In addition to the Scripture Readings from the current weekday in Ordinary Time, there are many other options for Scriptures for the celebration of Holy Mass on Independence Day.

Independence Day

As we celebrate the Fourth of July, we celebrate one of the things that is nearest and dearest to us Americans:  freedom, or, as our Founding Fathers described it, liberty.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:  after the most fundamental human right—the right to life—comes the human right to liberty.

Liberty (or freedom) is an essential right of every human being.  Freedom is something that is part of our human make-up.  Without freedom, we are less than human.  And without freedom, we cannot faithfully live the moral life that God calls us to.

We can think about Catholic morality with the image of a ship sailing out to sea.  This analogy comes from C. S. Lewis.  Picture this:  in your moral life as a Catholic, you are the first mate on this ship.  This image reflects three different dimensions of Catholic morality.

The first dimension is carried out by keeping your ship in shape:  making sure it’s in working order:  this is personal morality, and is based on the virtues.  The second dimension is when you keep your ship from running into other ships that are out there at sea:  this is social morality, or social ethics.  The third dimension comes from knowing that you are out at sea on a mission.  You’ve been sent out to go somewhere, not just to float around on the waters.  This is our final morality:  the morality that shows us that our everyday choices on this earth are connected to where we will spend eternity.

But none of these three sides of morality—personal, social, or final—makes any sense until we recognize what our human freedom really is, and what it is not.  True human freedom is one of the gifts that come from being created in the Image and Likeness of God.

Christian freedom is something unique.  The union between a human being and God doesn’t mean being absorbed by God, or being controlled by Him.  At every step of our journey towards God, we are fully free:  free to accept God, and free to reject Him.  So ask Him on this day of independence for His grace, in order to be able to accept Him more fully, in order to serve Him more fully:  to serve Him by loving Him, loving all our neighbors, and loving ourselves in an authentic, selfless way.

For the reflection for Independence Day, click HERE.

Thursday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Genesis 22:1-19  +  Matthew 9:1-8 
July 4, 2019

   “… but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”   

Today’s First Reading is one of the more famous and more moving passages of the Old Testament.  The Church Fathers comment upon this passage at length and to great depth.  Consider just one idea from among the many that this passage holds. Continue reading →

St. Thomas, Apostle
Ephesians 2:19-22  +  John 20:24-29
July 3, 2019

   “…bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”   

The First Reading for the Mass of St. Thomas’ feast actually focuses on him very little.  It’s not uncommon for the First Reading on the feast of an apostle to be either written by him or at least refer to him in passing.  However, today’s First Reading from St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians does not mention Thomas.  Its focus is the Church. Continue reading →

Tuesday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Genesis 19:15-29  +  Matthew 8:23-27
July 2, 2019

   “What sort of man is this…?”   

Today’s Gospel passage offers another example of the disciples not seeing the forest for the trees.  Their question at the end of the passage is sincere and understandable, not rhetorical:  “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”  They admit their ignorance of the deeper identity of Jesus.  They do know that he is more than just a fisherman or carpenter.  They do know that he has miraculous powers.  But what exactly do His powers tell us about who he is? Continue reading →

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]
I Kgs 19:16,19-21  +  Gal 5:1,13-18  +  Lk 9:51-62
June 30, 2019

“He resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem….”

All over the Wichita Diocese, many priests this month were “on the road again”, to use the words of Willie Nelson.  They moved to new residences and took up new assignments within the diocese.  However, while Mr. Nelson just couldn’t wait to get on the road again, most of our priests had mixed feelings about uprooting themselves and beginning again in a new part of the diocese.  Those mixed feelings come from, on the one hand, wanting to be faithful to the bishop’s plan for the diocese, and knowing from experience that change brings blessings eventually.  On the other hand, change is difficult, and the longer a priest had been in his previous assignment, the harder it is to leave. Continue reading →

Monday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Genesis 18:16-33  +  Matthew 8:18-22
July 1, 2019

… He gave orders to cross to the other shore.

Several times during His public ministry, Jesus acts in a way that might be called “anti-social”.  This would be a mistaken perception, of course, but we still might wonder why Jesus acts as He does in these cases. Continue reading →

The 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]
I Kgs 19:16,19-21  +  Gal 5:1,13-18  +  Lk 9:51-62
June 30, 2019

When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem….

This Sunday, as we return to Sundays in Ordinary Time, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is the city whose name literally means “city of peace” , and yet which Jesus knew would be the place of His crucifixion and death.  When the event of today’s Gospel Reading occurred, Jesus knew that the easy life of His first thirty-some years was over. Continue reading →

The Solemnity of Sts. Peter & Paul
Acts 12:1-11  +  2 Tim 4:6-8,17-18  +  Mt 16:13-19
June 29, 2019

   “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.”   

Peter, whom Jesus in today’s Gospel passage entrusts with the care of His Church, was very different than Paul.  Peter’s personality was rough and impatient.  He was poor and uneducated.  Now if Jesus had thought as worldly people do, He never would have chosen Peter as the first pope.  Instead, he would have chosen someone like Paul, refined and educated. Continue reading →

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus [C]
Ez 34:11-16  +  Rom 5:5-11  +  Lk 15:3-7
June 28, 2019

The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit ….

Catholics are very familiar with the Church’s devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the heart of her who was never touched by any sin, but rather is full of grace.  Jesus, too, of course, sharing in the divinity of His Father, is sinless, and so we could speak of and celebrate the Immaculate Heart of Jesus.  But today we are celebrating instead the “Sacred Heart” of Jesus.

To be “sacred” means “to be set aside for a special purpose.”  What, then, is the purpose of Jesus’ heart?  The heart is obviously a human element of who Jesus is.  It certainly expresses the love of God the Son, for as Saint John the Divine tells us, God is love.  As God, in his divinity, the Son of course has no physical heart—we can say only that the Godhead possesses a heart in a metaphorical sense—but in His humanity Jesus of course possesses a heart, beating within His Body, pumping His life-blood to all its parts.

What does it mean then to say that Jesus, as human, has a heart?  It means that He is capable of suffering.  To have a heart means to be able to be broken, to be weak, to be vulnerable.  This is the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love:  that He would carry a Cross and die upon it for us, in order to open the gates of Heaven for our darkened, sinful hearts.

This is the special purpose of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the reason for the Incarnation.  This is what Jesus’ heart was set aside for:  that it would be broken, that it would be pierced.  But far be it from us to simply worship the image of the Sacred Heart as an image to be given thanks.  The Sacred Heart is a person to be imitated.

We do not celebrate the feast of “the Sacred Intellect of Jesus”.  Nor do we celebrate the feast of “the Sacred Memory.”  We celebrate the “Sacred Heart” because the greatest of the capacities of God and man is the capacity to will, to choose, and God’s will always chooses love, because God is love, and because love consists in this:  not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us, and has sent His Son as an offering for our sins.

The Sacred Heart is a person to be imitated.  The heart pumps blood to the entire body, and as His Mystical Body’s members we share in that life-blood as we share in the offering for our sins that Christ sacrificed on the Cross and memorialized sacramentally at His Last Supper.  This sacred meal is “set aside”:  its purpose is our sanctification, that our hearts might become more capable of being broken for the salvation of others, and attain to the fullness of Love, Who is God Himself.