FRIDAY EVENING MASS HOMILY – FATHER JOSEPH

You need endurance to do the will of God to receive what He promised. We need to walk by faith because of the obstacles we confront in the world, the flesh and the devil. Faith alone is not enough.  Trust in God even when it is very hard. 

SATURDAY MORNING MASS HOMILY – FATHER FRANCIS

Encourage people to sit before our Lord and let Him do the work. He will do the work if we let Him. Retreats and Days of Recollection are days of extraordinary grace, more than usual. 

 Our Lord did not need to do anything 2000 years ago. The mystery of love is infinite. We, too, join in that sacrifice of Our Lord in the Mass through the priesthood. We make an act of the will by giving everything to the Lord. He gives everything to you. Our Lord commanded that "Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you will not have eternal life". Ask the Lord to give us a light of the beauty of the Mass. If we knew what the Mass was, we would explode with love and die. Our hearts would burst. Spend time with the Divine Master, the Retreat Master, in the Temple.

SATURDAY MORNING INSTRUCTION – BROTHER LEO

Brother’s spiritual talk was on thanksgiving. We are all called to conversion. At different points in this life, you realize something is wrong and you have to convert. Thank God for everything of the past year. God is there for you, and He loves you. I must love myself as God loves me. The thanksgiving part is a basic thing. We are being humble when we thank God; everything is a gift of God. We are reminded that we are nothing, and we have nothing except our sins.

If we compare ourselves with our neighbor, we can make ourselves greater than our neighbor. We have to compare ourselves with God, and we are nothing. Humility - stay in the present moment - stay in present moment. We can receive grace only in the present moment, neither in the past nor in the future. Put the past in the mercy of God. Make very good decisions in the present moment. Always thank God.
     
 Through suffering we are able to become holy. We need to be very fertile soil so that God can work in us. Get rid of the rocks. You have to go down to the little rocks and get rid of all the imperfections in us. Through suffering He allows us to look up. We are all called to become saints. God gives us many moments to become holy. Stay in the present moment. Always thank God. We cannot know the whole world of people, but pray for them. Some are there as crosses to overcome our own imperfections and love more. We need the imperfections of others to round us off. 

 Know the difference in the things that cannot be changed. Think about the Serenity Prayer. The present moment is very important, because we can grow in holiness in the present moment. If you are thanking God for the person, you cannot find fault with that person. Pray for them. Thank God if He takes away someone you love. He is in control. If you want to become a saint, it is an act of the will and with God's grace.

 Ephesians 4:4 says to have no anxiety about anything. It is very hard to complain when you are thanking God. It is a gift from God. Do not complain; give thanks instead. In all temptations and sins, be thankful. 1) Just start thanking God all day long. 2) Make the Stations of the Cross; you will see how much He loves you. 3) Exercise twice a day.

 See other people as the image of God. We have to build up other people. Think before we speak. Doing God's will is the only important thing, and you know God's will in the present moment. 

HEALING SERVICE – DEACON MARK

Meditation - the Saints say it is necessary for spirituality. 1) Have a suitable time and place at home (or chapel). Call upon the presence of the Blessed Trinity within us. 2) Quiet yourself. Mortify yourself to some degree. Turn off noise. Have silence. 3) Place yourself in presence of God. Say a single prayer slowly; let everything else fade away. 4) Realize who we are about to commune and converse with. Address our Creator. We have to want and will it. 5) Read Scripture and a book on the Saints. Read a passage and stop if it catches your attention and if it speaks to you. 6) Make an act of sorrow, thank God, adoring in silence. Can be for a short time – does not have to be long. 7) Resolution - the spiritual life directly connected with our life. If you want to grow, read scriptures. Make resolution to be more patient today, something very concrete. Meditate every day. Start with one minute a day. It will have an effect on us.
 
SUNDAY MORNING MASS HOMILY - FATHER ANTHONY 

 Today we observe the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, referred also in the past as Candlemas Day. We come as our Blessed Mother carrying the Christ Child as something that we symbolize in the carrying of candles as was done this morning. It was customarily   believed that beeswax candles represented the virgin flesh of the Christ Child. This feast day has also been known as the purification of Mary based on the Jewish ritual at that time being observed. We carry the light of the world. We should have blessed candles in our homes, especially at the time of someone’s death. 

 Every first born son was to be considered as belonging to God. Mary was the chaste spouse of the Holy Spirit. She was a virgin in conceiving, and She was a virgin in giving birth to Her Son. Her purity had been ever spotless as the angels, but it received an increase by the very fact that She carried the Son of God in Her womb and gave birth to Him. Her purity was higher than the angels. Mary adores the will of God and embraces it with Her whole being. The will of God dictated everything. But in everything She was the handmaid of the Lord. She submitted Herself to the law of God. Christ submitted Himself to the man-made rule that determined where He was born. He gave us the example of obedience by being obedient even until death, death on the cross.

 Mary's going to the Temple as if She lost something that needed to be restored by legal sacrifice brings greater focus to our realization that this woman is "the Woman" and that "the Woman" was immaculate from conception and remained immaculate due to the retroactive power of the perfect offering, the perfect sacrifice of Her Son. She never lost Her total purity or virginity. Rather it was the perfect sacrifice of the true lamb of Jesus that made Her immaculate. In Her spotless virginity, we recognize Her as that every fruitful mother of each one of us. As a result of this action of Jesus, the Holy Spirit deepens our understanding of who Jesus is as the only acceptable sacrifice and offering to the Father.

 He indeed is the first born son, first born Son of Mary and first born Son of God, and in being taken to the Temple to be offered to God and then ransomed or bought back, our understanding and profound adoration of the true reality is deepened mainly because He does in fact belong to Almighty God. We are pointed to the fact that the reality that He is God, that He is the Son of God and that He is in no need of being ransomed. Rather, we are the ones who need to be ransomed. We are the ones who are in slavery. We are the ones who are enslaved by sin, and it is in His self-offering on the cross that Christ will become the perfect sacrifice, the true Lamb offered in holocaust. He will become the true ransom who will redeem us and purchase for us our salvation. He has no need of redemption. We are the ones who need to be purchased back for God, and Christ is the offering for that purchase. Christ came to offer Himself as the true sacrifice to purchase back our souls. In submitting to the law, Jesus then becomes its fulfillment. In taking on our nature, every one of His actions as man, such as today's feast, the Presentation in the Temple, becomes a means of His incorporating us more profoundly into His own nature as God. Our offering in the Temple in Christ is perfect and complete. So it is no wonder that we pray at the close of each day in the Divine Office the Canticle of Simeon, because we recognize as profound reality of who our Blessed Mother is and, most especially, who Jesus Christ is. Father then read part of the Canticle of Simeon.