what is JUG? They said,”Judgment Under God” or “Justice Under God.”
