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.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Who do people say that I am?
Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 24 2008
By: Fr. Ron Floyd
Who do people say that I am? As humans where do we find our identity and meaning?
In today’s first reading a man lost his job. I think all of us can relate to this experience or at least to the anxiety over the possibility of loosing a job.
When we are young a job is often just a means to an end, it is the way you get spending money, however as time goes on it becomes: the way you feed your family, a source of your identity, an affirmation of your human dignity, and it can often seem like it becomes a part of your essence, of the very fabric of who you are. And while younger people may not define themselves by a job—they too often do find an identity in what they do hobbies, sports, and social clicks. How often when we first meet someone do we define ourself by our occupation or interests?
The problem with this, as we see in the first reading and as we know from life is that things change. All you have to do is drive by the numerous abandoned mills here in NB to learn the truth that things fall apart and almost nothing lasts forever. Whether it’s a job, a hobby, or a sport, all these things can and most likely will someday be taken away from us and given to another.
Even if you seem to have job security TODAY, if your identity and meaning comes from what you do what happens when you get sick one day? What happens when the economic situation change? Or best case scenario, what happens when one day you will retire?
Then what? What happens to your identity when your job or hobby is over, or taken away from you and when you are force just to be, who you are?
Where do we get our dignity when we seem not to be needed any more?
This is a HUGE problem in our culture today, which so often gauges people’s worth materially by their quality of life or by their potential productivity and not based on the intrinsic value of each and every life.
In contrast to this materialistic value system Jesus reveals today the Gospel value system the good news, which we repeated in the psalm: that our God’s love is eternal and that he does not forsake the work of his hands.
We are the work of His hands and as St. Paul writes: from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. Our God reveals today that our value comes not from what we can do, from how smart we are, from how pretty, agile, strong or brave we are, but from the fact that we come from God that through God’s powerful love for us we exist and that we exist for God: that God has a plan for each of us.
Our dignity, value, and in truth happiness does not come from anything passing, from anything that can be taken away from us but from our identity and role in the plan of God, which can never be taken away from us?
So what is this plan?
In the book of Genesis we read that: God created Man and Woman, in the image and likeness of God He created them, and He declared that they were very good. Fundamental to God’s plan for all of us is being in his image and likeness, becoming like unto God. This means being holy as our heavenly Father is Holy. This means loving with our whole heart, the way God loves, loving not just in word but in deed by being in loving relationships with one another and with our God. These lifelong relationships—are fundamental to our identity—they are our true calling in life—our vocation.
Today I am here to tell you that our God has a plan for each of us! Young and old, strong and weak, it doesn’t matter. God is calling! This calling or vocation, comes from God and unlike jobs, vocations last forever.
They give us dignity, meaning, and happiness because they come from the same God who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves.
As we see in the question Jesus raises to the Apostles, Who do people say that I am? None of us are defined by what other people say about us by what we do, or who we associate with. Rather we are defined by, and our identity comes from who God made us to be.
In the case of Jesus, as St. Peter states, You are the Christ, the son of the living God. In life and in death from the first moments of his conception in the womb of Mary, this was who Jesus was made to be, and who he always will be. And as Jesus himself notes, this vocation, this calling did not come from Peter but rather from God Himself!
As Peter reveals Jesus’ identity, Jesus in turn reveals Peter’s vocation: you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church. Jesus calls Peter a rock—not because of what he would do but because this is the relationship Peter would have with the church God would build up the Church, using Peter as a foundation. Likewise, God has a plan for each of us, that is based not on what we can or might do, but on who we are!
So who are we? For all of us our vocations start with being sons and daughters not only to earthly parents but also of our heavenly Father. This vocation starts at our conception in our mother’s womb however while we all are sons in the Son, in Jesus we are all also called to be images of the Father—of divine parenthood.
Thus some are called to by holy by being natural parents, by being open to life and raising children for the Lord. In this way they become a symbol and icon of the love that God the Father has for us, his children. But parenthood is not just limited to those who are biologically parents rather many others demonstrate the love of God in single lives.
Some are called to spiritual fatherhood and motherhood Living as virgins and yet truly becoming parents to others by their loving concern for them—today we see this in the lives of so many religious.
Finally, a few men might be called like Peter to be rocks for the Church, to be the tools by which Christ builds up, teaches, and sanctifies His Church.
One thing that must be clearly seen is that vocations are not jobs, while they can be cast aside, because they are integral to who we are they can never be lost!
A mother, father, nun, monk, or priests remains what they are even if they abandon their children and forsake the title. And their children owe them respect and obedience even when they become old and needy of care themselves.
This is true because parenthood is a gift of self—a donation of your life to another that never ends—and thus can never be negated.
How God’s plan for each vocation will play out remains a mystery to us always. Truly God gives us the gift of our life and vocation, wrapped in the fabric of time as a mystery and a surprise both to our self and to the world. God’s plan for us does not determine what we do with our life As if we were some sort of pre-programmed machine but rather giving us direction, in freedom, He sets us free. His plan shows us in general terms—how he wants us to live. So that the genius of our free will has direction.
In my own life, I thought for so long that I would follow God’s plan as a married man; I wanted to find a wife, and to raise a family. So when I began to listen to His plan I was shocked to discover this vocation to the priesthood and to the celibate life it entails. I soon found out that when you follow God’s will your confirmation that you are doing what He wants comes quickly—in the form of a peace and joy that is unimaginable, that can only come from doing God’s will.
While I am not a parent in the natural sense as a priest I have been invited to be a part of so many families and to be a father to them—representing the Father and the Son.
Today I am here, a newly ordained priest, just two months ordained to tell you the Good News: God has a plan for your life and to invite each of you to consider it carefully.
Because following His plan is the only way to become who we were made to be the only way to find meaning in our life, and the only path to true happiness.
What we risk if we don’t listen to the voice of God is not the loss of a job, but the loss of the gift of ourselves to the world.
So as we God to the Altar today, ask God for the strength needed to listen for his call and act upon it and ask him for the grace needed to help others to listen.
Sunday, August 24 2008
By: Fr. Ron Floyd
Who do people say that I am? As humans where do we find our identity and meaning?
In today’s first reading a man lost his job. I think all of us can relate to this experience or at least to the anxiety over the possibility of loosing a job.
When we are young a job is often just a means to an end, it is the way you get spending money, however as time goes on it becomes: the way you feed your family, a source of your identity, an affirmation of your human dignity, and it can often seem like it becomes a part of your essence, of the very fabric of who you are. And while younger people may not define themselves by a job—they too often do find an identity in what they do hobbies, sports, and social clicks. How often when we first meet someone do we define ourself by our occupation or interests?
The problem with this, as we see in the first reading and as we know from life is that things change. All you have to do is drive by the numerous abandoned mills here in NB to learn the truth that things fall apart and almost nothing lasts forever. Whether it’s a job, a hobby, or a sport, all these things can and most likely will someday be taken away from us and given to another.
Even if you seem to have job security TODAY, if your identity and meaning comes from what you do what happens when you get sick one day? What happens when the economic situation change? Or best case scenario, what happens when one day you will retire?
Then what? What happens to your identity when your job or hobby is over, or taken away from you and when you are force just to be, who you are?
Where do we get our dignity when we seem not to be needed any more?
This is a HUGE problem in our culture today, which so often gauges people’s worth materially by their quality of life or by their potential productivity and not based on the intrinsic value of each and every life.
In contrast to this materialistic value system Jesus reveals today the Gospel value system the good news, which we repeated in the psalm: that our God’s love is eternal and that he does not forsake the work of his hands.
We are the work of His hands and as St. Paul writes: from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. Our God reveals today that our value comes not from what we can do, from how smart we are, from how pretty, agile, strong or brave we are, but from the fact that we come from God that through God’s powerful love for us we exist and that we exist for God: that God has a plan for each of us.
Our dignity, value, and in truth happiness does not come from anything passing, from anything that can be taken away from us but from our identity and role in the plan of God, which can never be taken away from us?
So what is this plan?
In the book of Genesis we read that: God created Man and Woman, in the image and likeness of God He created them, and He declared that they were very good. Fundamental to God’s plan for all of us is being in his image and likeness, becoming like unto God. This means being holy as our heavenly Father is Holy. This means loving with our whole heart, the way God loves, loving not just in word but in deed by being in loving relationships with one another and with our God. These lifelong relationships—are fundamental to our identity—they are our true calling in life—our vocation.
Today I am here to tell you that our God has a plan for each of us! Young and old, strong and weak, it doesn’t matter. God is calling! This calling or vocation, comes from God and unlike jobs, vocations last forever.
They give us dignity, meaning, and happiness because they come from the same God who made us and knows us better than we know ourselves.
As we see in the question Jesus raises to the Apostles, Who do people say that I am? None of us are defined by what other people say about us by what we do, or who we associate with. Rather we are defined by, and our identity comes from who God made us to be.
In the case of Jesus, as St. Peter states, You are the Christ, the son of the living God. In life and in death from the first moments of his conception in the womb of Mary, this was who Jesus was made to be, and who he always will be. And as Jesus himself notes, this vocation, this calling did not come from Peter but rather from God Himself!
As Peter reveals Jesus’ identity, Jesus in turn reveals Peter’s vocation: you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church. Jesus calls Peter a rock—not because of what he would do but because this is the relationship Peter would have with the church God would build up the Church, using Peter as a foundation. Likewise, God has a plan for each of us, that is based not on what we can or might do, but on who we are!
So who are we? For all of us our vocations start with being sons and daughters not only to earthly parents but also of our heavenly Father. This vocation starts at our conception in our mother’s womb however while we all are sons in the Son, in Jesus we are all also called to be images of the Father—of divine parenthood.
Thus some are called to by holy by being natural parents, by being open to life and raising children for the Lord. In this way they become a symbol and icon of the love that God the Father has for us, his children. But parenthood is not just limited to those who are biologically parents rather many others demonstrate the love of God in single lives.
Some are called to spiritual fatherhood and motherhood Living as virgins and yet truly becoming parents to others by their loving concern for them—today we see this in the lives of so many religious.
Finally, a few men might be called like Peter to be rocks for the Church, to be the tools by which Christ builds up, teaches, and sanctifies His Church.
One thing that must be clearly seen is that vocations are not jobs, while they can be cast aside, because they are integral to who we are they can never be lost!
A mother, father, nun, monk, or priests remains what they are even if they abandon their children and forsake the title. And their children owe them respect and obedience even when they become old and needy of care themselves.
This is true because parenthood is a gift of self—a donation of your life to another that never ends—and thus can never be negated.
How God’s plan for each vocation will play out remains a mystery to us always. Truly God gives us the gift of our life and vocation, wrapped in the fabric of time as a mystery and a surprise both to our self and to the world. God’s plan for us does not determine what we do with our life As if we were some sort of pre-programmed machine but rather giving us direction, in freedom, He sets us free. His plan shows us in general terms—how he wants us to live. So that the genius of our free will has direction.
In my own life, I thought for so long that I would follow God’s plan as a married man; I wanted to find a wife, and to raise a family. So when I began to listen to His plan I was shocked to discover this vocation to the priesthood and to the celibate life it entails. I soon found out that when you follow God’s will your confirmation that you are doing what He wants comes quickly—in the form of a peace and joy that is unimaginable, that can only come from doing God’s will.
While I am not a parent in the natural sense as a priest I have been invited to be a part of so many families and to be a father to them—representing the Father and the Son.
Today I am here, a newly ordained priest, just two months ordained to tell you the Good News: God has a plan for your life and to invite each of you to consider it carefully.
Because following His plan is the only way to become who we were made to be the only way to find meaning in our life, and the only path to true happiness.
What we risk if we don’t listen to the voice of God is not the loss of a job, but the loss of the gift of ourselves to the world.
So as we God to the Altar today, ask God for the strength needed to listen for his call and act upon it and ask him for the grace needed to help others to listen.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Have pity on me Lord, son of David.
Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 17th 2008
By: Fr. Ron Floyd
Have pity on me Lord, son of David.
There is a reason why for almost the entire life of the Church the ancient Greek refrain—Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison Kyrie Eleison Or Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy—has held a prominent place in the life of the Church. This two millennia old litany has always been close to the heart of the Church, because of our fundamental conviction of the weakness of our human condition.
As St. Paul notes: we are weak, but He (our God) is strong.
Central to the path to holiness, that each of us is called to is this admission, which we ritually make at the beginning of almost every Mass. The admission that we are in need, that in fact we can not succeed in our vocation, calling, and mission in life, without the help of God
Thus the plea of the woman in today’s Gospel have pity on me son of David, is in reality our plea!
Today’s gospel points out that it is natural to feel that we are not worthy of the call that we have been given to feel as if we are not worthy to be saints, to be holy that we are not worthy to follow God’s plan for us and you know in truth we are not worthy, none of us! But as I tell people all the time—inspite of and even because of our weakness our God has a plan for us a plan to make us his Saints, his Holy Ones.
Of course, at times because of our human weakness and fallen nature, we are all weak and we all sin. Our reluctance, however caused by shame, also is the result of sin, and of our pride, which doesn’t want to admit our sinfulness. Thus we, like the woman in the Gospel, must be humble before the Lord coming to him and crying out: Lord have Mercy, have pity on me Lord, son of David, because we know that when we do this He will always lift us up!
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, as Paul tells us in today’s second reading. St. Paul brings us to the reason for my visit here today. You see St. Paul teaches us that inspite of our weakness each of us has an awesome vocation—a calling from God
In God’s plan for the restoration of the whole world each of us has a huge part to play, a part that we may never fully know or understand. This part, this calling, this vocation, is irrevocable—God never takes it away from us, even when in our weakness we reject or overlook it.
I am a newly ordained priest—I’ve been a priest for just under two months now and for the past five years I have been studying with 160 men for the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Men who realized their own unworthiness and yet overcame it, by crying out, Lord have Mercy and by trusting in God to provide them strength.
It is amazing how many of them, deferred God’s call. How many of them shied away from their vocation either they were too unworthy, too sinful, or because they though they were too weak to follow the amazing path to the priesthood.
One is a 50 year old accountant, a multi-millionaire who was the former CFO of an insurance company. Another was a division one college football quarterback who for years thought he would play football professionally. Another worked for years for the CIA. I myself for years deferred and ignored the call I had heard and felt in my heart even from childhood. Rather I follow the path of Law and politics in high school and college I spent so much time and effort on my plan for my life, and I was quite successful at whatever I did!
At 16, I was already working on campaigns, and already playing some dirty politics. By 19 I had my foot in the door, finding myself one of the youngest paid staffers working on Capitol Hill. By twenty I had been interview by ABC, CNN, and the BBC and I had already had the dubious privilege of being an anonymous source in a news paper article cited by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News.
But even though I was achieving my plans and my goals though I was financially comfortable, and fairly content by my Junior year of College I realized that something was wrong, I wasn’t truly happy—and my heart was not at ease. And so, after much prayer, and after making so many excuses I entered seminary—initially planning to give it a year and then leave, having realized that I was too weak and too sinful for the priesthood.
What I discovered though, rocked my world. I discovered for the first time in my life true happiness which came from trusting in God and doing His will, despite the difficulties and sacrifices of this vocation and my own weakness in the face of them.
Being a Priest is hard—impossibly hard without God because as a priest you are called to lead and build up God’s people. You are called to be another Christ: to wash people with the blood of the Lamb in Baptism; to purify and strengthen them with the fire of the Spirit in confirmation; to feed them with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at the Mass; and to heal and forgive them their sins in confession.
How can any sinful man do these things? How can sinful man dare to try to do these things?
For me they are impossible, but with God all things are possible. To be a priest is impossible for Man because in fact there can be only one priest the Man-God Jesus Christ. But, when we cry out in our need, as God’s people—God sends workers into the vineyard He calls and sends us Pastors, priests, just like his Apostles, who were weak fallible men, who act as proxies and representatives of Christ the High Priest.
In my experience, for those who are called to this vocation who are called by God to the priesthood not to dare, not to try, not to listen to the voice of God leads to a life that is sure to be full of regrets and emptiness.
You see, at the heart of all human suffering is the rejection of God’s plan for man and for the world. At the heart of all suffering is spiritual blindness and deafness. At times we have all been blind and deaf to the hidden voice of God speaking to us in our Heart. So at some point we all must cry out: Have pity on me son of David. And turning back to God, begin anew to listen to him.
Our God hears us when we cry out: Lord have mercy, Kyrie Eleison. When we cry to Him, He does heal us, because the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. He heals us through the example and encouragement of others, He heals us through the ministry of good and holy priests, He heals us in the sacrament of penance and He heals and strengthens us at the Altar of God with His Body and His Blood.
As we approach that Altar – let’s lift our hearts and voices to God, asking him to have mercy on us to strengthen us, so that we may hear and listen to His plan for us, and act upon it.
And let’s pray, that more young men trust in God and despite their own weakness, consider a vocation to the Priesthood.
In our weakness God wants us to be Saints calling on him for mercy and strength. Let’s always remember to pray that God reveals His plan to us because it is in doing the will of the Father that we will find joy and peace here in this world and forever!
Sunday, August 17th 2008
By: Fr. Ron Floyd
Have pity on me Lord, son of David.
There is a reason why for almost the entire life of the Church the ancient Greek refrain—Kyrie Eleison Christe Eleison Kyrie Eleison Or Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy—has held a prominent place in the life of the Church. This two millennia old litany has always been close to the heart of the Church, because of our fundamental conviction of the weakness of our human condition.
As St. Paul notes: we are weak, but He (our God) is strong.
Central to the path to holiness, that each of us is called to is this admission, which we ritually make at the beginning of almost every Mass. The admission that we are in need, that in fact we can not succeed in our vocation, calling, and mission in life, without the help of God
Thus the plea of the woman in today’s Gospel have pity on me son of David, is in reality our plea!
Today’s gospel points out that it is natural to feel that we are not worthy of the call that we have been given to feel as if we are not worthy to be saints, to be holy that we are not worthy to follow God’s plan for us and you know in truth we are not worthy, none of us! But as I tell people all the time—inspite of and even because of our weakness our God has a plan for us a plan to make us his Saints, his Holy Ones.
Of course, at times because of our human weakness and fallen nature, we are all weak and we all sin. Our reluctance, however caused by shame, also is the result of sin, and of our pride, which doesn’t want to admit our sinfulness. Thus we, like the woman in the Gospel, must be humble before the Lord coming to him and crying out: Lord have Mercy, have pity on me Lord, son of David, because we know that when we do this He will always lift us up!
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, as Paul tells us in today’s second reading. St. Paul brings us to the reason for my visit here today. You see St. Paul teaches us that inspite of our weakness each of us has an awesome vocation—a calling from God
In God’s plan for the restoration of the whole world each of us has a huge part to play, a part that we may never fully know or understand. This part, this calling, this vocation, is irrevocable—God never takes it away from us, even when in our weakness we reject or overlook it.
I am a newly ordained priest—I’ve been a priest for just under two months now and for the past five years I have been studying with 160 men for the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Men who realized their own unworthiness and yet overcame it, by crying out, Lord have Mercy and by trusting in God to provide them strength.
It is amazing how many of them, deferred God’s call. How many of them shied away from their vocation either they were too unworthy, too sinful, or because they though they were too weak to follow the amazing path to the priesthood.
One is a 50 year old accountant, a multi-millionaire who was the former CFO of an insurance company. Another was a division one college football quarterback who for years thought he would play football professionally. Another worked for years for the CIA. I myself for years deferred and ignored the call I had heard and felt in my heart even from childhood. Rather I follow the path of Law and politics in high school and college I spent so much time and effort on my plan for my life, and I was quite successful at whatever I did!
At 16, I was already working on campaigns, and already playing some dirty politics. By 19 I had my foot in the door, finding myself one of the youngest paid staffers working on Capitol Hill. By twenty I had been interview by ABC, CNN, and the BBC and I had already had the dubious privilege of being an anonymous source in a news paper article cited by Bill O’Reilly on Fox News.
But even though I was achieving my plans and my goals though I was financially comfortable, and fairly content by my Junior year of College I realized that something was wrong, I wasn’t truly happy—and my heart was not at ease. And so, after much prayer, and after making so many excuses I entered seminary—initially planning to give it a year and then leave, having realized that I was too weak and too sinful for the priesthood.
What I discovered though, rocked my world. I discovered for the first time in my life true happiness which came from trusting in God and doing His will, despite the difficulties and sacrifices of this vocation and my own weakness in the face of them.
Being a Priest is hard—impossibly hard without God because as a priest you are called to lead and build up God’s people. You are called to be another Christ: to wash people with the blood of the Lamb in Baptism; to purify and strengthen them with the fire of the Spirit in confirmation; to feed them with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at the Mass; and to heal and forgive them their sins in confession.
How can any sinful man do these things? How can sinful man dare to try to do these things?
For me they are impossible, but with God all things are possible. To be a priest is impossible for Man because in fact there can be only one priest the Man-God Jesus Christ. But, when we cry out in our need, as God’s people—God sends workers into the vineyard He calls and sends us Pastors, priests, just like his Apostles, who were weak fallible men, who act as proxies and representatives of Christ the High Priest.
In my experience, for those who are called to this vocation who are called by God to the priesthood not to dare, not to try, not to listen to the voice of God leads to a life that is sure to be full of regrets and emptiness.
You see, at the heart of all human suffering is the rejection of God’s plan for man and for the world. At the heart of all suffering is spiritual blindness and deafness. At times we have all been blind and deaf to the hidden voice of God speaking to us in our Heart. So at some point we all must cry out: Have pity on me son of David. And turning back to God, begin anew to listen to him.
Our God hears us when we cry out: Lord have mercy, Kyrie Eleison. When we cry to Him, He does heal us, because the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. He heals us through the example and encouragement of others, He heals us through the ministry of good and holy priests, He heals us in the sacrament of penance and He heals and strengthens us at the Altar of God with His Body and His Blood.
As we approach that Altar – let’s lift our hearts and voices to God, asking him to have mercy on us to strengthen us, so that we may hear and listen to His plan for us, and act upon it.
And let’s pray, that more young men trust in God and despite their own weakness, consider a vocation to the Priesthood.
In our weakness God wants us to be Saints calling on him for mercy and strength. Let’s always remember to pray that God reveals His plan to us because it is in doing the will of the Father that we will find joy and peace here in this world and forever!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Why are you here?
Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
In today’s first reading we hear the question asked: Why are you here Elijah?
A question which echoes in each of our hearts and I don’t mean why are you sitting here in this Church but why are you here in this world. What is your purpose? What is the meaning of this life?
I think all of us ask this question of ourselves at some point because all of us want to know who we are, all of us want to know what our place is in this life. We all want to know that our life has value—that we are not just a cosmic mistake.
Sadly, too often, too many people give up hope of ever finding meaning in their life. Either, because of comfort and pleasure they become content with their everyday life and forget to seek out a greater meaning and purpose, content just to be content or, because of suffering and sorrow, they reject the possibility of finding any meaning, purpose, or real happiness in life. And despairing of finding meaning, they like Elijah collapse, spiritually, under the tree of depression praying for death: either physical death or worse spiritual death, death to the possibility of anything more than our material existence.
In the midst of Elijah’s despair a voice reminds Elijah that, in fact, we all have a purpose and calls him back to the source of that purpose. All of us want to know the answer to the question: Why are you here? But none of us can answer this question ourselves and so we look to those around us to help us.
And surely they do, by the gift of love, given and received we find purpose in our life. Our parents, wives and husbands, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors—all contribute to our sense of identity and meaning. However, as Elijah discovered all of these can be taken away and sadly, all of these can abandon and forsake us in time. But our God never abandon’s us our God, who is love, loves us and never take away that gift of love.
For Elijah, just as for us, in the midst of our despair in the midst of life’s trials and sorrows it is in the presence of our God that meaning is rediscovered and that the weary heart is reinvigorated.
True happiness comes from this purpose, this meaning. It comes from seeking out the will of God and doing it. But where do we look for our God, how can we listen to Him? As we read, like Elijah, we find the Lord not in the noise of the world or in grand events of seismic proportion but in the quiet of the desert, and on the lonely mountain.
Its often said that people only turn to God when they are in need when they are suffering or afraid. In fact, the famous novelist CS Lewis noted this, saying, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” I think maybe people hear God so clearly when they are suffering or afraid, because at these times the feel so alone. At these times they for a moment escape from the rut of everyday life and find themselves for a moment free and ready to listen. They feel so alone that they open their mind to anyone looking for consolation and love.
My friends I am here to speak to you about vocations to the priesthood.
But the fact of the matter is that if we want to have more priests, if we want to have more religious brothers and sisters, if we want to have more holy catholic parents and families—if we want to have more saints then the key is to teach people to listen to each other, and to God, who often speaks through others.
It might not seem like our lives are important but we never know how many lives and hearts we touch by our actions and omissions. Each one of us needs to help the other to listen to God encouraging each other to take time out of our busy schedules, to get away from the world and ask the simple question: why am I here?
Our God speaks, he tells us of his love and his plan but he speaks in a hushed voice, in a whisper in our heart. I say this from experience in my life I so vividly remember the many times when on retreat or pilgrimage on vacations and even on my day off, when I heard the voice of God.
My friends, I am here to testify to you today that listening to the voice of God and following His plan is the only way to true happiness here in this life and forever!
Of course, hand and hand with listening goes action! Like Elijah who heard the voice calling to him and walked out into the desert or like St. Peter, who heard Jesus call to him and walked out on the water.
When we hear the Lord’s voice calling to us we must take a risk, we must take that first step. We must know and believe that when we do the will of God he will give us all we need to succeed.
In my own life, after years of not listening he opened my ears and I took a chance, I trusted the whispering voice of God, I followed him to the priesthood. And you know, I knew I would be able to tell if this was really what God wanted for me because I know that following God always make us happy, but in all honesty I never imagined the sheer joy it would bring into my life.
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd
In today’s first reading we hear the question asked: Why are you here Elijah?
A question which echoes in each of our hearts and I don’t mean why are you sitting here in this Church but why are you here in this world. What is your purpose? What is the meaning of this life?
I think all of us ask this question of ourselves at some point because all of us want to know who we are, all of us want to know what our place is in this life. We all want to know that our life has value—that we are not just a cosmic mistake.
Sadly, too often, too many people give up hope of ever finding meaning in their life. Either, because of comfort and pleasure they become content with their everyday life and forget to seek out a greater meaning and purpose, content just to be content or, because of suffering and sorrow, they reject the possibility of finding any meaning, purpose, or real happiness in life. And despairing of finding meaning, they like Elijah collapse, spiritually, under the tree of depression praying for death: either physical death or worse spiritual death, death to the possibility of anything more than our material existence.
In the midst of Elijah’s despair a voice reminds Elijah that, in fact, we all have a purpose and calls him back to the source of that purpose. All of us want to know the answer to the question: Why are you here? But none of us can answer this question ourselves and so we look to those around us to help us.
And surely they do, by the gift of love, given and received we find purpose in our life. Our parents, wives and husbands, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors—all contribute to our sense of identity and meaning. However, as Elijah discovered all of these can be taken away and sadly, all of these can abandon and forsake us in time. But our God never abandon’s us our God, who is love, loves us and never take away that gift of love.
For Elijah, just as for us, in the midst of our despair in the midst of life’s trials and sorrows it is in the presence of our God that meaning is rediscovered and that the weary heart is reinvigorated.
True happiness comes from this purpose, this meaning. It comes from seeking out the will of God and doing it. But where do we look for our God, how can we listen to Him? As we read, like Elijah, we find the Lord not in the noise of the world or in grand events of seismic proportion but in the quiet of the desert, and on the lonely mountain.
Its often said that people only turn to God when they are in need when they are suffering or afraid. In fact, the famous novelist CS Lewis noted this, saying, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” I think maybe people hear God so clearly when they are suffering or afraid, because at these times the feel so alone. At these times they for a moment escape from the rut of everyday life and find themselves for a moment free and ready to listen. They feel so alone that they open their mind to anyone looking for consolation and love.
My friends I am here to speak to you about vocations to the priesthood.
But the fact of the matter is that if we want to have more priests, if we want to have more religious brothers and sisters, if we want to have more holy catholic parents and families—if we want to have more saints then the key is to teach people to listen to each other, and to God, who often speaks through others.
It might not seem like our lives are important but we never know how many lives and hearts we touch by our actions and omissions. Each one of us needs to help the other to listen to God encouraging each other to take time out of our busy schedules, to get away from the world and ask the simple question: why am I here?
Our God speaks, he tells us of his love and his plan but he speaks in a hushed voice, in a whisper in our heart. I say this from experience in my life I so vividly remember the many times when on retreat or pilgrimage on vacations and even on my day off, when I heard the voice of God.
My friends, I am here to testify to you today that listening to the voice of God and following His plan is the only way to true happiness here in this life and forever!
Of course, hand and hand with listening goes action! Like Elijah who heard the voice calling to him and walked out into the desert or like St. Peter, who heard Jesus call to him and walked out on the water.
When we hear the Lord’s voice calling to us we must take a risk, we must take that first step. We must know and believe that when we do the will of God he will give us all we need to succeed.
In my own life, after years of not listening he opened my ears and I took a chance, I trusted the whispering voice of God, I followed him to the priesthood. And you know, I knew I would be able to tell if this was really what God wanted for me because I know that following God always make us happy, but in all honesty I never imagined the sheer joy it would bring into my life.
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