1. Day 200 - I've been a priest for 200 days. What's it like to be a newly-ordained Catholic priest in the 21st century? Here's a look by the numbers:

    ~330 Confessions (including hearing >60 in one sitting)
    243 Masses (and nearly that many homilies)
    214 Tweets and Retweets (@TylerTenbarge)
    134 Posts on Instagram (@tylertenbarge)
    28 Anointings of the Sick
    19 Blog Posts
    10 Baptisms
    8 Funeral Masses & Prayer Services
    6 Penance Services
    5 Retreats
    2 Official Assignments from the Bishop: St.  John the Baptist Parish and Memorial High School
    2 Concelebrated two priestly ordinations
    1 occasion of offering Viaticum to the dying
    Plus more dinners with parish families, sporting events at Memorial, meetings, trips through SJB School, visits with the seminarians, emergency calls to hospitals, and hours in prayer than I can count.
    And it all began with One Call and the only response that makes any sense >>"Yes, Lord."
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  2. SUMMARY: If we realize the gift of God in Christmas, then our lives will change. We won’t just love the songs and material elements of Christmas. If we let the fullness of the Christmas story—our God breaking through and being born unto us, being born within our hearts… if that’s what happens this Christmas for you, then we will indeed love Christmas, because we will love the Lord.



    Christmas Homily


    I love Christmas. Who doesn’t?

    We have Christmas songs like jingle bells and silent night everywhere, even on Country radio; and if you don’t like country music, I wouldn’t recommend listening to it during the holidays (although I like it just fine!).

    We have nativity scenes with shepherds and wise men and as many sheep and cows and donkeys as come with the set.

    We get dressed up. Little girls in their shiny dresses and bows and ribbons in their perfectly—or once-perfectly curled hair. Boys with ties that are never tight and pants that are too short or too big, but still look great on Christmas.

    Families gathered like chicks under the wings of mama hens and piled into our church and gift-giving galore.

    Who doesn’t love Christmas?

    In the midst of all of this, do we forget the Christmas story? I don’t mean the details. We know those: the Angel visits Mary, Joseph stays with Mary, they find no room and then the Child of God is born unto the world. We know that, but do we… do we know it? Has Christmas, has the Baby born in the stable entered into our hearts?


    A few weeks before Christmas in 1988, an earthquake devastated the northwestern section of Armenia. An estimated 25,000 people were killed. In one small town, just after the earthquake, a father rushed to his son's school where he had earlier dropped him off for classes. When the father arrived, he found that the school had been completely leveled. There was no sign of life. All that remained was a pile of rubble, rising dust, and utter silence.

    Like every other morning when he dropped off his son, he said, “No matter what, I will come for you when you need me.” It was kind of his motto. “I will come for you.”

    Though the prospect of finding his son appeared hopeless, the father began desperately prying concrete walls, removing rubble, and digging under beams in the place where he believed his son’s classroom had once stood. Other parents helped at first, crying out, “My son!” and “My daughter!”

    After several hours, no person was found alive. Despair set it. Many parents and volunteers started going home. Some told that father to go home, that there was no chance that anyone could survive this. He responded, “I made my son a promise that I’d be there for him anytime he needed me, and I won’t give up.”

    And so this relentless father worked alone. He simply had to know for himself whether his boy was alive or dead. After six hours of digging, no signs of life. Six hours quickly became nine hours. Nine hours became 12 hours, and so on. Around the clock, through the night, this loving father searched for his child. Then, after 38 hours of tireless digging through the collapsed school, he heaved away a heavy piece of concrete, and his heart nearly stopped.

    A child’s voice—his child’s voice—could be heard faintly under the rubble.
    Dad! It's me!
    The father’s heart burst with joy. He yelled back to his son that he was here and wasn’t going to leave him.

    The boy had been spared by a tent-like pocket that had formed over top of him, keeping heavy chunks of concrete and metal from crushing down upon him.

    But he wasn’t alone.

    Through his own tears, this father heard his son’s tired voice call to his classmates trapped under the debris with him, saying,
    I told you that He would come!

    Christmas is like God’s great rescue operation. From the beginning of time, since the Creation of the world, since the Breath of God expanded the soul of Adam and created Eve, our God has desperately searched for us. He sent us prophets like Jonah who taught us how to live and patriarchs like Moses who guided us out of slavery. He sent us kings like David to govern all things well and priests like Aaron and Melchizedek to offer sacrifices for the times when we failed, and then, in the fullness of time, he came to us himself…
    An utterance of a terrifying angel to a virgin trembling in her parent’s home…
    From the lips of a being without flesh comes the Word of God, the Son of God, God himself in the flesh…
    A mighty king descending his lofty throne to enter into his Creation in an outpost town, upon a bed of straw.
    That, my friends, that is the Christmas story! That is the gift of Christmas! That God loves us so much that he couldn’t bear to teach and lead from afar or through intermediaries a moment longer, and so he came to us Himself.

    But that’s only Part One of the two-part theodrama. Now, we must ask: are we—are you—ready to receive His gift?

    Take a look at your life right now. What tent-like hole are you trapped inside? What burdens or habits or things or people or doubts or struggles bury you under the weight of crushing darkness? Christmas isn’t about presenting ourselves as clean and strong. Christmas is about the stable of our lives into which the Lord of the Heavens and Earth longs to be born! Let him find you. We know how the Christmas story begins. It begins in Bethlehem, it begins with a birth. But letting him find you here in this church, in your life right now... that is how the Christmas story ends, how it finds its fullness—
    When shepherds hear the Gloria of the angels and make their way to stumble upon the stable…
    When cattle low and drummer boys play on…
    When bells ring, the night is silent, and choirs of heaven rejoice in Heaven, on earth, in our churches, and even on country radio…
    When wise men and wise women come with gifts, great gifts, precious gifts of their heart, their mind, their strength and come to him from far off lands…

    Lands of wandering from our God without contact at a church or in prayer in months, maybe years…
    Lands where social or personal or interpersonal earthquakes have separated us from family and from love and from a fuller life…
    Lands of anger and fear and frustration and hurt—real hurt—real hurt…
    Lands that are just too cold and far-flung now…
    Lands we want to forsake…
    Today is Christmas Day! Christmas Day! The day of our salvation! The day to let our desperate and relentless Father pull off the rubble and beams and walls that separate you from Him. To let him find you in your dark, smelly, beast-filled stable in the outpost town you’ve lodged within for far too long.

    Because that is the Christmas story… that’s why He sent His Son two thousand years ago.

    I love Christmas, and that’s why. Yes for the gifts and songs and everything else, but really because Christmas, if we believe in Christ and if we live like we believe in Him... well there is no greater gift.


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    Labels: Christmas Homily Jesus


  3. Holy Hour for Vocations – Evening Prayer and Adoration before the Priestly Ordination of Deacon Homero Rodriguez
    Philippians 4:4-5

    About two years ago, after a daily Mass at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, we students and monks processed out of our many chapel doorways and gathered in the long, narrow narthex. It was Noon, and we recited the Angelus before the gaze of Our Lady. A fellow student made an introduction of someone who was new to the Holy Hill and said this new guy was or would soon be connected with the Diocese of Evansville. So, I made my way to say hello.

    “I’m Tyler. I’m studying for the Diocese of Evansville. What is your name?” That is when Deacon Homero Rodriguez replied back to this English-speaking, southern Indiana farm kid with, “I’m Homer.”

    “Homer?”

    “Yeah, it’s probably easier for you than “Homero”.

    Soon to be Father Homero or Padre Rodriguez had arrived a few hours before that meeting, and he was already… he was already so conscious of the culture of another person that he even introduced himself in my native tongue. He was an incarnation of bridging culture, of reaching people, much like Our Lady of Guadalupe to an indigenous Mexican peasant years ago. Deacon Homero’s introduction spoke volumes to me that day, and, Dcn. Homero, your presence as a bridge-builder between the Latin culture and the culture of our Diocese has spoken volumes in which we truly rejoice.

    St. Paul exhorts the people of Philippi to “Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice!”

    It’s the third Sunday of Advent—Gaudete Sunday—a Sunday of celebratory hope nearing Christ’s coming at Christmas.

    It’s the evening of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe—a celebration recalling Mary’s coming in the likeness of an indigenous American, and of her gentle and powerful intercession ever since.

    It’s the evening before an ordination, a priestly ordination of a would-be missionary who is now a native son, a new priest who has come to serve God and Christ’s Church here in the Diocese of Evansville.

    Rejoice? I think we’ve got have plenty of reasons to heed the Apostle’s command this evening. It’s a celebratory occasion. It’s easy to rejoice right now. But is that all the rejoicing He calls us to?

    I’m a big fan of soccer, and the team I cheer for from Seattle, the Sounders, won the MLS Cup last night in a below-freezing match in Toronto, Canada. This Cup is the biggest prize in North American soccer, and Seattle has had great seasons but had never before claimed the Championship. As each member of the team received the trophy and hoisted it high above his head, you could see muscles in each player’s neck, face, legs, arms straining with satisfaction, with great joy. Their whole selves were in that celebration.

    Have you ever felt that joyful?

    We long to heed St. Paul’s exhortation to rejoice always, and that longing for deep and satisfying joy is exactly what we find when we give ourselves to God when we follow His unique call in each of our lives.

    I don’t need to tell you that God created us—me, you—not generally, but individually, specifically, with a personal call to holiness. Many of us have already made permanent commitments to our vocations. Some of us are in training. Some of us are merely testing the waters of God’s deep, frightening, yet attractive whisper to our hearts. Some of us are probably hearing tonight that you are called for the first time, in any meaningful way.

    Yet no matter whether we’ve lived 40 years in our vocation of marriage or whether we are picking out engagement rings, whether we are a priest of six months or a seminarian of two or four or ten years, no matter whether we are hiding from God or finally letting the thinnest crack finally grow down the center of our hearts, know this: when we give ourselves to God, when we trust his word and answer without fear, every muscle in our body, every song inside our soul, every dream we thought possible and every hope for which we have ever longed—all of it, all of it will be caught up in Divine joy. As Our Lady instructed Juan Diego, "Go and put all your efforts into this."

    What if Saint Paul’s command for our lives to ‘rejoice always’ was not just a command?

    What if rejoicing is God’s invitation—His deep and desperate invitation that our world might become a better place?

    What if the Lord was offering us our surest way to peace, true peace now, and that we might have eternal life to come?

    And what if that command—to 'rejoice always'—was but God’s way of giving us victory, that his infinite love and mercy might so capture you and me that we would lift our hearts like trophies over our heads, and straining with our whole selves, gave ourselves completely to Him?


    For so many reasons, and yet for just one, it’s time to Rejoice.

    Image source

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  4. Parish Reconciliation Service
    Luke 15:11-32

    There are times in life where we need to restrain ourselves, where we need to hold back. And there are times when we need to hold nothing back. In this story of the Prodigal Son, we see both.

    The younger son doesn’t hold back. The younger son chases after what he wants: the property, money, and everything that will be his when his father passes away. “Give me my share now, Dad.” And the father gives it to him.

    Try asking your parents or other relatives for whatever is coming to you when they die. “Mom, why don’t you just give me that now?” See what they say…

    And then we have the older son. He’s out in the field. He’s doing his work. As he’s coming home, he hears the party going on. Why doesn’t he walk on into his house and see what is happening? But he doesn’t. He asks one of the servants, and when he finds out his brother returned and the party is for him, he won’t even enter. “No way!” he might be thinking. Even when his father comes out and pleads with him, and says, “Everything I have is yours,” it isn’t enough. He is holding back, and he won’t come home.

    So we have a younger son, one who is recklessly open to his father and to God, even after he sinned; and we have an older son who holds back, and who can’t let himself be received by his father.

    Which one are you? Do you feel like the older son? Do you find yourself hesitating from forgiving others or from forgiving yourself? Have you avoided confessing a particular sin or any sins at all and instead hold back?

    Or do you feel like the younger son?

    Nobody wants to feel like that one… squandering Dad’s money on things he shouldn’t be doing… living with pigs and eating leftover trash, and then, worst of all, having to walk home and actually face his father.

    We think, “NO WAY. I do not want to be that younger son.”

    But we’ve ALL been the younger son! We’ve all chased after things that weren’t ours——wound up in dark, lonely places or experiences or relationship a time or two or ten. We all have feelings of shame or guilt or hopeless or just utter exhaustion——

    We think: I can’t stop! Or I can’t let it go! Or I just can’t stand to think about that anymore. Or I’m so ashamed. Or I’m so tired of that memory or those people or that thing I do or did…

    We’ve all felt like the younger son, and the only way we will find the acceptance and freedom he finds in the Gospel is if we do what he did!

    Run home! Don’t hold back! Whether you feel like the older or younger son in this story, do what the younger one did. Let go of your sins, and come home!

    Come home to the God who is already running down the road toward you, to catch you as you fall to your knees, to pick you up and hold you close and forgive and free you of what you so desperately want gone anyway!

    Yes, there are times when hesitation and measure and restraint are virtues. But not now. Not today. Not this Advent. Not this year. Hold nothing back! The father only has one thing to give you right now: FORGIVENESS——yes comfort, yes love, yes peace, yes a new beginning that are all found in forgiveness, in Reconciliation.

    Who cares if you haven’t gone to Confession in years? Who cares what the priest might think about you. Trust me, we won’t judge you, and the only way anyone will think you’re lost is if you lock the door to your heart and block out the love and reconciliation you are being offered right now.

    There are times in life where we need to restrain ourselves, where we need to hold back. And there are times when we need to let go.

    Open your heart right now. The Father is calling. It’s time to come home.


    Image source

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    Labels: Homily Vocations


  6. Are you grateful, what are you grateful for, and do you show it?

    Are you grateful? Here’s what I’m grateful for at Saint John the Baptist.

    I’m grateful that I have a sink full of Tupperware from parishioners who either brought me food in the mornings or who sent me home with food after dinner at their homes. And if you knew my cooking ability, you would be grateful we ate at your place!

    I’m grateful for the parishioner who sits in the front row over there at Sunday morning Masses and who nods and smiles every time I look his way.

    I’m grateful for the Newburgh Rivertown Trail being so close! And because you all want an active, energetic priest, I’m sure you’re glad I use it. I’m also grateful when you forgive me for not stopping to talk while I’m riding my bike or running. Sometimes I get too competitive.

    I’m grateful for the slant in our church floor to increase your ability to see me behind this ambo. Us short guys need all the help we can get.

    I’m grateful for the music here at St. John’s. And for the decorations. And that Adoration is just through those double doors.

    I’m grateful for Mother Teresa’s and our Food Pantry, and not just because I have gotten a table from them, but because of all of the good work they do—you do—we do through Mother T’s.

    I’m grateful for our school. I love that school, especially the kind and dedicated teachers. And I’m grateful for the kids, our kids, your kids and grandkids that have welcomed me as one of their own family members.

    I’m grateful for the affirmation I hear after Mass. It helps me know when whatever I did worked. And the absence of it lets me know when I need to improve.

    I’m grateful for so many simple things here at SJB. I’m also grateful for things in my own life, more serious things, bigger things, holier things,

    like the time I get to spend in prayer…

    like the gift of being part of such a vibrant parish and equally vibrant universal Catholic Church…
    and for the witness of the Saints. I love the saints…

    and for our Lord and the Holy Spirit…

    I’m grateful that so many people gathered around the family of Sophie Reinhart these past two weeks,

    And I’m grateful for the love and devotion to God and to one another that you show every single day.

    But are you grateful?! Of course. And what are you grateful for? Really? Little things? Big things? We cannot stop at simply “being grateful”. We need to name it. To point it out. To look up at our God and say, “This… is what I am so grateful for, Lord.” We need to return to the Lord who gave us all we have and fall at the feet of Jesus and thank him. For our faith, the gratitude we show our God 'saves us'.

    So how do we do it? How do we go from being grateful to knowing what we are grateful for to actually showing it?

    My younger sister texted me last week and said, “God does all of this awesome stuff for us and makes us have the best days, what do we do to pay God back for everything he does?” I don’t think she actually wanted an answer. It sounded more like a statement of awe. But she should have thought before she texted that. When your older brother is a priest, you don’t just get a two-line text back when you send a comment or question—especially not when that message is about God. You get a homily.

    What do we do to pay God back for all of our gifts?

    We don’t stop at feeling grateful. 

    We go to Church where we praise him by song and by prayer, where we sacrifice our time and energy to be there instead of elsewhere and to focus even if we think something is boring; and we go every Sunday and we take our whole family, even our teenagers who buck at the thought; and then we ask them about what God said to them at Mass on the ride home.

    We go on pilgrimages where we have little sleep and spend a lot of money so we can learn more about what He has done in the lives of others, or we simply get to Mass when we’re on vacation and then it can be called a ‘pilgrimage’.

    We show charity to other people in large and in small ways because 'whatever we do for others, we do for him'.

    We bring in soap and towels and socks and gift cards until those boxes in the Narthex were too heavy to move; and we sing in the choir or in the congregation whether or not we—or anyone else—likes our voice; because what parent doesn’t like to hear the voice of his child?

    We lay down our lives for our spouses and children so that they might have a fuller life, or we might just 'give it all up' by becoming a priest or religious sister or brother; we try our honest best to live chastely every day.

    We take 4 min to read the Bible in the mornings – that his Word might be even more alive in us; and we actually get on our knees before we crawl in bed at night.

    We give up things during Lent to unite ourselves to his sacrifice, and we give away things at Christmas to celebrate his birthday.

    We go to Mass on Thanksgiving Day, even when we are tired, even when we are busy, and even when we have family in from out of town because we want to thank God personally on this holiday.

    We pray before meals, especially when it's a big feast, and we still pray, and even when we’re at Chick-fil-A or Azzip or in our company break room or in the school cafeteria, regardless of whether it’ll draw attention. Who cares? –God does.

    We do all of the things we do as Catholics—or are supposed to do—to show our gratitude, and because of what he did for us. Our praise, our sacrifice, our lives simply become what he has given to us, which is no less than it all.

    Are you grateful? What are you grateful for? And do you show it?

    What’s the point of Thanksgiving if our thanks are not given? And given to the One who deserves them the most.


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    Labels: Discipleship Homily Thanksgiving and Gratitude


  7. Two of our readings today are about death, and the first reading (2 Mac 7) is really quite disturbing. A mother and her seven sons are captured and told to violate God’s law or suffer torture and death. And sure enough, one by one, each son refuses to denounce his God, and is therefore killed.

    A similar situation occurred on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea in Libya in February 2015. Twenty-one men, 20 of whom were Coptic Christians and the lone non-Christian who was a coworker with the 20, were captured by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. They were asked to denounce their faith in Christ or be beheaded. Just like the men in Maccabees millennia ago, one by one, each Christian refused to deny Christ, and they were beheaded. When the Islamic State leaders had killed all 20 Christians, they asked the final non-Christian to denounce God or be killed. And because of the courageous witness of his 20 friends, he replied, “Their God is my God,” and his martyrdom became his baptism, his moment of death became his moment of new life.*

    Jesus says…
    They can no longer die, for they are like angels;
    and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
    I went to the new movie Dr. Strange this weekend, and with the Sunday readings for this week on my mind, one scene stuck out to me.

    At one moment in the movie, the main character, Dr. Strange, is having a serious conversation with his new teacher. They call her, “the ancient one.” As they talk about death, Dr. Strange doesn’t seem to want to allow death to be part of life. He wants to stop death, and the Kathmandu guru replies, “It’s death that makes life worth living.”

    “It’s death that makes life worth living.”

    I think this same sentiment resonates with many of us. In the movie, the scene is clearly supposed to be one of the climactic moments, and, as good directors do, the words spoken in moments like these are something like “lessons” to be learned by the audience even as movies are sought ostensibly for entertainment.

    “It’s death that makes life worth living.”

    I wonder—I wonder if those 21 Coptic Christians would agree.

    I wonder whether the Sadducees would agree. In the Gospel, Jesus is in an argument with them. They do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and so they pose this hypothetical question about marriage “at the resurrection”.

    It makes sense to us that they would ask whose wife this woman would be in Heaven. Being married includes performing spousal duties of love, self-gift of your body, your possessions and your preferences. However, marriage is only ‘til death do us part, right? So, when the Sadducees ask this question and try to trick Jesus, they are only thinking of worldly duties, a worldly understanding of life and love.

    What about us? Are we able to think beyond this life, this world? And I mean, really? Do we live our lives day in and day out as if the only thing that matters is our earthly life?
    Do we hoard possessions?
    Do we need status, and I mean are we at the point where we really feel like we “need” certain friends or dozens of likes or bigger this or prettier that to feel like life is worth it?
    Do we crave pleasure, food, alcohol or sex to the point that our bodies cannot function well anymore?
    Or is technology our new reality because we just must escape this life?
    If death makes life worth living, then WHY?! What is it about death that makes life worthwhile?
    They can no longer die, for they are like angels;
    and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
    What makes life worth living? “It’s death that makes life worth living”?

    No! It isn’t death that makes life worth living but resurrection that makes death worth dying!

    It’s about new life! Resurrection! Dying to this world makes life worth living because only in death can we find life—and I mean new life! A full life! A resurrected existence.

    And sure. In the Gospel—and in Dr. Strange—the subject is physical death—the end of life on earth. Only thereafter can the fullness of the Resurrection take hold. Look at Good Friday and Easter Sunday. New life follows death.

    However, could we not die right now? —and I mean
    Die to my bottomless pit of wants
    Die to my ego
    Die to my selfishness
    Die to my habit of making myself feel good at the expense of other people
    Die to my cravings for pleasure, for a high, for…
    Die to my need for escape, and instead, to embrace death, to embrace with open arms the fullness of the reality found a Cross, my cross, your cross that is so close and so big and so ominous that I cannot see around it
    What if we did die to those things?! What if?!

    …what if we did have so much faith in the Resurrection and the Risen One that we didn’t have to wait until our physical death on a cloudy sea shore in Libya in order to ‘make life worth living’?

    Maybe death… maybe death does make life worth living. Because only in dying can we find true life in Christ.

    When we all begin to die to ourselves, our sins, and this world then we, and I mean we …can no longer die, 
    for [we will be] like angels;and [we shall become] the children of God because [we] are the ones who will rise.


    Image source 1, 2

    *“What made a non believer Chadian citizen; die for Christ, along with his “20 Coptic Christian friends”?” posted February 22, 2015 by Fr. Thomas Philipose, accessed November 5, 2016: THE TEXT: ISIS announced the execution of 21 Copts but only 20 names were confirmed, most of them were from the province of Minya(Upper Egypt). There was an inaccuracy in the number of Egyptian Hostages; there were only 20 Egyptians(Copts). Then who was this remaining one non-Coptic victim?   Ahram-Canadian News was able to gather information about this man. He was a Chadian Citizen (Darker skin shown in picture) who accepted Christianity after seeing the immense faith of his fellow Coptic Christians to die for Christ. When Terrorist forced him to reject Jesus Christ as God, looking at his Christian friends he replied, “their God is my God“ so the terrorist beheaded him also. http://bombayorthodoxdiocese.org/what-made-a-non-believer-chadian-citizen-die-for-christ-along-with-his-20-coptic-christian-friends/ 

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    Labels: Culture and Current Events Death Homily Lives of the Saints Martyrdom Resurrection The Cross

  8. We are supposed to minimize our cooperation in evil. One might see proportionate reasons in Trump himself (and not merely in comparison to Hillary) to hold their nose and vote Trump; I disagree, but I am not talking to those people, who may well be in good conscience. Rather, I am talking to those that keep repeating calls to violate conscience (sin), or to choose the lesser evil (sin). Those avenues are traps of the devil. Instead, inform your conscience rather than violating it, and always remember that the first precept of the natural law is, “do good, shun evil,” not “do alright, minimize evil.”
    If you haven't scanned the Table of Contents from the Bishops' document on US elections, here is a link. It's worth reading the topics that you are curious about.

    A monk-friend of mine posted the following article on social media recently, and I thought it was helpful for those who are feeling "stuck between two non-ideal choices" in this election.

    The first paragraph above and the one immediately below are from "Catholics and the Ethics of Voting". For those who are leaning toward Trump but uncertain of their decision, the author writes:
    If you think that there is a contribution to the common good that Trump will make and that is proportionately grave enough to justify material cooperation in whatever ill you think he will likely cause, then you have a case that he is a moral means [to something good], and the “worse-ness” of Hillary would be an added reason as to why one might choose [to vote for Trump]. But if that is not the case, then you are faced with [casting a vote for Trump] being an immoral choice no matter how much worse Hillary would be—it is excluded even before considering her. In which case, while you may re-examine Trump in light of the common good, you must reject temptations that come from scaremongering and villainization of Hillary. You must reject the idea that you should set aside your conscience because you “have to do something.”
    In fact, there are many men and women who have filed to run for the office of President of the United States. Read up on their platforms by clicking below. You can also search whether their names will be on the ballot in your state. These are just some of the many candidates running. Run a general search to find more.
    • Hillary Clinton (Democratic party nominee)
    • Gary Johnson (a former Republican governor in the low single digits nationally)
    • Mike Maturen (running with an allegedly Catholic platform)
    • Evan McMullin (a conservative who might win the presidential race in Utah next week)
    • Jill Stein (polling in the very low single digits nationally) 
    • Donald Trump (Republican party nominee)
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  9. It's the Feast of All Saints...

    We do such a great job of seeing the holiness of the Saints.
    But we often forget that, like us, they were human.
    They enjoyed smoking pipes.
    They picketed in protests.
    They hiked in the mountains.
    And they sometimes wondered whether God was even there.

    And we know our own humanity so well, don't we?
    We mess up, and we sometimes excel.
    We do things we shouldn't, and we sometimes do what's right.
    We don't pray enough, but when we do, we know it. We know God hears.

    But do we know our own potential for the same holiness the Saints witness to us?

    I think we do. We just don't live like that enough.

    Happy Feast Day. Happy All Saints Day, to all of the saints in Heaven, and to all of us striving for holiness on Earth. 
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    Labels: All Saints Day Homily Lives of the Saints

  10. Pope Francis, US celebrities, and world leaders from all across the globe are asking us to open our eyes to how we care for our common home: Earth.

    I found this new movie "Before the Flood" to be quite powerful (and well done) and it has been on my mind since I watched it last night. I even changed what I bought at the grocery store today and what I chose to eat for supper at a restaurant tonight. Maybe watching this video will give you pause to reflect on how you and all of us can best care for the creation God has entrusted to us.




    Here is a link to Pope Francis' encyclical on this topic.

    Posted by
    Labels: Agriculture Culture and Current Events Discipleship Environment Today's Church
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