Do you ever have a conversation and after it is over you think, “Oh, I wish I would have said this or that?” It happens to me, I imagine it happens to everyone, but also for me, I finish my Sunday Masses, or sometimes even during the readings I think, “Oh, I wish I would have preached on this or that aspect.”
Last weekend I talked about letting the Bible speak to you. The Bible is the Word of God, it is living and active, God will speak to us through it. This is why we need to take time to pray, every day, with the Bible, with good Spiritual Reading, with Prayer Resources… God will speak to us if we give Him the time.
As you may know I have been a priest for six years, which means I have gone through two 3-year scripture cycles already. Our Sunday readings repeat every three years, which means that this is the third time I have preached on these readings, once at Resurrection, once at Nativity, now here. It also means that I have two old homilies I could steal.
Today’s readings are challenging, not impossible, but very challenging for our modern ears. In our first reading, if you take St. Paul’s advice seriously when he said “Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife,” then all of you students should become priests or religious. Is that really what he is saying? No, while that would be awesome, and we wouldn’t have to close any more churches for the next 50 years, it isn’t exactly his intent to encourage religious vocations.
A central theme of today's readings is healing. I used to think that healings were something that only happened in the time of Jesus but stopped with the Apostles. But in the last four years I have seen lots of healings and I am now a big proponent of healing ministry in our Church.
By now two weeks in you have all seen and / or heard about our theme for the new school year, “Not Me, But God.” This little saying from Blessed Carlo Acutis could be taken a lot of different ways, but there are a few ways that it is present in today’s readings.
My name is Fr. Andy Upah, I am the new pastor here, it has been a real joy to be here so far, and it seems like the people like me too, I mean it's my one month anniversary and they are throwing a huge party for me! I’m just kidding, this Pork Roast has been going on for a long time, and this Polka Mass, this is my first time presiding at a Polka Mass.