Let us also go to die with him...

 Homily: Palm Sunday – Cycle A

“Let us also go to die with him.”  These were the words of Thomas the Apostle from last Sunday’s Gospel reading.  You’ll recall that it was the recounting of the miraculous raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Lazarus, who with his sisters, Martha and Mary, was a great friend of Jesus’, fell ill and died.  Martha and Mary had sent word to Jesus that he might come and cure him (for surely, as great friends of Jesus, Jesus would come quickly to heal him).  Jesus, however, delays and Lazarus dies.  It is only then that Jesus turns to go to Bethany, announcing to his disciples that Lazarus’ death will be for God’s glory and so that he, the Son of God, would be glorified, too.  Thomas—the one whom we often deride as the “doubter”—is quick to believe what Jesus has said and courageously announces that he, too, is ready to go and to die so that God might be glorified and Jesus, too, might be glorified.

When he and his fellow disciples, along with Martha and Mary and the Jews who were accompanying them in their grief, saw Lazarus restored to life–the man who was surely dead after spending four days in the tomb–he, along with them, must have had a profound sense that he was part of something big: something, perhaps, that he couldn’t quite comprehend at that moment.  Then, some time later, when he and the other disciples accompanied Jesus as he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I imagine that he looked with wonder and delight as great crowds of people acclaimed Jesus as the Messiah.  Perhaps for him and his fellow disciples, it was the final confirmation that he was, indeed, part of something big—the biggest, in fact: the definitive restoration of the throne of David, their great king, and the ushering in of God’s eternal kingdom.

Soon after, however, their assurance would begin to wane as they came to know that not everyone in Jerusalem was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah.  The religious elite, in fact, were so unconvinced that Jesus was the Messiah that they were plotting ways to arrest Jesus and put him to death for the sin of blasphemy.  Thus, by Holy Thursday night, the joyful, triumphant spirit of Sunday had turned into a spirit of tension and uncertainty, which then would quickly transform into a spirit of shock, fear, and grief as Jesus was arrested, condemned, tortured, and crucified. ///

As we recount the Passion of our Lord today, we see this kind of rapid change in spirit in Jesus.  We can imagine the excitement, the joy in Christ’s heart as he entered Jerusalem to the shouts of “Hosanna” from the great crowds.  We can imagine him feeling very energized by this display.  Then, as the events of Holy Thursday night unfold, we find Jesus’ spirit turn, and he becomes emptier and passive. ///

Jesus “emptied himself”, Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, and he took “the form of a slave.”  Typically, a slave is someone who is very passive and who will often speak as if he has no voice of his own.  Multiple times in this account from the Gospel, we heard Jesus respond as he was pressed to give an answer: when Judas asked if he would be the betrayer, when Caiaphas ordered Jesus to say whether he was the Messiah, and when Pilate asked whether he was the king of the Jews.  In each, Jesus said, passively, “You have said so,” instead of directly responding to their questions.  In fact, most everything in this account of Jesus’ Passion is showing us how completely Jesus emptied himself, making himself a slave, and becoming obedient even to the point of the most shameful kind of death: death on a cross.

Friends, every year Lent is a time in which we are called to “empty ourselves” through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.  Given all the strife in our community, our country, and throughout the world, I have found myself fighting a spirit that has been saying, “let’s just get this over with”.  Perhaps some of you have been fighting this same spirit.  This is a bad spirit.  Bad because it causes us to step out of the present and into a future that isn’t yet real.  But God isn’t in the future.  God is here, right now, in this mess with us; and he wants to encounter every turbulent emotion that you are experiencing so as to speak into them these words: “Do not be afraid, I am with you”. ///

Friends, as I often say during Lent, the physical discomforts that we voluntarily embrace during this time—that is, the things we enjoy that we give up or the things that we do not enjoy that we take up—are meant to create a space in us in which we can encounter our spiritual discomforts: mainly, the realization that we are not yet fully the disciples of Jesus that he has called us to be.  Our challenge this week, therefore, is to embrace the words of Thomas the Apostle: “Let us go also to die with him.”

Friends, let us let go of our anxiety over the things we are helpless to control, or the temptation to try to wrest control over everything, and instead empty ourselves, like slaves, and bear the cross of this time in solidarity with our fellow Christians throughout the world; and let us go also with Jesus to die with him, so that we might glorify God—and be glorified by him—on the day of Resurrection.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – March 28th & 29th, 2026

Baldazo de Realidad Cuaresmal

 Homilía: 5o Domingo de la Cuaresma – Ciclo A

Hermanos y hermanas, la lectura del Evangelio de hoy nos ofrece una especie de “baldazo de realidad” cuaresmal. Quizás nos esté yendo bien en nuestras prácticas cuaresmales; tal vez sintamos que hemos logrado grandes avances en la restauración de nuestra relación con Dios, como preparación para la celebración de la Pascua. Si es así, ¡eso es maravilloso! Dios nos creó para que viviéramos en relación con Él, a fin de poder compartir su vida de unidad, paz y gozo con su creación; por ello, su esfuerzo por restaurar su relación con Él–especialmente si este ha tomado ya la forma de una buena confesión en algún momento de las últimas cuatro semanas–seguramente está en conformidad con su voluntad para su vida. Sin embargo, el “baldazo de realidad” que nos brinda la lectura del Evangelio de hoy es un recordatorio de que la amistad con Dios no constituye una garantía de protección frente a la calamidad, el sufrimiento, o el dolor.

Marta, María, y Lázaro eran amigos cercanos de Jesús. El Evangelio nos dice que “Jesús amaba a Marta, a su hermana y a Lázaro”. Debido a esta estrecha amistad, los tres habían llegado a reconocer a Jesús como el Mesías y depositaron su fe en su capacidad para sanar incluso enfermedades mortales. Y así, cuando Lázaro enfermó, Marta envió aviso rápidamente a Jesús, con la esperanza de que él viniera a salvar a su hermano de aquella enfermedad. Sin embargo, Jesús no acudió de inmediato, y Lázaro murió. De hecho, para cuando Jesús llegó, Lázaro ya llevaba cuatro días en el sepulcro.

Debido a esto, tanto Marta como María confrontan a Jesús, diciendo: “Señor, si hubieras estado aquí, no habría muerto mi hermano.” Se sienten dolidas porque Jesús no pareció responder tan rápidamente como ellas–en virtud de su amistad–esperaban que lo hiciera. Jesús, a pesar de saber ya lo que iba a hacer, manifiesta no obstante la plenitud de su humanidad cuando, ante el dolor que experimentan estas hermanas a las que amaba entrañablemente, él mismo llora. Es un momento conmovedor que haríamos bien en tener presente cada vez que experimentemos una pérdida en nuestras propias vidas. Pero imaginemos por un momento que la historia hubiera terminado ahí: Jesús llorando mientras Lázaro permanece muerto en el sepulcro. Si ese fuera el caso, él sería un gran maestro, profeta, consolador e incluso, tal vez, amigo; pero no sería Dios.

Así, cuando escuchamos a Jesús decirle a Marta con claridad: “Yo soy la resurrección y la vida”, escuchamos algo diferente. Con estas palabras, Jesús le está diciendo que no se trata meramente de su creencia de que Lázaro resucitará, sino más bien de su conocimiento concreto de quién es Él y de lo que es capaz. La amistad con Dios–ella descubre–no consiste en una protección divina contra el dolor, el sufrimiento o incluso la muerte, sino más bien en la garantía de que, en medio de ese dolor, ese sufrimiento e incluso esa muerte, Dios estará con nosotros. Cuando Jesús llora, vemos la prueba más conmovedora–y a la vez más reveladora–de que Él, en efecto, está con nosotros, en la plenitud de nuestra humanidad. Sin embargo, cuando llama a Lázaro desde el sepulcro, vemos la prueba aún mayor de que Jesús no solo está con nosotros–el gran maestro, profeta, consolador y amigo–sino que Jesús es, en verdad, Dios; y que, en Jesús, Dios mismo está verdaderamente con nosotros.

Así, en Jesús, se han cumplido las palabras del profeta Ezequiel. Cuando Jesús llamó a Lázaro desde el sepulcro, trajo una nueva luz al renacimiento prefigurado en su promesa de traer de vuelta a su pueblo elegido desde el exilio. Aquel pueblo se consideraba a sí mismo muerto, pues había perdido la tierra de la cual extraía su identidad. Por ello, cuando el Señor “los conduciré de nuevo a la tierra de Israel”, se sintieron verdaderamente renacidos. Poco sabían, sin embargo, que un día Dios mismo asumiría la naturaleza humana, caminaría entre ellos y, literalmente, abriría los sepulcros de los difuntos y haría que los muertos se levantaran de ellos. Nótese que a los antiguos israelitas no se les evitó experimentar el exilio a causa de su amistad con Él; más bien, fue precisamente gracias a esa amistad que, a la postre, fueron restituidos a su tierra y se les concedió una “vida nueva”. Del mismo modo ocurre ahora: nuestra amistad con Dios no constituye una garantía de que no experimentaremos tristeza, dificultades o dolor; es, más bien, una promesa de que Dios nos librará de esa tristeza, de esas dificultades o de ese dolor, siempre y cuando permanezcamos fieles a nuestra amistad con Él.

Esta es la promesa que aquellos que se preparan para recibir los sacramentos de Pascua esperan recibir. Ellos reconocen que han estado muertos en su pecado y reconocen que es solo a través de la amistad con Dios–obtenida mediante un acto definitivo de fe en Jesús–como serán liberados de esta muerte para caminar en la novedad de vida. El escrutinio final que celebramos con ellos los invita a reconocer esta verdad y a pedir, en oración, la gracia para perseverar en su compromiso de dejar el pecado atrás. Al final, nos invita a nosotros a apoyarlos con nuestras oraciones.

Hermanos y hermanas, el escrutinio es un recordatorio para cada uno de nosotros de que el pecado–especialmente el pecado mortal–nos separa de Dios y de nuestra amistad con Él. Si aún no nos hemos apartado de nuestro pecado en esta Cuaresma, debemos comenzar hoy mismo esta obra necesaria; pues Dios–aunque nunca se da por vencido con nosotros–no nos salvará de la muerte–es decir, de la muerte eterna–si primero no buscamos reconciliarnos con Él. Sin embargo, también nos recuerda que la amistad con Él no es garantía de que nos libraremos del dolor, del sufrimiento o incluso de la muerte en este mundo. Es, más bien, una garantía de que nunca seremos abandonados a la muerte eterna: una promesa que la resurrección de Lázaro–y, de manera aún más conmovedora, la propia resurrección de Jesús–nos demuestra.

Y así, al acercarnos al Señor en torno a este altar, pidamos la fortaleza de la fe para confiar en la victoria sobre la muerte que Jesús conquistó para nosotros–y, de este modo, depositar toda nuestra esperanza en Él, tal como lo hicieron Marta y María–para que también nosotros, junto con nuestros elegidos, estemos preparados para recibir la gracia de la vida nueva: esa vida nueva y gloriosa en Jesús que recibimos bajo los signos sacramentales, aquí, en esta Santa Eucaristía.

Dado en la parroquia de Todos los Santos: Logansport, IN – 22 de marzo, 2026

Lenten Reality Check

 Homily: 5th Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

My brothers and sisters, today’s gospel reading provides us with a little “Lenten reality check”, of sorts.  Perhaps we’ve been doing well in our Lenten practices—and perhaps we feel that we have made great progress in restoring our relationship with God in preparation for celebrating Easter.  If so, that’s great!  God created us to be in relationship with him so that he might share his life of unity, peace, and joy with his creation and so your work to restore your relationship with him—especially if that has already taken the form of making a good confession sometime in the last four weeks—is surely in conformance with his will for your life.  The “reality check” that today’s Gospel reading provides us, however, is a reminder that friendship with God is no guarantee of protection from calamity, suffering, or pain.

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were close friends of Jesus.  The Gospel tells us that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus”.  Because of this close friendship, the three of them had come to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and they put their faith in his ability to heal even mortal sicknesses.  And so, when Lazarus fell ill, Martha quickly sent word to Jesus, hoping that he’d come to save her brother from this illness.  Jesus didn’t come right away, however, and Lazarus died.  In fact, by the time Jesus had arrived, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

Because of this, Martha and Mary both confront Jesus, saying: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  They are hurt because Jesus did not appear to respond as quickly as they, because of their friendship, expected that he would.  Jesus, in spite of already knowing what he was going to do, nonetheless displays the fullness of his humanity when, confronted by the sorrow being experienced by these sisters whom he dearly loved, he himself weeps.  It’s a touching moment that we would do well to consider any time that we experience a loss in our own lives.  But let’s imagine for a moment that the story ended there: Jesus weeping while Lazarus remains dead in the grave.  If that were the case, he’d be a great teacher, prophet, consoler, and even, perhaps, friend, but he wouldn’t be God.

Thus, when we hear Jesus tell Martha plainly, “I am the resurrection and the life”, we hear something different.  With these words, Jesus is telling her that it isn’t just his belief that Lazarus will rise, but rather it is his concrete knowledge of who he is and of what he is capable.  Friendship with God, she discovers, is not divine protection from pain, suffering, or even death, but rather a guarantee that, in that pain, suffering, and even death, God will be with us.  When Jesus weeps, we see the most touching, but telling evidence that he, indeed, is with us, in the fullness of our humanity.  When he calls Lazarus from the grave, however, we see the still greater evidence that not only is Jesus with us—the great teacher, prophet, consoler, and friend—but that Jesus is, indeed, God: and that, in Jesus, God himself is truly with us.

Thus, in Jesus, the words of the prophet Ezekiel have been fulfilled.  When Jesus called Lazarus from the grave he brought new light to the rebirth foreshadowed in his promise to bring back his chosen people from exile.  Those people thought themselves dead because they had lost the land from which they took their identity.  Thus, when the Lord “brought them back to the land of Israel”, they truly felt reborn.  Little did they know, however, that one day God himself would take on human nature and walk among them and would, literally, open the graves of the dead and have the dead rise from them.  Notice that the ancient Israelites were not prevented from experiencing exile because of their friendship with him.  Rather, it was because of their friendship that they were eventually restored to their land and given “new life”.  So it is now that our friendship with God will be no guarantee that we will not experience sadness, difficulty, or pain, but rather a promise that God will lift us from that sadness, difficulty, or pain, if we remain faithful to our friendship with him.

This is the promise that those who are preparing to receive the Easter Sacraments are hoping to receive.  They acknowledge that they have been dead in their sin and they acknowledge that it is only through friendship with God, obtained by making a definitive act of faith in Jesus, that they will be freed from this death to walk in newness of life.  This final scrutiny invites them to acknowledge this truth and to pray for the grace to persevere in their commitment to leave sin in the past.  Finally, it invites us to support them with our prayers.

My brothers and sisters, the scrutiny is a reminder to each of us that sin, especially mortal sin, separates us from God and our friendship with him.  If we have not yet turned from our sin this Lent, then we must begin this necessary work today because God—even though he never gives up on us—will not save us from death—that is, eternal death—if we do not first seek to be reconciled to him.  It also reminds us, however, that friendship with him is no guarantee that we will be spared pain, suffering, or even death in this world.  It is, rather, a guarantee that we will never be abandoned to eternal death: a promise which the raising of Lazarus—and, more poignantly, Jesus’ own resurrection—demonstrates for us.

And so, as we draw close to the Lord around this altar, let us ask for the strength of faith to trust in the victory over death won for us by Jesus—and, thus, to place all of our hope in him, like Martha and Mary did—so that we, too, along with our elect, will be ready to receive the grace of new life: the new and glorious life in Jesus that we receive under sacramental signs, here in this Holy Eucharist.

Given at St. Charles Borromeo Parish: Peru, IN – March 22nd, 2026

The truth of the reality of our lives

 Homily: 4th Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

Friends, as we continue through these middle weeks of Lent—truly the “heart” of Lent—we hear the second of three encounters with Jesus that these weeks present to us.  In the first encounter, we reflected on the Samaritan woman that Jesus encounters at the well.  There, Jesus uses some clever tactics to catch the woman’s attention and to open her heart to him.  When she does, Jesus helps her to see herself as she truly is.  Why?  Because he wanted her to feel ashamed?  No!  Rather, because (as he said) “the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.”  This woman had faith, and Jesus could see it.  She could not worship truly, however, if she continued to avoid the truth about herself.  Having met Jesus, she believes that he is the Messiah, the one for whom they have been waiting, and she forgets her shame and testifies to all the good news she has encountered.

This week, we are presented with the encounter of Jesus and the man born blind.  Here again we see the theme of how acknowledging the truth of the reality of one’s life leads to faith and worship.  Contrary to the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, in which there seems to be a “mutual” encounter (both Jesus and the woman came to the same well), this encounter is one that Jesus initiates, seemingly without any prior interaction with the man.  Jesus and his disciples pass by this man, begging in the street, and when the disciples question Jesus about this man’s condition, Jesus declares a truth about him (“[He is blind]… so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”) and then proceeds to heal him.  No mention is made of this man saying anything to or asking anything from Jesus or his disciples.  Jesus, it seems, through supernatural knowledge, knew that this man was specially chosen by the Father “to make visible his works” and so healed him on the spot.

Then, through various scenes, we hear this man repeatedly declaring the truth about the reality of his life.  First, the people of the town who knew him start to question whether this man who can see really was the man that they had always known to be blind.  When questioned, the man answers simply, “I am”.  When they ask him how he is now able to see, he replies with the barest facts.  Then, they brought him to the Pharisees, who also asked the man how he is now able to see.  Again, he replies with the barest facts.  The Pharisees attempt to label Jesus as a sinner (and so, not from God) because he did work on a Sabbath, but the man is not convinced of this and so will only say the most sure thing that he can think to say about Jesus: “He is a prophet”.

The Pharisees, frustrated that they could not goad this man into claiming Jesus to be the Messiah so that they could punish him, call in the man’s parents to question them.  The parents also respond to questioning with the barest facts: “Yes, this is our son.  Yes, he was born blind.  No, we do not know how he is now able to see.”  Frustrated, the Pharisees call the man back in to pressure him to acknowledge that Jesus is a sinner for having done what was considered “illegal work” on a Sabbath.  Still, the man will not say what he does not know to be true: “If he is a sinner, I do not know…” the man says, “One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.”  The man is living in the truth of the reality of his life and not going beyond it.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, show themselves unwilling to acknowledge the truth of the reality that is presenting itself before them.  Rather, they are twisting and turning over themselves trying to deny the truth that is being presented so as to preserve reality as they’ve known it.  In spite of the testimony of multiple persons that this man truly had been blind from birth, but yet now can see, and in spite of the man’s own testimony that it had been Jesus who cured him, they continue to seek to renounce Jesus, because they see him as a threat to destabilize their way of life and thinking, instead of opening themselves to the truth of the reality that is being presented to them.  They even claim to have remote knowledge—“We know that God spoke to Moses”—yet refuse to acknowledge the reality that is more immediate to them—“…but we do not know where this one is from.”  The man calls them out for their hypocrisy: “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes.”  In the end, Jesus will turn the tables on these Pharisees and note that they are the ones who are truly blind, since they refuse to acknowledge the truth that has been presented to them.

Finally, after the Pharisees threw the man out of the synagogue in frustration, he encounters Jesus once again.  As he did with the Samaritan woman, Jesus seeks an expression of his faith in the Messiah: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  When the man responds in the affirmative, Jesus reveals himself completely to him: “You have seen him,” (pun intended, I think) “and the one speaking with you is he.”  The man believes.  The man believes and immediately lowers himself in adoration of Jesus, worshiping God in spirit and truth.

Friends, the reality of our lives is that, in many ways, we are blind: both because of our human limitations, which keep us from seeing the full truth of the cosmic reality of God, and because our sins, small and big, blind us even further to this truth.  This journey through the heart of Lent invites us to an encounter with Jesus—who can open our eyes to the truth—and to allow his love and mercy to purify our sight.  This will happen when we allow his penetrating light to enter our hearts.

[We do this alongside the Elect from our pastorate, whose eyes have been opened to acknowledge the truth of the reality of their lives and who now desire to worship God in spirit and in truth.  These scrutinies that we celebrate with them are meant to further deepen their acknowledgement of the reality of their lives (that is, of their sins) and, especially, of their need for Christ, our Savior.  As we support them with our prayers, we also join them in scrutinizing our own lives and hearts, and to acknowledge that, even as baptized Christians, we are constantly in need of encounters with Christ that will open the eyes of our blindness once again, so that we might be renewed and be ready to worship God in spirit and truth once again.]

Therefore, in this Mass, as we acknowledge him present on this altar, let us confidently open our hearts to him and his merciful light.  In doing so, we will be moved to worship him, as the man born blind did, and also be inspired to declare the truth about him—simply, yet confidently—to those around us, inviting them to encounter the same, and thus renewing God’s Church.

This is the work of Lent; and it is a joyful work.  May the grace of this Eucharist continue to strengthen us for this holy work.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN - March 14th & 15th, 2026

El encuentro cuaresmal con Jesús que renueva

 Homilía: 3º Domingo en la Cuaresma – Ciclo A

Hermanos, a partir de este tercer domingo de Cuaresma, entramos verdaderamente en el corazón de este tiempo. Con suerte, nuestras disciplinas de Cuaresma nos han estado liberando de nuestros apegos desordenados y voces que distraen para que podamos escuchar a Dios el Padre hablándonos y verlo, cara a cara, una vez más. A partir de hoy y durante los próximos dos domingos, mientras reflexionamos sobre los encuentros personales con Jesús que nos relatan nuestras lecturas del Evangelio, estamos invitados a profundizar nuestros propios encuentros con él.

El primero de los tres encuentros es con la mujer samaritana en el pozo. Para mí, esta es la historia más emocionalmente conmovedora de las tres. Como descubriremos en la historia, esta mujer, quizás por sus propias decisiones o por malos tratos o malas circunstancias en su vida, se encuentra aislada en su comunidad. Estuvo casada y divorciada varias veces, lo que en la cultura de la época siempre avergonzaba a la mujer. Prefiere no ser vista, por lo que acude al pozo al mediodía, cuando no se espera que haya nadie más allí.

Allí, sin embargo, se encuentra con Jesús. Lo que vemos en este encuentro es el camino inteligente que toma nuestro Señor para ayudar a esta mujer a abrir su corazón al don de la vida que vino a darle. Primero, él llama su atención pidiéndole que le dé de beber. Como los judíos y los samaritanos no se mezclaron, ella está asombrada por su pedido. Por lo tanto, aunque probablemente esperaba poder conseguir agua e irse sin siquiera mirar al hombre sentado junto al pozo, ahora se siente obligada a entablar un diálogo con él. “¿Cómo es que tú, siendo judío, me pides de beber a mí, que soy samaritana?” Ella es curiosa y Jesús usa eso para atraerla más profundamente. “Si conocieras el don de Dios y quién es el que te pide de beber, tú le pedirías a él, y él te daría agua viva”. Ella está incrédula de que Jesús, que ni siquiera tiene con qué sacar agua, pueda darle de beber, y se lo dice. Sin embargo, la respuesta de Jesús a su incredulidad toca una fibra sensible en su corazón: “El que bebe de esta agua vuelve a tener sed. Pero el que beba del agua que yo le daré, nunca más tendrá sed; el agua que yo le daré se convertirá dentro de él en un manantial capaz de dar la vida eterna”.

Aunque la mujer todavía malinterpreta lo que Jesús quiere decir, su deseo de aliviar alguna carga de su vida busca aferrarse a la oferta de Jesús. Entonces ella le dice: “Señor, dame de esa agua para que no vuelva a tener sed ni tenga que venir hasta aquí a sacarla”. Bueno, la respuesta de Jesús en este punto puede parecer que está ignorando su pedido y cambiando el tema de la conversación. En verdad, sin embargo, Jesús reconoció que esta mujer ahora se había abierto para recibir lo que él le estaba ofreciendo y entonces comenzó a darle lo que ella pedía. En otras palabras, dijo la mujer. “Señor, dame de esa agua…” y Jesús hace exactamente eso: pero no de la manera que ella esperaba.

En su naturaleza divina, Jesús conocía completamente a esta mujer, incluidas todas las cargas emocionales, espirituales y físicas que había estado soportando. Podía ver que ella estaba más agobiada por la vergüenza que sentía por sus matrimonios fallidos. Así, aunque ella espera ser liberada de la carga de sacar agua del pozo, Jesús sabe que ella más necesita ser liberada de la carga de su vergüenza.

Por eso, cuando pide recibir lo que Jesús le ofrece, primero la hace afrontar su realidad más dolorosa. Lo hace por lo que compartirá a continuación: “Pero se acerca la hora,” dice, “y ya está aquí, en que los que quieran dar culto verdadero adorarán al Padre en espíritu y en verdad, porque así es como el Padre quiere que se le dé culto.” En otras palabras, Jesús le está diciendo a esta mujer samaritana que ella misma podrá ofrecer a Dios verdadera adoración, incluso en su quebrantamiento y vergüenza, pero solo si está dispuesta a reconocer la verdad completa de quién es ella y de la realidad de su vida hasta ese momento. Él enfatiza este punto para ella: “…porque así es como el Padre quiere que se le dé culto”.  Otras traducciones lo dicen en esta manera: “…el Padre busca a tales personas para que lo adoren”.

De forma vacilante ahora, la mente y el corazón de esta mujer estaban acelerados por las cosas asombrosas que Jesús le había dicho. “¿Podría ser este el Cristo?” seguramente pensó para sí misma. Ella expresa su fe en que Cristo vendría y Jesús elimina toda duda diciendo: “Soy yo, el que habla contigo”. Ella cree. Ella cree y deja ir las cargas de su vida que, momentos antes, no tenía esperanzas de ser aliviada. Muestra de ello es que, cuando sale para ir a contar a la gente del pueblo la buena noticia que ha encontrado, deja su cántaro de agua: el símbolo físico de todo lo que la agobia.

Hermanos míos, este camino por el corazón de la Cuaresma nos invita a estar abiertos al encuentro con Jesús (y a ser encontrados por él) para permitirle que nos desvele las verdades de nuestra vida, y particularmente las verdades que dudamos, tenemos miedo, o nos avergonzamos de reconocer. Esto para que le permitamos liberarnos del peso de las mentiras que creemos sobre nosotros mismos y sobre nuestras vidas (que encubren las verdades incómodas) y reconciliarnos con el Padre una vez más. Y ¿por qué es esto importante? ¿Para qué no seamos castigados por él? ¡No! ¡Para que podamos adorarlo en Espíritu y en verdad! Porque, como escuchamos decir a Jesús, “…el Padre busca a tales personas para que lo adoren”.

Por lo tanto, mientras adoramos a Dios aquí en esta Misa, renovemos nuestro compromiso con nuestras disciplinas cuaresmales de oración, ayuno y limosna con la esperanza de que nos preparen para encontrarnos con Jesús para que él pueda ayudarnos a ver la verdad sobre nosotros mismos y sobre las realidades de nuestras vidas. Entonces, viendo su mirada misericordiosa, estaremos dispuestos a dejar que nos libere de nuestras cargas y, así, nos renueve en Espíritu y en verdad. Renovados de esta manera, estaremos entonces listos para ir, como lo hizo la mujer samaritana, descargados al mundo para proclamar las verdades que hemos descubierto e invitar a otros a encontrarlas, renovando así la Iglesia de Dios.

Esta es la obra de la Cuaresma; y es una obra gozosa. Que la gracia de esta Eucaristía nos fortalezca para esta santa obra.

Dado en la parroquia de Todos los Santos: Logansport, IN - 8 de marzo, 2026

A necessary renovation

 Homily: 3rd Sunday of Lent – Cycle A

So here we are at the end of the second full week of Lent.  In many ways, if we have been engaging the work of Lent well, we are settling into this season and perhaps even starting to see the fruits of what this season calls us to do.  Nevertheless, perhaps many of you have been struggling to “get into” what Lent is all about and are ready to disengage from the whole project (or perhaps you already have).  Thus, a word of reminder might be good here.

Lent is a time of preparation.  Did you hear that?  I said “a time of preparation.”  I know most of you heard me say “a time of penance”, but I didn’t say that.  Lent is a time of preparation.  And preparation for what?  Well, for the celebration of Easter, of course!  And why do we need to prepare to celebrate Easter?  Why can’t we just celebrate it?  Well, because celebrating the greatest mystery of our salvation is something much deeper and more profound than, say, celebrating somebody’s birthday (though we do prepare to celebrate those, don’t we?).  Easter is not just a day of remembrance, but it is also a day of renewal: the remembrance of our definitive rebirth in Christ at our baptism and the renewal of our commitment to live that life to its fullest.

You know that the word “renew” is synonymous with the word “renovate”, right?  And we all know that to renovate something is to take something that is old and used and to make it like new again.  We do this with houses and cars, churches and office buildings, and perhaps even our wardrobes from time to time.  What’s the first thing that any renovation project has to tackle?  Cleaning out the old junk, of course!  In other words, the first part of any renovation project is to prepare the space by cleaning out the old, useless stuff.

Thus, if we are to be renewed—that is, renovated—by our celebration of Easter, then we need first to take some time to prepare our space by cleaning out the old junk from our hearts.  Lent is our time of preparation.  By fasting we detach ourselves from the things that keep us from living the new life that we have received in Christ through baptism.  By almsgiving we take up the practice of sharing the fruits of that new life with others.  And by prayer, we deeply reconnect with the one who called us out of our darkness and into his perfect light.

It is in prayer, then, that we also remember.  Each of our journeys is unique.  Each of us, at some point in our lives, has had to come to terms with where it was that we were and where it is that God wanted us to be.  And each of us had to make a decision about whether we would follow Jesus towards where God wanted us to be or remain where we were.  My guess is that, since you are here, all of you have decided to follow Jesus to where God wants you to be.  If so, then part of our preparation for the renovating celebration of Easter is our remembrance of that experience of God meeting us where we were and inviting us to where he wants us to be: for part of our celebration is the renovation of our commitment to arrive at that place where God is leading us.

If not, then perhaps this time of preparation could be a time for you to experience that encounter with God that will help you to come to terms with your life: that is, to see clearly where it is that you are and to experience God meeting you there and inviting you to journey towards the place where he wants you to be.  This is exactly what the Samaritan woman experienced in our Gospel reading.  From the place where she was—a life full of broken relationships which left her marginalized even among her own people—Jesus meets her and invites her to come to terms with her life.  He then invites her to move from where she is to where it is that he wants her to be: a place where her thirsts no longer find only temporary satisfaction, but rather become infinitely satisfied.

At first, she tries to deflect this invitation: introducing a debate about the proper place of worship and then declaring her belief in the coming Messiah.  When Jesus, however, reveals himself to her completely (“I am he, the one speaking with you”) something in her changes.  She drops her guard, recognizes him for who he is, and… what?  She leaves her water jar to announce to all the townspeople who it is that she has encountered.  She left the water jar—representative of her life—that could be filled at one moment but would always become empty again, because she had found the spring of living water—Jesus—and so she no longer needed it.

My brothers and sisters, __ of our brothers and sisters in this community are on a journey towards their definitive rebirth in Christ through baptism at the Easter Vigil.  Lent, at its core, is for them as they make their final preparations for this “ultimate” renovation of their lives at Easter.  In these three weeks we will intentionally scrutinize them, asking them to come to terms with their lives, to recognize in Jesus the spring of living water, and thus to leave their water jars behind.  We, as their brothers and sisters in faith, journey with them so as to be renewed in our baptism at the Easter celebration.

Let us, then, scrutinize our lives during this Lenten season so as to come to terms with them.  And let us seek to remember (or discover for the first time) how Jesus has shown us to be the only source that can satisfy our deepest thirsts.  Then, renewed in the grace of our baptism, we, too, will be inspired—like the Samaritan woman at the well—to take this great message out to the world and to invite all those around us to “come and see”, and to be filled by Jesus’ life-giving water.

Given at St. Charles Borromeo Parish: Peru, IN – March 8th,  2026

Am I ready to let God see me?

 Homily: 2nd Sunday in Lent – Cycle A

Dear friends, last week, as we entered our Lenten pilgrimage in earnest, we encountered two questions that, when answered, will help us derive great spiritual benefit during this holy season.  Those questions were: “Whose voice am I listening to?” and “Whose voice should I be listening to?”  In the first reading from last Sunday, we recounted how Eve, having already heard the commandment of God that they may eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree in the middle of the garden, lest they die, listened to the voice of the serpent, and then to her own voice, which led her to break the commandment of God: committing the first sin.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be too hard for any of us to acknowledge that we often fall prey to this same temptation: that is, to listen to voices who lack the full wisdom and authority of God—such as the voices of influencers on talk radio, news programming, and social media, and our own, inner voices.  As with Eve, this is dangerous for us to do, because, left to our own devices, we are quite good at convincing ourselves to do something that we otherwise know we shouldn’t do.  This season of Lent is inviting us to ask these questions of ourselves–“Whose voice am I listening to?” and “Whose voice should I be listening to?”–and to recognize how often we listen to voices that lack the full wisdom of God; and thus to acknowledge that the voice we should be listening to is the voice of true wisdom—that is, Wisdom himself—God the Father.  If you’re nodding your head in agreement–that is, if you acknowledge that you indeed have been listening to the wrong voices and are ready to listen to the voice of God this Lent–then you’re ready for the next step to which this week’s liturgy calls us.

To understand this next step, we have to look back again to last week’s Scriptures.  At the end of the reading from the book of Genesis, we heard that when Eve and Adam had both eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “the eyes of both were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.”  Now, although we didn’t read it in the liturgy last week, the verses that follow that reading describe how God came looking for Adam and Eve, but that they hid themselves from him. /// After the first sin, Adam and Eve hid themselves from each other and from God. /// In art throughout the centuries, this scene of hiding almost always shows Adam and Eve dramatically turning away from God and very specifically shows them obscuring their faces with their arms, so as to avoid looking at God face to face.

This is so telling about the effects of sin, isn’t it?  When someone is in good relationship with another, the persons have no problem looking at each other, face to face.  Yet, whenever that relationship is broken or damaged in some way, the effect is always a turning one’s face away from the other, so as not to face (pun intended) the pain and shame that the hurt has caused.  I remember that, when I was about 12 years old, I was caught doing something about which I was very embarrassed.  Knowing that my mother would soon seek me out to confront me about it, I hid in the closet in my bedroom, so I didn’t have to look at her and face the embarrassing truth about what I did.  My guess is that each of us here has a similar story to tell from our own lives.  Sin—our deliberate (or neglectful) disobedience of God’s commandments for our good and flourishing—causes us to turn from God and to hide ourselves from him.  Lent, and particularly our Scriptures this week, invites us to turn back to God and to look at him, face to face, once again.

In a way, since that first sin and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, God has turned his face away from us.  Throughout the Scriptures, we see that, even when we were ready to look at God once again, God nonetheless kept his face hidden from us.  Perhaps most poignant is the story of Moses.  After leading the Israelites out of Egypt and after spending many days and nights communing with God in prayer on Mount Sinai, Moses asked to see God’s face.  God agreed to allow himself to be seen by Moses by passing in front of him.  Yet, he obscured Moses’ vision as he passed so that Moses could not see his face, but would only see his back.  Mankind was still not ready to see God face to face again.  Later, in the time of King David, when many of the Psalms were written, the psalmist wrote verses like, “Turn to us, O Lord, and let us see your face.”  In spite of our sin, which turns us away from God, something deep within us still longs to look at God face to face.

This is why the story of the Transfiguration is so powerful for us (and why it is included every year in the readings for Lent).  There on Mount Tabor, Jesus reveals the full glory of his divinity—that is, he reveals his divine face—and his chosen ones, Peter, James, and John, do not hide their faces, but stare back in unspeakable joy at what their ancestors longed to see.  Through this, we come to know that, in Jesus, God’s face is no longer hidden from us.  Rather, like in the Garden before the fall, we can look at God, face to face, once again.

The question before us, then, is this: “Are we ready to let God see us?”  In other words, “Are we ready to turn our faces back to God and to let him see us, ashamed as we are by our sins, risking rejection by him, so as to be restored and renewed in our relationship with him?”  My guess is that most of us might answer, “Not fully.”  We want to see him face to face, but shame for our sins often keeps us “hiding in the closet”, like I did when I was 12 years old.  The challenge for us is to trust that, if God has made it possible to look at him, face to face, again, then he has determined that we are ready to do it.  Lent, therefore, is our time to prepare ourselves and to make a full reckoning for our sins—which is hard!—so that we might bask fully in the glory of God revealed to us in the Paschal Mystery: that is, in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. ///

With this in mind, let us listen again to the words of Saint Paul in the second reading and be encouraged in this work that we have begun, so that we may not fear to turn back to God—who has first turned back to us!—but rather open ourselves to his merciful gaze, shining forth with the brilliant light of his love for us:

Beloved:
Bear your share of hardship for the gospel
with the strength that comes from God.

He saved us and called us to a holy life,
not according to our works
but according to his own design
and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began,
but now made manifest
through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus,
who destroyed death and brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel.

May our encounter, face to face, with God here in this Eucharist fill us with the grace to fulfill this good work.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN - February 28th & March 1st, 2026