Homily given at Malden Catholic High School
On Friday 20th of September
By: Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
This is a great priveledge for me to be able to celebrate with you this holy Mass at the beginning of your new school year and at the beginning of my priesthood.
My name is Fr. Ron Floyd, and just 10 years ago I was sitting where you are. I was a senior, here at MC I had just come off MCLI and was looking forward to a new year, my senior year—and all that this entailed SATs; Prom; Graduation; a semester off of Christian service; college applications—you senio\rs know the story.
My class, the class of 1999, was on top of the world! And it was a great year! We partied like it was 1999, because in fact it was.
I left MC in the spring of 1999 pretty sure about where life was taking me—and let me tell you,
it wasn’t here. Back then I was into politics, as some of my old teachers may remember— by that time I had already started to get involved with a few campaigns,
I left MC and moved to Washington, DC where I went to Catholic University.as a political theory major, with a pre-law concentration At Catholic I got myself ready for Law school and was very involved with a dozen or so campaigns. By my junior year in college I had landed a job working for the US Senate—as one of the youngest paid staffers I was being consulted by senators, and given a voice in the legislative process. This was my dream come true and it seem like the sky was the limit.
I even got a job offer from a friend at the White House. It was amazing—all my plans for my life, were suceeding. I was getting everything I ever thought I wanted—I had good friends, a nice apartment, a car, a good job, career opportunities, and I hadn’t even finished college yet!
And yet something was wrong—something was out of whack—in my heart I wasn’t happy, despite all of my sucesses. Thank God I had some good friends at the time, who gave me some good advice—they encouraged me to pray to God, and ask Him about His plan for my life.
You see—God made the world, he made everything and everyone and he made it because he loves us. He wants us to be happy and holy, He wants our lives to be filled with joy, happiness, and love, and He knows what will make us happy, because He knows us better than we know ourselves!
In my Junior year of college—I realized that I had been so busy following my own plans, that I forgot to ask God about His plan for me. I forgot to listen to His plan—and so I gave God a chance
Let me tell you it was as much a surprise to me as to anyone when I heard Him, calling me to be a priest.
Its not that I had never thought about it before, its just that I had never really given that thought a chance. Not here at MC and not in college to that point. It was a tough decision to let go and let God, to take a chance on God, putting my life and my career on hold. To be quite honest I was afraid to let go.
But I did it, entering Seminary five years ago and I stand before you now, five years latter, a new priest to tell you that if you, like everyone I know, want to be happy. You’ve got to listen to God’s plan for you.
I was suprized by God’s plan, but even moreso by the intense happiness and satisfaction following God’s plan has brought me. God has a plan for each of us and a plan for the World and when we follow his plan the world becomes truly good the way God made it to be.
In the Gospel today we hear about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, on the first Christian Church. Do you remember what does Jesus say, when he comes among them? He says: Peace be with you.
Just as elsewhere he says: Be not afraid. He says this because following God’s plan for us, growing in love for God and our neighbor, always involves a risk—the risk of our reputation, the risk of our livelihood and even the risk of our lives. Christians in places like China, India, Belerus and Saudi Arbia are taking that risk today, just like Christians have always taken that risk
Because Christ tells us not to be afraid, because Christ gives us His peace—the peace that comes from being a beloved son of God. And with this peace he gives us the Holy Spirit that fills us with the gifts of courage, wisdom, counsel, and fear of the Lord.
The gifts we will need to bear witness to our faith to listen to and to follow his plan for us, and to become the saints we are meant to be. Men today, at the beginning of this school year
you are presented a choice, whether you are a freshman or a senior.
Today—God, who has graced you with so many gifts, is calling you and asking you, to listen to his voice speaking to you in your heart. Today Jesus is giving you His peace, telling you not to be afraid, and strenghtening you with His Body and Blood and Holy Spirit.
Today you can choose to accept and cooperate with God’s plan to go plus ultra more beyond your fears and limitations and embrace the heroic destiny that God made you for or you can choose to remain the same, to participate in this Mass, but not to be transformed by it.
God is calling you today, as he does at every Mass, to go into the world like his disciples and spread the good news that God loves us and died for us. He is calling you today, to do this by following a unique plan that he designed for you from the first moments of your conception. He is calling you to holiness, to sainthood, and to true happiness.\Take a chance on God--listen to God and follow Him.
—Accept the peace of Christ offered in this Mass—
And be not afraid.
God gives us our life as a gift, a surprise to the world and to ourselves. Accept the gift God gives you today the gift of life and of His plan for you. You may be suprized by what it holds in store for you like I was—but I guarantee you, following God’s plan is worth it!
What Recompense can I give to the Lord?
Ordination to the Diaconate
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Feast of The Exaltation of the Cross
Embracing your Cross
By Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
As Christians we start all things with the sign of the Cross. We are baptized into this sign, blessed by it, and when we die it marks our final resting place. It is the Cross of Jesus Christ that we see prefigured in Genesis In the Tree of Life, in the midst of the Garden of eden; and when little Issac carries the bundle of wood up Mount Moria, the same wood on which Abraham is willing to offer his only son’s life to God.
It is the Cross that we see prefigured in the gold scorpion, the symbol of sin and death, that gives life in today’s first reading. It is the Cross that Isaiah prophezies about when he fortells the coming of the Suffering servant, the Messiah—who will die for his people.
The Cross is everywhere in Scriptures because it is the fulfillment of God’s plan to save Man. However, even though all of scripture testifies to it the Cross is still a surprise and a great source of scandal to many people who can not imagine that God loves us so much. But this is the mystery of our faith: God became man, so that we could btecome like God. He became man so that He could die for us on the Cross and so that in His Body and His Blood, washed clean by the blood and water that flowed from his pierced side we could regain the image and likeness of God.
As we say during Lent: Lord by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free, you are the savior of the world!
Take a second to think about this mystery, think for a second how bizare and revolutionary a thought it is, that our God, that the almighty creator of the world would humble himself and die for his creation. And yet this is what we believe, this is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions. At the center of our Catholic faith is the life giving Cross whose sacrifice we offer on this and on every altar a real event, a current event, happening not just two thousand years ago
but happening now, and every day, in each of our lives. And so we Christians MUST embrace the cross each day! If we truly believe that our God died for us then we must be willing to die for each other. This is the most perfect fulfillment of the law of love: there is no greater love, than to lay down your life for a friend.
That is why the Mass is so important to the Church, because at the Mass we remember and thank God for Christ’s cross and in thanksgiving to God we offer up everything in our life joining all our joys and all our sufferings together with Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary the Sacrifice of Christ’s Cross.
This is also why the priesthood is so important to the Church, Christ called twelve men, twelve Apostles, to preach the message of the Cross and to help those who believe and accept it to make it a reality in their lives. This is what priests, from the time of the Apostles o our very day have done for us, on our behalf. They stand, with Christ, as an intermediary between God and His bride the Church making present in word and sacrament the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is nothing less than the Love of God for us. How poor a representation is our worship of the reality of what is going at the Mass.
Like all Christians, Priests are called on to make real sacrifices for our bride, the Church and when we say the Church, we don’t mean the buildings ut all of you who are part of Christ through baptism. Priests make these sacrifices willing, out of love modling their lives on the life of Jesus, who made similar sacrifices and in spite of all that Priests give up, what I have found is that by giving up, good things, that would distract me from my work I have been filled with so many other joys and blessings.
I am not sure people like the idea of sacrifices, anymore of embracing the cross and suffering. But in case you get the wrong idea, you should know that its not just priests who are called on to make sacrifices. Those of you who are parents, or who know anything about raising children know that true parenthood is just a series of sacrifices. And in truth even before you have kids, true love, as married people, requires compromises and sacrifices for the good of your husband or wife. Similarly, while the sacrifices of the priesthood are different from the sacrifices that a religious, sister or brother, monk or nun, make they too make sacrifices.
All Christians are baptized into the cross, and if we love God we can’t escape the reality of sacrificial suffering. But just as in death Christ found life, when we die to ourselves when we sacrifice, all of us find life, and joy, and peace
God has a plan for each of us, He who made us, knows us better than we know ourselves and he has written into our heart an identity and a plan, a plan for how we are to grow in holiness, happiness, and love.
Following God’s plan, always entails the Cross, and yet it is the only way for our lives to be truly satisfying.
When I was young, a boy of just five, I felt a longing in my heart to embrace the Cross to serve God and His people as a priest. But in time I allowed myself to forget this thought afraid of the sacrifices and crosses it entailed. And while every now and them, my mind drifted back to thoughts of being a priest, each time I rejected this thought.
For a long time I was sucessful in ignoring the call. For a long time I followed my own plans and designs ignoring the fact that God has a plan for all of us and that he had a plan for me.
Before I had even turned 21 I had been blessed with so many great sucesses, I had great friends, I was finacially viable, my career was on track, and it seemed like the sky was the limit.
God’s tricky though: I think God blessed me with so many sucesses to show me that none of them would make me happy. True happiness, He taught me comes from listening to God’s plan and doing it. True happiness comes from taking up your cross and following Jesus.
In 2003 I was working for the US Senate, I had been just offered a job in the White House,
I had an apartment and car, a entire life in place and in the blink of an eye, I took a chance on God. I gave it all away—and listened to that calling that God had made me for.
I embraced the Cross, and I found that as Jesus promised it was light and pleasant. You see, the Cross, doesn’t sound like fun. Sacrifice and death don’t’ sound like a good time, but in truth—it is only in loosing yourself that you can find yourself.
It is only in dying on the Cross—that you can truly live.
The Cross is the center of Our Faith, and at the Mass we are reminded that it should be the center of our life. God has a plan for each of us, a plan for who we are meant to be a plan that will make us happy and holy and to bring us at the end of our life to eternal joy. But for all of us Christians, baptized into Christ’s death God’s plan involves the Cross.
Whether he calls us to be parents, or religious brothers or sisters, or whether he calls a young man to be a priest all of us are challenged to embrace the Cross. To offer our very life on the Cross, in love for our neighbor.
Today as we celebrate this Feast of the Triumph of the Cross I invite you to pray for the young people of this parish and of our diocese.
Pray that they hear and listen to the good news of the Cross
Pray that they listen to God’s plan for them
And pray that they take up their Cross and follow christ.
Pray especially for our young men, that they may consider a calling a vocation to the priesthood.
That in embracing their vocation, they might make the reality of the Cross present for us all here on the Altar.
By Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
As Christians we start all things with the sign of the Cross. We are baptized into this sign, blessed by it, and when we die it marks our final resting place. It is the Cross of Jesus Christ that we see prefigured in Genesis In the Tree of Life, in the midst of the Garden of eden; and when little Issac carries the bundle of wood up Mount Moria, the same wood on which Abraham is willing to offer his only son’s life to God.
It is the Cross that we see prefigured in the gold scorpion, the symbol of sin and death, that gives life in today’s first reading. It is the Cross that Isaiah prophezies about when he fortells the coming of the Suffering servant, the Messiah—who will die for his people.
The Cross is everywhere in Scriptures because it is the fulfillment of God’s plan to save Man. However, even though all of scripture testifies to it the Cross is still a surprise and a great source of scandal to many people who can not imagine that God loves us so much. But this is the mystery of our faith: God became man, so that we could btecome like God. He became man so that He could die for us on the Cross and so that in His Body and His Blood, washed clean by the blood and water that flowed from his pierced side we could regain the image and likeness of God.
As we say during Lent: Lord by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free, you are the savior of the world!
Take a second to think about this mystery, think for a second how bizare and revolutionary a thought it is, that our God, that the almighty creator of the world would humble himself and die for his creation. And yet this is what we believe, this is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions. At the center of our Catholic faith is the life giving Cross whose sacrifice we offer on this and on every altar a real event, a current event, happening not just two thousand years ago
but happening now, and every day, in each of our lives. And so we Christians MUST embrace the cross each day! If we truly believe that our God died for us then we must be willing to die for each other. This is the most perfect fulfillment of the law of love: there is no greater love, than to lay down your life for a friend.
That is why the Mass is so important to the Church, because at the Mass we remember and thank God for Christ’s cross and in thanksgiving to God we offer up everything in our life joining all our joys and all our sufferings together with Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary the Sacrifice of Christ’s Cross.
This is also why the priesthood is so important to the Church, Christ called twelve men, twelve Apostles, to preach the message of the Cross and to help those who believe and accept it to make it a reality in their lives. This is what priests, from the time of the Apostles o our very day have done for us, on our behalf. They stand, with Christ, as an intermediary between God and His bride the Church making present in word and sacrament the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is nothing less than the Love of God for us. How poor a representation is our worship of the reality of what is going at the Mass.
Like all Christians, Priests are called on to make real sacrifices for our bride, the Church and when we say the Church, we don’t mean the buildings ut all of you who are part of Christ through baptism. Priests make these sacrifices willing, out of love modling their lives on the life of Jesus, who made similar sacrifices and in spite of all that Priests give up, what I have found is that by giving up, good things, that would distract me from my work I have been filled with so many other joys and blessings.
I am not sure people like the idea of sacrifices, anymore of embracing the cross and suffering. But in case you get the wrong idea, you should know that its not just priests who are called on to make sacrifices. Those of you who are parents, or who know anything about raising children know that true parenthood is just a series of sacrifices. And in truth even before you have kids, true love, as married people, requires compromises and sacrifices for the good of your husband or wife. Similarly, while the sacrifices of the priesthood are different from the sacrifices that a religious, sister or brother, monk or nun, make they too make sacrifices.
All Christians are baptized into the cross, and if we love God we can’t escape the reality of sacrificial suffering. But just as in death Christ found life, when we die to ourselves when we sacrifice, all of us find life, and joy, and peace
God has a plan for each of us, He who made us, knows us better than we know ourselves and he has written into our heart an identity and a plan, a plan for how we are to grow in holiness, happiness, and love.
Following God’s plan, always entails the Cross, and yet it is the only way for our lives to be truly satisfying.
When I was young, a boy of just five, I felt a longing in my heart to embrace the Cross to serve God and His people as a priest. But in time I allowed myself to forget this thought afraid of the sacrifices and crosses it entailed. And while every now and them, my mind drifted back to thoughts of being a priest, each time I rejected this thought.
For a long time I was sucessful in ignoring the call. For a long time I followed my own plans and designs ignoring the fact that God has a plan for all of us and that he had a plan for me.
Before I had even turned 21 I had been blessed with so many great sucesses, I had great friends, I was finacially viable, my career was on track, and it seemed like the sky was the limit.
God’s tricky though: I think God blessed me with so many sucesses to show me that none of them would make me happy. True happiness, He taught me comes from listening to God’s plan and doing it. True happiness comes from taking up your cross and following Jesus.
In 2003 I was working for the US Senate, I had been just offered a job in the White House,
I had an apartment and car, a entire life in place and in the blink of an eye, I took a chance on God. I gave it all away—and listened to that calling that God had made me for.
I embraced the Cross, and I found that as Jesus promised it was light and pleasant. You see, the Cross, doesn’t sound like fun. Sacrifice and death don’t’ sound like a good time, but in truth—it is only in loosing yourself that you can find yourself.
It is only in dying on the Cross—that you can truly live.
The Cross is the center of Our Faith, and at the Mass we are reminded that it should be the center of our life. God has a plan for each of us, a plan for who we are meant to be a plan that will make us happy and holy and to bring us at the end of our life to eternal joy. But for all of us Christians, baptized into Christ’s death God’s plan involves the Cross.
Whether he calls us to be parents, or religious brothers or sisters, or whether he calls a young man to be a priest all of us are challenged to embrace the Cross. To offer our very life on the Cross, in love for our neighbor.
Today as we celebrate this Feast of the Triumph of the Cross I invite you to pray for the young people of this parish and of our diocese.
Pray that they hear and listen to the good news of the Cross
Pray that they listen to God’s plan for them
And pray that they take up their Cross and follow christ.
Pray especially for our young men, that they may consider a calling a vocation to the priesthood.
That in embracing their vocation, they might make the reality of the Cross present for us all here on the Altar.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Superheros
Vocation Homily to St. Joseph's School Fairhaven
In the beginning of the book of the prophet Jeremiah the word of the Lord came to a young man named Jeremiah saying: Before I formed thee in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth from your mother’s womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
This is one of my favorite passages in scriptures, Because it demonstrates a key truth of our Faith: God called Jeremiah to be a messenger to the world to bring the truth to people who were living a lie. But this wasn’t just a job, it was who Jeremiah was born to be.
Just like Jeremiah, God has a unique plan for each of us As today’s Psalm says we are wonderfully
Made each of us is an unrepeatable gift to the world. Like Jeremiah, each of us has a vocation, a
calling and if we take it seriously our vocation is always an adventure! Because God calls each of us
to live heroic lives—in a sense to be super-heroes. God wants us to take huge risks to love one
another and in turn to spread the message of God’s love, this is the example of the Saints—who are real life superheroes!
You know when we think of superheroes we think of people with awesome power and super-human strength but God’s plan—asks us to be more courageous than the comic book heroes we all know, braver because he asks us to do the same type of heroic acts without the super powers—using just our brains and our muscles, and our trust in God.
When you really think about it it’s not really bravery to fight evil, when you can stop bullets in your teeth
God wants us to be superheroes, in our ordinary lives. He wants us to take a real risk:
To risk our comfort and our pleasure
To risk our reputations and our friends
And sometimes to even risk our lives.
It’s easy to be a super hero when you have superman’s strength, or Spiddy senses, or Batman’s cool gadgets and ninja training. It’s easy to fight for good when you can control the weather like Storm, or have psychic power like Gene Gray. But God wants you and me to stand up to evil, chaos, and despair,without any special powers. He wants you and I, in spite of our weakness, to stand up to be a prophet to the nations, letting people know that good always triumphs over evil.
He wants us to fight our enemy who is a Liar and the Father of Lies not with fists, bullets, and laser beams, but with a stronger weapon—with the truth of our life, with our witness to the beauty and goodness of God’s plan, and with our willingness to sacrifice ourselves and to die to do good, to speak the truth the Truth, and to love God!
God made each of us to save lives! There is an old Jewish saying: he who saves one life saves the world. If you think about this saying, you see how true it is, and you begin to realize just how important you are in God’s plan how important you are to the world. This is the beauty of God’s plan: each of us are so important. Each Christian, in fact each person open to God’s plan, is a part of a chain reaction more powerful than a nuclear bomb, the chain reaction of the Cross of Jesus Christ. You see while, to some, one life may not seem important, we know that in God’s plan we are all tied together like links of a chain. If you save me, and I save another person, and that person another, eventually in Christ we all save each other—and the world!
And sometimes saving someone doesn’t just mean protecting them from death! Sometimes the most important thing you can do for someone is to give them life, to give them hope, to save them from sorrow and despair, some times you can save them simply by pointing that God loves and has a plan for them
In this way like a drip of water, our small seemingly insignificant lives multiplied by the lives of millions upon millions of saints, of other Christians, will change the world.
So as God says to Jeremiah I say to you today: Do not say you are too young.
God has a plan for each of us a plan that will make us happy, a plan that will fill us with love, a plan that will require us to be heroes, and a plan which will transform us into His Saints in Heaven!
Therefore each and every day take some time to listen for God’s voice, in prayer, to listen for him calling. Listen to him say: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you came forth from your mother’s womb I sanctified you
Do not be afraid to listen to Him, and to follow His plan for you:
if you hear him calling you to be a parent
If you hear him calling you to give your life in service as a religious.
Do not be afraid to listen to him—men—if he calls you to the priesthood
God has a plan for us and he knows us better than we know ourselves: listen to Him and do not be afraid! Become the heroes that God made you to be! Become Saints!
In the beginning of the book of the prophet Jeremiah the word of the Lord came to a young man named Jeremiah saying: Before I formed thee in the womb I knew you; and before you came forth from your mother’s womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
This is one of my favorite passages in scriptures, Because it demonstrates a key truth of our Faith: God called Jeremiah to be a messenger to the world to bring the truth to people who were living a lie. But this wasn’t just a job, it was who Jeremiah was born to be.
Just like Jeremiah, God has a unique plan for each of us As today’s Psalm says we are wonderfully
Made each of us is an unrepeatable gift to the world. Like Jeremiah, each of us has a vocation, a
calling and if we take it seriously our vocation is always an adventure! Because God calls each of us
to live heroic lives—in a sense to be super-heroes. God wants us to take huge risks to love one
another and in turn to spread the message of God’s love, this is the example of the Saints—who are real life superheroes!
You know when we think of superheroes we think of people with awesome power and super-human strength but God’s plan—asks us to be more courageous than the comic book heroes we all know, braver because he asks us to do the same type of heroic acts without the super powers—using just our brains and our muscles, and our trust in God.
When you really think about it it’s not really bravery to fight evil, when you can stop bullets in your teeth
God wants us to be superheroes, in our ordinary lives. He wants us to take a real risk:
To risk our comfort and our pleasure
To risk our reputations and our friends
And sometimes to even risk our lives.
It’s easy to be a super hero when you have superman’s strength, or Spiddy senses, or Batman’s cool gadgets and ninja training. It’s easy to fight for good when you can control the weather like Storm, or have psychic power like Gene Gray. But God wants you and me to stand up to evil, chaos, and despair,without any special powers. He wants you and I, in spite of our weakness, to stand up to be a prophet to the nations, letting people know that good always triumphs over evil.
He wants us to fight our enemy who is a Liar and the Father of Lies not with fists, bullets, and laser beams, but with a stronger weapon—with the truth of our life, with our witness to the beauty and goodness of God’s plan, and with our willingness to sacrifice ourselves and to die to do good, to speak the truth the Truth, and to love God!
God made each of us to save lives! There is an old Jewish saying: he who saves one life saves the world. If you think about this saying, you see how true it is, and you begin to realize just how important you are in God’s plan how important you are to the world. This is the beauty of God’s plan: each of us are so important. Each Christian, in fact each person open to God’s plan, is a part of a chain reaction more powerful than a nuclear bomb, the chain reaction of the Cross of Jesus Christ. You see while, to some, one life may not seem important, we know that in God’s plan we are all tied together like links of a chain. If you save me, and I save another person, and that person another, eventually in Christ we all save each other—and the world!
And sometimes saving someone doesn’t just mean protecting them from death! Sometimes the most important thing you can do for someone is to give them life, to give them hope, to save them from sorrow and despair, some times you can save them simply by pointing that God loves and has a plan for them
In this way like a drip of water, our small seemingly insignificant lives multiplied by the lives of millions upon millions of saints, of other Christians, will change the world.
So as God says to Jeremiah I say to you today: Do not say you are too young.
God has a plan for each of us a plan that will make us happy, a plan that will fill us with love, a plan that will require us to be heroes, and a plan which will transform us into His Saints in Heaven!
Therefore each and every day take some time to listen for God’s voice, in prayer, to listen for him calling. Listen to him say: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you came forth from your mother’s womb I sanctified you
Do not be afraid to listen to Him, and to follow His plan for you:
if you hear him calling you to be a parent
If you hear him calling you to give your life in service as a religious.
Do not be afraid to listen to him—men—if he calls you to the priesthood
God has a plan for us and he knows us better than we know ourselves: listen to Him and do not be afraid! Become the heroes that God made you to be! Become Saints!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Am I my brother’s keeper?
Vocation Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Given at St. Peter's Church in Provincetown
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
Am I my brother’s keeper? The simple answer is yes—and as our Lord tells us in the Gospel
Our brother or our neighbor—is really everyman, every person whose path we cross and whose life is affected by our own. This is a fundamental principle of Catholicism called solidarity—which means that as Catholics we understand that no man is an island, that our actions affect each other and that we must be conscious of this interdependence in the exercise of our freedom.
Each of us has a responsibility to care for and promote the good for each other.This is at the root of the greatest commandment: the command to Love God, and because of our Love for God, to Love our neighbor.
This is true Christian charity, and you know what, in many ways, we Americans, we American Catholics, are very good at loving our neighbor.
A clear example of this is the instant and generous response whenever we hear of a natural or man made disaster threatening peoples lives anywhere across the globe.
However today’s Gospel and scriptures, reminds us of the more difficult aspect of Charity
the harder aspect of Love.
To love one another does not mean to live and let live. To love one another does not mean simply to provide our neighbors with what they need to survive. Love means to be intimately interested in the well-being of another. It means to want what’s good for them not just nutritionally, physically, financially, emotionally but also intellectually, morally, and spiritually.
When the Gospel speaks about feeding the poor, of course it means giving the hungry bread.
But let us not forget that our Lord himself declares that Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that falls from the mouth of God. And what is the Word of God, except God’s plan for humanity? Thus if we want to succeed in fulfilling that law of love, we can’t provide for our neighbors body and be silent about their soul!
Each of us, by virtue of our baptism—must speak out helping and teaching each other to listen
for God’s plan and to obey His Law.
God loves us, he loves us all, inspite of the fact that we are all sinners, and so to help us speak, to teach us and help us recognize God’s plan God gives us some help
God sends us shepherds, he sends us pastors and watchmen elders in faith, who we call priests to help us help others, but priests do not have a monopoly on this teaching vocation! All of us by virtue of our baptism share in Christ’s prophetic mission. All of us are called to watch over each other, to take responsibility for our neighbors to teach them the truth, walk with them on the path, and to correct them when necessary.
Rather, God gives us shepherds, who are sealed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and dedicated to proclaiming the Word and being a steward of the mysteries of God, so that we who are called to love, might be strengthened daily by the source of all Love through the proclamation of the Word of God and by the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ—the source of all the sacraments.
It is to Priests—the helpers of the Bishops and in their own right successors of the Apostles—
that Christ entrusts the duty to safeguard the faith, to keep it pure and whole, so that in each generation the faithful have direct access to Christ.
In this special way, priests become their brother’s keeper. Priests live out the universal call to love by feeding their brothers and sisters—not just with bread and water but with the Word of God the Father and the food from heaven.
In this way our priests become icons and images of the Father and so we rightly call these our brothers, Father.
And while, as we all know, individual priests and even bishops may occasionally stray from the path and need to be called back to faithfulness themselves, Christ promises that united with the Holy Father and all the Bishops the Priesthood itself will never fail—because it is ultimately united to Christ’s own perfect priesthood.
Thus the priesthood is truly an exalted calling and so important to the Church, we need priests.
However just as much as we need priests, the priesthood is in its own right a path to happiness and holiness for the men who are called to it. The priesthood is not a job, but an identity. It is a vocation, a calling, from God Himself. From the same God who made and knew us from the first moment of our conception. Thus when God calls a man to the priesthood, just like when he calls a man or woman to another vocation, e.g. marriage, parenthood, or religious life, this calling, this vocation, is not an option, It’s not a choice, but rather it’s a reality! It’s the reality of who we are and are meant to be and since God made us and wants us to be happy we can never be happy or at peace, unless we follow the plan He has for our life.
This was my experience.
Happiness comes from listening to the word of God and doing it—following God’s plan in freedom!
And so we come back to the question: Am I my brother’s keeper?
If in charity the answer to this question is yes and if we truly desire what is best for our neighbor we must help them to seek our and discern God’s vocation for them.
Do not be afraid to correct each other, and to lead each other to follow God’s will—because in this journey of life, we are all fellow pilgrims, and so we must help each other follow the Way.
Just as we must be willing in charity to correct our brother when he sins. In Charity, help young people know that God has a plan for them, to listen for it in their hearts, and to do it! Their happiness depends on it!
And while all vocations are of God and thus needed in a special way encourage young men to consider the priesthood. I believe that every young man, who is serious about his faith, owes it to himself and his God to at least consider this vocation.
Given at St. Peter's Church in Provincetown
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
Am I my brother’s keeper? The simple answer is yes—and as our Lord tells us in the Gospel
Our brother or our neighbor—is really everyman, every person whose path we cross and whose life is affected by our own. This is a fundamental principle of Catholicism called solidarity—which means that as Catholics we understand that no man is an island, that our actions affect each other and that we must be conscious of this interdependence in the exercise of our freedom.
Each of us has a responsibility to care for and promote the good for each other.This is at the root of the greatest commandment: the command to Love God, and because of our Love for God, to Love our neighbor.
This is true Christian charity, and you know what, in many ways, we Americans, we American Catholics, are very good at loving our neighbor.
A clear example of this is the instant and generous response whenever we hear of a natural or man made disaster threatening peoples lives anywhere across the globe.
However today’s Gospel and scriptures, reminds us of the more difficult aspect of Charity
the harder aspect of Love.
To love one another does not mean to live and let live. To love one another does not mean simply to provide our neighbors with what they need to survive. Love means to be intimately interested in the well-being of another. It means to want what’s good for them not just nutritionally, physically, financially, emotionally but also intellectually, morally, and spiritually.
When the Gospel speaks about feeding the poor, of course it means giving the hungry bread.
But let us not forget that our Lord himself declares that Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that falls from the mouth of God. And what is the Word of God, except God’s plan for humanity? Thus if we want to succeed in fulfilling that law of love, we can’t provide for our neighbors body and be silent about their soul!
Each of us, by virtue of our baptism—must speak out helping and teaching each other to listen
for God’s plan and to obey His Law.
God loves us, he loves us all, inspite of the fact that we are all sinners, and so to help us speak, to teach us and help us recognize God’s plan God gives us some help
God sends us shepherds, he sends us pastors and watchmen elders in faith, who we call priests to help us help others, but priests do not have a monopoly on this teaching vocation! All of us by virtue of our baptism share in Christ’s prophetic mission. All of us are called to watch over each other, to take responsibility for our neighbors to teach them the truth, walk with them on the path, and to correct them when necessary.
Rather, God gives us shepherds, who are sealed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and dedicated to proclaiming the Word and being a steward of the mysteries of God, so that we who are called to love, might be strengthened daily by the source of all Love through the proclamation of the Word of God and by the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ—the source of all the sacraments.
It is to Priests—the helpers of the Bishops and in their own right successors of the Apostles—
that Christ entrusts the duty to safeguard the faith, to keep it pure and whole, so that in each generation the faithful have direct access to Christ.
In this special way, priests become their brother’s keeper. Priests live out the universal call to love by feeding their brothers and sisters—not just with bread and water but with the Word of God the Father and the food from heaven.
In this way our priests become icons and images of the Father and so we rightly call these our brothers, Father.
And while, as we all know, individual priests and even bishops may occasionally stray from the path and need to be called back to faithfulness themselves, Christ promises that united with the Holy Father and all the Bishops the Priesthood itself will never fail—because it is ultimately united to Christ’s own perfect priesthood.
Thus the priesthood is truly an exalted calling and so important to the Church, we need priests.
However just as much as we need priests, the priesthood is in its own right a path to happiness and holiness for the men who are called to it. The priesthood is not a job, but an identity. It is a vocation, a calling, from God Himself. From the same God who made and knew us from the first moment of our conception. Thus when God calls a man to the priesthood, just like when he calls a man or woman to another vocation, e.g. marriage, parenthood, or religious life, this calling, this vocation, is not an option, It’s not a choice, but rather it’s a reality! It’s the reality of who we are and are meant to be and since God made us and wants us to be happy we can never be happy or at peace, unless we follow the plan He has for our life.
This was my experience.
Happiness comes from listening to the word of God and doing it—following God’s plan in freedom!
And so we come back to the question: Am I my brother’s keeper?
If in charity the answer to this question is yes and if we truly desire what is best for our neighbor we must help them to seek our and discern God’s vocation for them.
Do not be afraid to correct each other, and to lead each other to follow God’s will—because in this journey of life, we are all fellow pilgrims, and so we must help each other follow the Way.
Just as we must be willing in charity to correct our brother when he sins. In Charity, help young people know that God has a plan for them, to listen for it in their hearts, and to do it! Their happiness depends on it!
And while all vocations are of God and thus needed in a special way encourage young men to consider the priesthood. I believe that every young man, who is serious about his faith, owes it to himself and his God to at least consider this vocation.
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