The King's Corner

Today’s Psalm sings: “Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.  I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works.”  Yes, we are “wonderfully made” as works of God.   Being knitted in our mother's womb provides an image of careful and painstaking attention to all details of fashioning our external appearances and the intricate, interconnected structures found within from our brains to our muscles and organs.   I take our “inmost being” as our soul formed in the womb, also wonderfully made although not so easily located, if it can pin-pointed at all.  Nevertheless, it is there serving as a sort of umbilical cord connecting us to God. Deacon David Pierce

In yesterday's Gospel Jesus answered one of his disciples by saying, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”   Good advice to be sure.   Anyone who plows a field, as I did in my youth on my grandfather’s farm, knows that when you look behind to see where you’ve been, the furrow goes crooked.  Eyes off the road, so to speak, and a crash is likely.  Note to cell phone users and texters: keep your eyes on the road! So, we all need to keep a straight path with a focus on God and love.   Looking back to see what was left behind is to focus on the past and perhaps on regrets.   It moves us off the straight path that is the quickest way to get to our destination: the Kingdom of God made known to us through love and forgiveness we provide along the way. Deacon David Pierce

The Fiddler on the Roof was a famous 1964 musical with over 3,000 performances on Broadway.  We all know its popular song entitled:  “If I were a Rich Man.”  It begins:  "Dear God, you made many, many poor people.  I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor.  But it's no great honor either!  So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?" It’s sung by Tevye the main character who is a poor milkman dreaming of all the material comforts wealth would bring him. He sang of buying an enormous house with needless luxuries even having a third staircase leading nowhere just for show. He sang of wealthy servants for his wife, fancy clothes for her pleasure and mountains of food.  I mention this musical because our readings give us a stark contrast between the life of the very rich and the very poor. Many of us sometimes dream like Tevye. But our readings tell us to beware of such dreams and the risks of wealth. For example, in Amos we hear of th

September 25, 2016 Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings for today's Homily   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/092516.cfm To watch Mass in its entirety click The Mass

September 18, 2016 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings for today's Homily   http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091816.cfm To watch Mass in its entirety click The Mass

The Sudarium of Oviedo:  As you read this Fr. Healey and the 27 Pilgrims accompanying  him on their journey of faith will  have  already  visited  the  Shrine  of  Fatima  in  Portugal, scene  of  the  apparitions  of the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  in  1917,  and  the Basilica  of  St.  James  in  Compostela, Spain, goal  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pilgrims  across  the  centuries  who  walked  the rugged  route  called  “El  Camino”  and  the origin  of  the  oyster  shell,  once  abundant along  the  coast  there, being taken as proof badge for  completing  a  pilgrim’s  journey. Today, we  will  be  in  a  city  in  the  north of Spain that numbers among  its  treasure an ancient cloth about the size of a kerchief that is kept locked in  a  medieval  strong  box  except for the days from September 14th to the 21st  each  year  when it  is  on  display.  It is a sudarium or “sweat  cloth”,  a  common  item in the Mediterranean world in Roman times to  wipe  the  sweat  

On Wednesday, we celebrated the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  This has always been a favorite feast of mine, but as the day approached this year, I found myself looking at it with a different perspective. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross obviously brings to mind, the Cross and the Crucifixion of Jesus.  We all know that Jesus is both human and  divine, and I think that this feast highlights it as well.  Yes, Jesus died on the Cross and rose again on the third day - so that we would have eternal life. However, there is also a real humanity to all of this.  The Cross shows us that Jesus suffered.  We, too, suffer.  We fall (both literally and figuratively) - we make mistakes, and we sin.  We struggle - with addictions, financially, at work, in school, in our relationship with God, and with much more.  We face hardships - we've lost family members, jobs, money, people and things we love.  We have to make sacrifices for the greater good of God and others.  We can un

click    photo gallery  to view this years successful fundraiser to benefit St. Vincent dePaul. Thank you to all who made this event a success!

September 11, 2016 Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings for today's Homily To watch Mass in its entirety click The Mass

Fifteen years ago today, on September 11, 2001, our country, our world, and our society changed forever. We all remember where we were fifteen years ago.   We remember hearing the news and seeing the horrific images all over the news.   We all had wished that this was just one major nightmare, and that this really didn’t happen. I believe that today is an important day for remembrance.   We remember all who lost their lives that day, and all who sacrificed time and the gift of life itself to help others.

For everyone who enjoyed Deacon Greg Beckel's post " Learning About Prayer Visiting My Parents " You would have read about Greg's mom having terminal cancer.  Greg's mom passed away today, September 9, 2016, we'd like to ask for your prayerful support for Greg and his family at this sad time. 

Stormy days are days for patience and passing time while we wait for clearer skies.  It’s a day for doing puzzles – challenging or otherwise.    We know the end result with puzzles – a beautiful scene, a person, or perhaps something a bit obscure, like the periodic table of the elements I took on while waiting for tropical storm Hermine to pass by…while waiting…while waiting…while waiting.  Puzzles start off as chaos with many shapes, sizes, and colors in total disarray spread out on a table before us.    We look for matches and patterns while slowly piecing it all together until finally – order and completeness. It’s sort of like life.   Life can be a puzzle with many pieces we must put in order.  Chaos is not an option although for many of us chaos seems to be the rule of the day – or week, or month. 

Original sin is the sin that has always confused me perhaps because the concept is based on our mythological Adam and Eve – two figures serving as our inaugural human couple or our primordial domestic pair.   From Adam and Eve we got Cain and Abel - brothers and a fraticidal murder leading to the real original sin of violence with the farmer slaying shepherd. I prefer the explanation of original sin provided by Dominic Crossan who said “sin” did not occur in the divine garden, but in the human field (by farmer Cain).  "Original sin is not a flaw in creation, but in civilization, a fault not in nature, but in culture.”  According to Crossan, “Original sin is not about individuals and sex but about communities and violence.  It’s about humanity’s penchant for escalatory violence as its drug of choice.” He says, “Escalatory violence is our nemesis, not our nature; our avoidable decision, not our unavoidable destiny.  It is our original sin that can be overcome."

"While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath,his disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. Some Pharisees said,“Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?” Jesus said to them in reply,“Have you not read what David did when he and those who were with him were hungry? How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.” [Last Saturday's Gospel reading] There are many things we like about Jesus. His attitude towards the poor and the suffering give us examples to follow; his parables giving us food for thought and lessons aimed to make us better people; his anger at the domineering and oppressive Romans; and his urging that we use nonviolence to confront the powers controlling us – ruling us. What should strike us as worthy of our applause is Je

Last Friday, September 2, the Boston Globe had an article entitled “Pope urges Catholics to care for planet: adds obligation to traditional works of mercy.”   He is quoted as saying “every Catholic should go to Confession to repent his or her sins against the environment.”    That’s quite an addition to our list of sins we would be asked to confess.  The trouble is: what are those sins?   Are they mortal sins as opposed to venial sins?  Do we break our friendship with God or do we injure it? Pope Francis has highlighted global warming and climate change as “contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis” with the “world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact.”   With that said, I suggest sins against the environment are mortal sins.  Many may disagree with me.  But, I’m not speaking of driving less and turning off lights as mortal sins (venial sins?).  I speak more of our consumer behavior that includes destruct

September 1 was World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.  “Catholic Social Teaching Care for Creation” is a short film narrated by Cardinal Peter Turkson, Father James Martin, and Dr. Carolyn Woo.  I encourage you to google “CST 101 Care for Creation.”  It’s a fitting video and message tied to Pope Francis’ “Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality: On Care for our Common Home.”  Known as Laudato Si, or “Praise be to you,” we are reminded of St. Francis’ words in his beautiful canticle: “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.”  As the Pope says, “This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her…” Some may say and clearly have said, “Let her cry.  She’ll get over it.”  But will our children and grandchildren when they witness what our collective excesses

Homily for September 4, 2016 Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings for today's Homily To watch Mass in its entirety click The Mass

I thought I knew how to pray, or at least how I was supposed to pray even if I was lax at times. I say my morning and evening prayers regularly, I’m at the hospital as a chaplain so I say prayers for the patients many times a day, I’ve always loved reading and studying the bible, I count a thought of a person during the day as a prayer, and I occasionally get into reading inspirational quotes to help put good thoughts in my mind. I have to say that my prayers have varied greatly over the years, from being a large part of my daily routine to periods of dryness where I find it hard to pray and sometimes I just get lazy or let other “more important” things get in the way. This past weekend I visited my parents in Minnesota. My mother is Protestant and my dad is Catholic. In October they will be married seventy years. They brought us up as Catholic and my mother taught us all our religion. She knew the Catechism better than we did. She believed in going to church as a family but also w