Ecce Agnus Dei

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The Mass, the way its meant to be.

Be careful what you ask for

Homily for the 17th Sunday throughout the Year
Given at St. Patrick's Church
By Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

Be careful what you ask for,
I once heard a true story of a lawyer who didn’t believe in God,
(It’s amazing how often those who do not believe in God
Talk about him, isn’t it?)

Anyway the lawyer and two buddies were fishing
on Caddo Lake in Texas when a lightning storm hit.

Most of the other boats immediately headed for the shore,
but not our friend the lawyer.

Alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat with his buddies, he stood up and mocked God.

Spreading his arms wide, he shouted:
"HERE I AM LORD, LET ME HAVE IT!"

Needless to say, God delivered.

Striking the man dead while leaving the other two passengers on the boat with only minor burns.

In today’s first reading from the book of Kings,
God offers Solomon a wish.
Saying, “ask for anything and I will give it to you.”

What an offer! I mean Solomon has hit the Jackpot
Who here wouldn’t want God to offer us anything we want?

And yet Solomon’s answer however should give us pause,
And should cause us to consider
what exactly it is that we ask God for on a daily basis.

we all know the Greek myth of King Midas,
Who loved gold so much that he was afflicted with
The ability to turn everything he touched into Gold,
Even and most tragically those he loved.

Each of us, at some point in our life
have asked God for something:

[Some of you may know that in a former life
I worked for the US Government
What wou may not know is that
I worked for the Senate Committee on the Budget

I knew it was time for me to leave that job, and that career,
When our economist told me with a straight face
We can never have too much debt.

A lot of people treat the government like God, or Santa Clause,
Expecting that the government will provide for them
everything they need and want—
but the fact of the matter is
as our government is finding out today,
its not necessarily a good idea
to give everyone everything they want

I remember the comedy movie Mr. Deeds
where the main character inherit a whole bunch of money
and bought everyone in his small town a red sports car
at first thought you might think that sounds great,
on second thought however the results were traffic
and a really strange looking town.
today the wisdom of Solomon challenges us to
Think about what we ask for from God’s perspective.

How many of us, offered Solomon’s wish
would ask God to prove Himself?
How many would ask for something petty? Money, a Car, toys?
How many would ask for something that God is not willing
to do because he is not willing to take away human freedom?

God always answers our prayers,
but sometimes his answer is no
because God knows what we need to become the persons
He made us to be.

The question is will we ask God, like Solomon
For nothing more than the Grace, wisdom, and courage
To fulfill our life’s vocation or will we

Or will we seek things that will never give us
true happiness, joy, and peace?

Remember at the end of our life
God will ask us a few things too.

On that judgment day...

1. God won't ask what kind of car you drove;
He'll ask how many people you helped and loved
by driving those who didn't have transportation.

2. God won't ask the square footage of your house,
He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

3. God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet,
He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4. God won't ask what your highest salary was;
He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it, and performed your job to the best of your ability.

5. God won't ask how many friends you had;
He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

6. God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived,
He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.

7. AND He won't ask why it took you so long to seek Salvation;
He'll just ask you how you loved Him after receiving it.


In the Bible it says ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find

The Lord wants to give us all that is good
and lead us into the fullness of happiness, but
we must seek to know His plan and understand
that so often He has much greater things planned for us
than we have for ourselves

Ask the Lord today for the Courage to improve the things
you can improve in this world,
the serentity to accept the things you can’t,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Made for Love

A wedding homily

Given at St. Patrick's Church

On Saturday July 23, 2011

By Rev Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd

SO A man died and went to Heaven.
When he finally met GOD, he asks GOD if he can ask him a few questions about women.

GOD smiled and said, "sure, go right ahead".

"OK," the man says. "Why did you make women so beautiful?"

GOD says, "So you would be attracted to and like them."

"OK, but how come you made them so gentle and nurturing?"

To which God replied: "So you would learn to LOVE them.”

The man ponders a moment and then asks, "But why did you make them such airheads?"

GOD says, "So they would be foolish enough to put up with you
just long enough to learn to love you!


In the book of Genesis we read that God created man, in His image and likeness God created him, male and female God created them.

Giving us a body, to touch and feel and learn with,
God created us in His image and likeness,
And this image and likeness is not a physical resemblance
But a spiritual likeness.




St. John tells us God is Love, and so we are in God’s image
In that each of us has the freedom and ability to love.

Love is what the world is all about,
love is why we exist,
love is the answer to all our problems and prayers

And yet love is so often absent from the world.

Because while God gives us the ability to love,
love can only exist in freedom, we must choose to love
this image must be put into action in order for us to be like God.

And this is difficult, because despite the frequency
that we use and throw around that word: LOVE

Ultimately most people can’t imagine what true love means.

Think about it we use the same word to talk about chocolate or pizza
That we use to talk about our family.

Hopefully we don’t love these two things in the same way
Because if we did it would give a whole new meaning
to having our family for diner—[very “silence of the lambs”]

A thirteen year old may “love” his first girlfriend,
but we all know that this love is mostly
physical attraction, emotions, and hormones
which eventually fade whereas true love is not just long lasting,
but forever.


Sadly, even many of those who come together
and vow themselves to each other in marriage
“till death do us part”

end up breaking their word to each other,
because they didn’t know what love truly meant and requires!

All of us from the youngest here to the oldest
Are still learning about love,
and until the day we die school is in session

As Jesus tells us in the Gospel, “from the beginning”
God created marriage and the family to be a elite prep school of love.
Preparing each and every one of us to love and be loved forever.

And when Jesus was born to remind the world what true love means,
to remind mankind what it means to be made in His image and likeness
he made marriage a Sacrament, a sign,
through which Christians could participate in
and bear witness to His perfect act of Love on the Cross.

In doing so He gave the Church and married couples the grace to love,
Not just like an animal who selfishly picks a mate
But like Christ who selflessly died for His bride the Church.

If you want to know what love means,
all you need to do is meditate on the Cross.

As Paul does in the famous passage from the 13th chapter
of the first letter to the Corinthians where he tells us:
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Sadly you are not always patient
And you will not always be kind,
Jealousy may rear its ugly head
And perhaps from time to time
you might get pompous or rude with each other.

Love may bear all things, but the temptation for both of you will
be to get fed up, and to consider allowing your love to fail at times.

You see we are not saints,
and no matter how much you think you love each other
right now in this moment,
you don’t love each other enough for “the worse”

you are about to promise to love each other
for better or for worst till death does you part.
The temptation for us on this beautiful day when we are all dressed up
is to consider only the better and not the worst,

but the worst is important to think about too,
because its in the worst of times
that you their family and friends will need to give them
their most important wedding gift: your lover, support, and prayers


and because its in the worst of times, that if you cling to love
making a choice not to let love fail no matter what
that your love, weak as it is now, will grow so much stronger.

Jesus Christ has made the natural bond of marriage a Sacrament
A great mystery as St. Paul calls it in his letter to the Galatians,
Through which a husband learns to live the love of Christ
And wife learns to response as the Church responds to Christ.

Through this sacrament and your married life
God will help you become kind and patient and understanding,
He will help you grow in holiness and become Saints,

God is Love, and if you allow Him into your hearts and home,
He will transform you both over time
Into great lovers.

One of the most beautiful things I see as a priest
is love in difficult moments:
the newly weds struggling to survive in tough times
the young mother or father pacing the halls with a sick child
a father on his knees crying and praying when His family is in danger
the elderly couple gazing lovingly into each others eyes,
more in love now than ever after 5 or six decades together.

Remember its only in contrast to the sourness of the lemon that the sweetness of sugar tastes so refreshing on a hot day like today.
God is the sweetness

God is Love, if your faith makes you ready to take a risk on love,
I invite you to come forward now to express your intentions before God, your family, friends, and the whole Church

The Reality of Hell

A Homily for the 16th Sunday throughout the Year

Given at St. Patrick's in Wareham

By Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL

The other day I was talking to a mother
Who told me that her son always says to her,
“Don’t worry mom I am not going to hell”
Whenever she encourages him to take his faith more seriously.

And I thought to myself, He’s not?
How does he know?

In a day and age where people are so quick to forget God
And dismiss heaven,
How is it that so many people seem so sure they are not going to hell?

I mean Hell is a reality of our faith, you cannot be a Catholic Christian
And not believe in the reality that Jesus talks about in the Gospel today
And throughout the scriptures.

I often remember the humility of St. Paul’s word’s
in his first letter to the Church in Corinth, he says:
to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man;
but neither do I judge my own self.
For I am not conscious to myself of any thing,
yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me, is the Lord.

St. Paul reminds us often that Jesus’ teaching,
judge not lest you be judged
applies equally to ourselves as it does to others.

People often misinterpret Jesus, thinking that He is saying,
Mind your own business,
don’t tell other people if they are doing something wrong

When in fact, Jesus CONSTANTLY does this,
and tells us to do so too!
Love, requires us to correct out brothers and sisters when they sin
Because we don’t want them to go to Hell
We want them to please God and accept His love

“Judge not lest ye be judged” in fact means
That we must never write off the possibility
That the worst sinner could go to heaven
OR…. That the kindest person could go to hell.
After all, we believe that
all it takes is one serious sin.
At St. Paul tells the Phillipians:
work out your salvation with fear and trembling
because the determination, about whether we are wheat or weeds
is the gardener’s call.

My friends, HELL IS NOT A BOOGIE MONSTER
Designed to scare the children into being good.

In a strange way the logic, necessity, and reality of Hell
Is more readily evident in this sinful world,
than the much more obscure reality of heaven

St. Paul says: eye has not seen nor ear hear nor has it ever entered the heart of man
what God has prepared for those who love him.

BUT EYE has seen the results of sin,
We need not think back very far.
War, the debt crisis, murder, rape, iniquity, injustice
The 5 o’clock news daily shows us a glimpse of the reality of hell

And just like in Hitler’s Germany
though a few really bad men orchestrate things, each and every day
a lot of minorly bad people, like you and I make it possible.
People who play minor parts or sin simply by standing by
and watching evil happen.

Hell is not just for the really bad, but for those who make evil possible,
By not bearing fruit, not loving,
for in reality evil is simply the absence of good!

As the French philosopher John Paul Satre once quipped:
“Hell is other people.”

When we fail to remember God and seek to love and serve Him
Our selfish pursuits prove this statement true.

In the Gospel today Jesus speaks of each of us as seeds,
Full of so much potential and growth,
But some seed, sowed by the enemy uses this potential
not to build up God’s kingdom but tear it down.

When I was praying over this passage
I thought to myself how wonderful a parable it is, full of meaning.

Have you ever asked yourself: what is the difference
between weeds and wheat?
I am not a farmer but I would guess that wheat bears fruit
While weeds do not, instead just taking up space and choking out
The desirable plants.

I use to think that weeds were a particular type of plant
But then I realize that weeds are simply undesirable plants

If we expand this definition to a more diverse garden
We see that the difference between weeds and wheat
truly is in the eye of the beholder, or rather the master gardener

I remember my grandmother always joking about the fact that
Back in the day, I am guessing during the depression,
she and my great grandmother would gather dandelions,
a weed to many, for salad.

She found it amusing that dandelions were now very fashionable

The same I am told is true of lobster,
Which at one point only fishermen ate.
Lobster was the accidental byproduct of fishing
for the types of fish people actually desired.

The gardener in Jesus’ parable has a design for his field,
The yield he desires is grain.
He who planted is by right the judge of the good and the bad
Of the desirable plants and the weeds.

And so we must ask ourselves
what is the fruit which the master gardener desires?
Which is the fruit that He will gather into his barn?

The fruit is love. For He says:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,
and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength.
And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart:

This essentially is God’s one desire of us—
so simple that Augustine actually says: LOVE,
and do whatever else you want.

God desires real fruit though, and not just words.

In many ways the weeds look like the wheat,
This is why it’s so important not to judge, ourselves or others
But continuously to strive to bear fruit.

First by loving God,
And if we love Him, desiring to know Him better.

We do this simply by acknowledging the goodness of every life
And seeking its source.

Each of us has a desire put in our heart by our maker
For our maker.

No matter what doubts or difficulties or questions we have about God
First and foremost LOVE requires us to authentically seek Him

Aristotle, a pagan, often accused of atheism, observed this
long before the Birth of Christ.

As Blessed John Paul II once noted, we are not being authentically human if we ignore our hearts desire to know God, we allow the business of life to cloud our minds to the mysteries of life.

And because He reveals Himself to us, love also requires that once
we begin to know him we eventually seek to serve God
by loving our neighbor, our brothers and sisters, and even our enemy.

This is the fruit He desires, the question we must ask is
Are we bearing fruit?