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Sacred Heart & St. Patrick Catholic Churches

Confessions will be held on Saturday, July 18th from 3-3:45 pm at Sacred Heart in the Mother's Chapel.  Fr. Pat will turn the outside light on when someone is in the Confessional.  If the light is off, you are free to come in.  

Fr. Pat will be distributing Holy Communion after the 9 am Mass at St. Patrick and after the 11 am Mass at Sacred Heart in the parking lot for those that didn't get a chance to attend Mass or for those that are vulnerable and not able to attend.  Please stay in your car and drive through in a line as in the past.  

Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary time

The story is told of two brothers who are arguing about whether they are wiser than their dad. One of the brothers said that their dad did not have a clue, while the other believed that their dad was indeed wiser. Finally, the first brother said that he could prove that he was wiser than their dad. He caught a small bird and held it in his cupped hands. They went in their dad’s office and the first brother said I have a question for you. I have a small bird in my hands. Is the bird alive or dead? His father immediately recognized the dilemma; if he said the bird was dead, he would let the bird go and if he said the bird was alive, he could crush the bird in his hands. Either way he would be wrong. It then came to him; he said the answer is in your hands.

In his wisdom, God created us with free will. And this is the whole point of the parable. The parable teaches us that our freedom does not operate in a vacuum. We are truly free to choose to follow Christ, but outside factors influence that freedom, trying to get us to choose a self-centered life over a Christ centered life. There are really three main enemies to our true freedom.

The first influence is something we do not like to hear today. The birds eating the seed from the path represents Satan. Satan does exist; he is one of the fallen angels that were created at the beginning of time. Satan hates God and those who follow God and his main mission is to separate us from God and deprive God of as many people as he can. Satan works with half-truths to lead us astray. We really do not need the Church or the sacraments to be good Christians.

The second influence is our tendency towards laziness and comfort. This is represented by the rocky soil. God calls us to pick up our cross and follow him, which entails sacrifice. “If you wish to be my disciple, you must pick up your cross and follow me.” There have been so many stories of people who sacrificed a great deal to practice their faith and to receive our Lord in the Eucharist. Our ingrained love for comfort resists self-sacrifice.

The third influence is the culture around us, which is a product of our fallen human nature. This is represented by the thorns. This fallen world promises perfect happiness in money, achievements, popularity and passing pleasures. But we know these promises are false because only God satisfies the human heart because we were created by God and for God.

It is important to note that only in one case was the word rejected outright. In the other three cases it was received with joy. The problem is not so much in receiving God’s word. The problem comes in treasuring God’s word and putting it into practice. There are therefore three steps involved in responding to God’s word: receiving it, treasuring it, and putting it into practice.

The first step is receiving God’s word. We might call this the mind step. To take in God’s Word effectively, we must listen to the word with an open mind and without a set agenda. We must meditate upon God’s Word, what did Jesus mean, what does it say to me,” and what does the church say about it? One of the greatest gifts we have from God is the teaching authority of the church, it helps us to achieve Jesus’ prayer, that we may be one as God is one.

The second step is treasuring God’s word. It might be called the heart step. When I speak about the heart, I am not referring to the organ in our bodies that pumps blood to the rest of the body. The heart is the center of the person. Virtue and sin begin in the heart. Our intellect sends messages to our heart, and it is the heart that either rejects it or embraces it. And what begins in the heart will eventually come out into our actions. And so, we listen to the Word of God and then we should embrace it in our hearts. But the problem exists that there are many voices in our world that may not be on the same frequency as God.

The third step is putting God’s word into practice. We might call this step the Will or action step. It involves acting on what our mind has received and what our heart has treasured.

The most important step is to cultivate the soil of our hearts that God’s word finds favorable conditions to grow and bear fruit. Sometimes the soil of our hearts become hardened and the seed of God’s word cannot penetrate the soil. The best way to cultivate our hearts is through prayer. Fr. Benedict Groeshel wrote a book entitled: “Listening at Prayer.” We often recite prayers or launch into our needs as soon as we have a quiet moment of prayer, but we do not take the time to listen. In the spirit of Samuel, we should say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

If you have a prayer intention, I will bring with me to tomorrow’s Mass.  My hope is not only to bring these intentions with me to Mass but that we as a faith family may join our prayers together. It’s a way to come together while social distancing ourselves from each other. If you want to be totally anonymous in your intentions, you can text them to me at 1-815-252-4400, it will be totally confidential.

Love & prayers,

Fr. Pat

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