Friday after Ash Wednesday
Friday after Ash Wednesday
Readings: Isaiah – Chapter 58 verses 1-9a / Psalm 51 verses 3-6ab, 18-19 / Matthew – Chapter 9 verses 14-15
Gospel:
The disciples of John approached Jesus and said,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast much,
but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.”
Reflection:
Friends, we know what fasting entails. When I was growing up, I remembered how fasting was something that was necessary for one to do from time to time because it made you realize the plight of suffering in our world. I also recall that fasting was also a way to be centered to be one with the world. Also fasting was good for my own self-reflection to be attuned to what God was trying to speak to my heart.
I am also amazed how so many other faith traditions beside Christianity, how fasting in all its forms is utilized in our care for not only from our action to self but concern for the other, our world. Oh, how we have learned so much from one another. In addition to fasting in whichever way we are called, besides from food, how about we fast from gossip, speaking ill of someone else in trying to assert ourselves to others, getting involved in situations that don’t involve us and we trying to fix it all, complaining how our children or a close friend doesn’t reach out to us as often and all the complaining and the likes of it?
Let us be grateful in whatever way we are called to fast in the hopes that new vision and realizations will abound in our minds and hearts making us ready for the kingdom, for the world at hand.
Bishop Michael Theogene
Co-Pastor
The CACINA Catholic Parish of Saint Benedict &
Abbot of the Benedictines of Peace and Justice
The Catholic Apostolic Church in North America (CACINA)
Please feel free to share, like, subscribe, comment, and post any content that you see on our CACINA and individual CACINA community’s social media pages.
Please help us spread the word of God through the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America by forwarding this message to others.
Find us at http://www.cacina.org or https://www.facebook.com or http://www.cacina.wordpress.com
Copyright © 2023, Catholic Apostolic Church in North America. All rights reserved.
Contact us at 1- (800) 603-0644
Our mailing address is:
Fr. Michael Ellis, Chancellor
175 Fairway Drive
South Burlington, Vermont 05403
Homily, Feast of the Ascension-May 13, 2018
One thing that is hard to realize is that the Ascension is really a part of the Easter event. Christ in dying brought his humanity and divinity into a risen and ascended state. The gospels and Acts depict different instances of Jesus heavenly ascension. Key to keep in mind for the Ascension is what the whole Easter event calls out. The word is “wait.” Look around today and think for a moment. Waiting is probably the most irritating thing we do. Patience is something we like to see others practice, and we like to do whatever right away. But what was Jesus’ message the whole time through the whole Easter event? It was wait for the Holy Spirit.
Even today, we need to take that to heart. Throughout history, the church, or well-meaning members of the church have acted or done things that were contrary to Jesus’ teaching or unfair or just wrong. It is difficult for individuals sometimes to 
wait, to listen, to discern the Holy Spirit’s intention. Life’s choice and activities can be complicated and difficult. Occasionally, we can be faced with almost life changing choices. At such times, it is well if we’re used to withdrawing and opening our hearts to the Spirit. So we are reminded today once again that Christ is risen and his Spirit is among us if we have the patience to wait.
Homily April 29, 2018- the 5th Sunday of Easter
St. Paul was a Pharisee who was totally committed to the ruling group. His devoutness and devotedness set him apart in wanting to quickly rid Israel of what he saw as a new and dangerous cult called Christians. To him, they are going against the law and prophet and teaching a new way, teaching a resurrection, and even replacing the Torah. To him, 
they were trying to replace everything. As a result he took action by getting “warrants” to arrest these Christians and set out for Damascus. It was on that road where he met Jesus, and he was never the same again. His encounter on the way totally life changing. It is then that he learns and believes in Jesus and becomes an avid follower. Yet, in our first reading, we see the difficulty he has of being accepted. Ultimately, he was and of course took Christ’s teaching and went far and wide and spread the seeds or shoots of the vine where ever he went. .
Today that vine of our third reading remains and the fruit it bears depends on the care that we ourselves have given it. This means we must work at it. What it produce requires our attention. Christ calls every day, we respond with our attention and prayer. It’s as 
easy as lifting our heart or mind and doing the right thing. We are called to make those choices every day.The start of a healthy vine and a Christian is with their self. our personal relationship with God and our relationships and interactions with others determines the health of the vine and our worthiness as part of it. We all know the challenges of the relationships and are called to be Christ like in our daily life.
Looking for Joy
4th Sun Lent 3-11-18
2 Chronicles 36:14-16; 19-23 Ps: 137:1- 6; Ephesians 2:4-10; John 3:14-21
I struggled for days with this ….I wrote at least 3 different homilies…all of which ended in the recycle bin. Be glad! Then I had an altogether brilliant idea.
Actually, it wasn’t the idea that was so brilliant. It was the color of these vestments that was brilliant. Whew! Rose with a glow! What is the point of this rose? This happens twice a year, once during Advent and once during Lent. It is the half way mark in those liturgical seasons. It is when the mood lightens at little. It is Joy breaking through the somber tone of the waiting in Advent, breaking through the examination of our lives and our faith in Lent. But why joy?? The “why” of the joy never sticks in my brain quite as well as “the what”.
So we look for joy in the readings. The first reading is about how the people of Judah lost their faith and ended up captives in Babylon. Nothing so joyful there (but they do finally return home). The Psalm is a lament, a song of loss and regret, grieving for the city of Jerusalem, which has been destroyed. No joy there.
Ah, but we have the 2nd reading, from St. Paul, who was writing the Good News of the Resurrection to people in the city of Ephesus. They were hearing this for the first time! Perhaps, just perhaps, we could put ourselves in that frame of mind, and see if we can find the joy there that seems to elude us.
So, what does Paul say? First thing is that God is rich in mercy. Mercy, as we talked about 2 weeks ago, is when God does not give us what we deserve. We sin, we fail, we do what we know we shouldn’t do, we don’t do what we know we should do, and still God is not ready to pounce on us with punishment. Why not? Because, Paul writes, God has “great love” for us. Everyone benefits from that great love. Being loved is what the human spirit needs more than any material thing. In fact, God loves us – greatly – even as we are in the middle of the worse moment of our lives, when we are behaving really badly.
Paul says that at that moment, when we had our backs turned on God, God saved us. God rescued us from ourselves and raised us up and seated us in the heavens with Christ Jesus, so very much more than we might dare to expect or even hope for. Paul calls this “grace”. Grace is when God gives us what we do not deserve. God’s plan is to show us the immeasurable riches of grace.
Now, that is amazing…and pretty joyful the more you think about it. I know of no one who finds a child or employee or student who are behaving at their very worst, knowingly being disobedient or disrespectful, and then takes them off to a place filled with joy and showers them with love. The joy-filled riches of grace are beyond counting, but they are not locked up in a bank, and never tarnish or lose their value.
If fact, God is ready to give us what no human really deserves, and that is to be with God for ever, face to face in real, pure love and joy. Paul makes it clear; we are saved by grace from punishment. We cannot earn enough bonus points on our credit cards to get a trip to eternity with God. Paul says it two different ways to make sure we get it: first, “By grace you have been saved through faith,” and second, “It is the gift of God; it is not from our actions or behavior, therefore no one may boast” (no one is better than the others).
Faith without good deeds, of course, is dead, as James wrote in his short letter (read it sometime). Faith is only real and alive in our lives when we are doing the good things that we were created to do. Paul wrote that God created us for the good works that already are waiting for us to do; we should find meaning and discover our very lives in doing good things. Grace seems to bring about this desire to act out in love.
People want joy, but they look in all the wrong places. Paul tells us the right place to look. We find joy when we believe God. Some people confuse joy with happiness or good circumstances. But, joy is a gift from God, and not dependent on where you live or beauty or strength or even good health. Joy is the result of accepting the “great love” of God. We wrap God’s love around us, we feel it, we deeply breath it in, we cling to it when we have nothing else.
Our Gospel reading backs Paul up. It also says that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn or punish us, but that we might be saved through him; and whoever lives in God’s love and joy comes to the light that their good works may be clearly seen as done through God.
So we continue on toward Easter. Ahead is the difficult half of Lent – facing the cruelty and selfishness that sometimes enters the human soul. We have to admit how low our price is for betrayal, how quickly we let fear overcome us, how we use others for a small moment of gain. But joy is an act of rebellion against the darkness, and so, for today, we focus on the joy of the triumph of the cross, and the power of love to overcome even death.
Homily March 11, 2018-the 4th Sunday of Lent
Once again like last week our attention is directed towards respect for the temple and sanctuary..We see the abuses of the temple and the messengers and prophets sent by God to them to correct them. We see as punishment God inflicted them with to be conquered and carried off to Babylon. Their banishment lasted seventy years.
In the gospel, we see Nicodemus come to Jesus in the night and seek to learn from Him. Here we see Jesus proclaim his death and resurrection and that those who believe in him may have eternal life. And so it is that those who believe and are baptised received God’s mercy and love and have eternal life. It doesn’t mean we will not die, but that we share eternal life now and will transition a different form in the future. The only problem is that some will not accept 
the light of life but instead choose the darkness of evil staying in the dark and rejecting God’s mercy. It is in the dark and darkness that evil thrives and bad things come into our world. Only one thing in history has stifled evil and only when believers believe in its power, the power of the crucified savior. Throughout history, we see many examples of the fight between light and darkness, good and evil. Jesus has saved us and the constant reminder to all of us is the cross that we see everywhere.
Homily February 25, 2018- the 2nd Sunday of Lent
If we look at the middle east today, the countries there are constructs of those conflicts and the shifting sands of tribalism that was current in biblical times, even today the circle of life for these people began is family and the village and tribe. Outside of that all are strangers and looked at suspiciously. In the Bible, recall Israel as a tribe spent time in Egypt and in Babylon(Iraq today), subservient to others. The outlook on life was different 
and certainly even human sacrifice was not unheard of. We must not think that humanity just arrived at the 21st century and reached a measure of civility. Evil was in the world then as it is here now. While the story of Abraham and Isaac is a revelation of faith and trust and God’s care, it is also a reminder of what our ancestors were and what we have become. That hatred and murder and brutality are still in our world makes the point that much needs to be done to bring about a true revelation of God’s will for humanity to be one in his love.
Christ came into just such a world and in his one life had the call to bring God’s word to 
humanity. He knew what lay ahead of him and that his death was inevitable. Yet he knew God’s grace was a living and growing thing that would evolve and spread as time went on. Today’s gospel was meant certainly for his apostles, but his assurance also. None of us starts out on a task without first preparing and assuring our self of making progress. That is what Christ did and he began a way, a path, a journey for all to follow to his Father. Many in the world today follow Christ, yet we see that there certainly are those who don’t. Hatred, violence, mistrust, poverty or just being 
helpless all lead to the ills and evil we see today.
Our faith calls us to look around and to reach out. We need be careful of exhibiting the comfort and triumphalism of the Scribes and pharisees who thought all was well and that they had all the answers. The only one with all the answers is God and he has bestowed them as he has seen fit and revealing them as he determined we were ready for them. More than anything, this is what we see in our readings today.
Homily, January 21, 2018 -The 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel from Mark gives a slightly different account of Jesus’ call of his disciples. First we see that John the Baptist has been arrested, and also that Jesus has started his ministry. This means that the disciples had an awareness of him and possibly that is why they answered his invitation so readily. God’s call did not always come easy in Israel’s history. Many of the prophets only reluctantly answered God’s call. A prime example was Jonah in our first reading. But we see that in the end God got his way even with the 
reluctant. Jesus was preaching that it was time to repent and believe the good news. He had a message and it was new. But first a person must repent, turn around, change and hear the good news. Hearing the good news means attaching oneself to Jesus. That was the ultimate turn around, made first by Jesus’ disciples and passed on even to us today. Jesus’ call was to a way of life, to a lifestyle, to living together in a community he came to call a church. It entails a whole new way of 
life and worship, that Jesus began by fulfilling God’s plan that included even his dieing and his resurrection. The good question today is can we with all the interruptions and daily problems still commit ourselves fully to Christ as the First disciples, who left their Father and their boats and followed Jesus. Surely sometimes it is easy, but at other time it is difficult and challenging. But we must remember always we have Jesus and the Strength of his Cross to get us through whatever we face.
Homily January 14, 2018 the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
The readings today are about calling. First we heard the call of Samuel. Even the older prophet Eli did not realize God was calling until the third time and so Samuel answered 
on the fourth call. In the gospel, we see the call of the Apostles first inspired by John the Baptist pointing to the “Lamb of God” and the person of Jesus leading them to ask what he was doing. I say doing because where are you staying is exactly what they meant. They meant what are you about. In our own way we all have been called through our baptism by way of our parents. I also submit that in our lives, we have at times answered Christ’s call as we have lived out our life in the choices we have made, especially at key moments in our life. It is at those moments when we prayed, thought or ultimately opened our hearts to listen, to discern what was right, what was God’s call for me. That is the key to hear and listen to God’s word and how it affects us. I must say that sometimes that call says what 
we don’t want to hear, but ultimately listening and acting in accordance with that call usually brings us to a comfortable result, one that eases our life’s burdens. The hard part is discerning God’s intention especially if it entails a change in our life that we perceive as difficult. God calls many to serve and in various ways, Most of us will never be asked to travel to far away places, but in today’s world we are called to help and reach out to the starving and homeless of the world as best we can. We are asked to live and act toward others as Christ did. As a community we do that in many ways and I encourage our community to continue and listen as we begin this new year.
Homily December 17, 2017 the 3rd Sunday of Advent
Today our gospel again meets John the Baptist. Our gospel this week is from the gospel of John and the first human we meet in this gospel is John the Baptist. He is quite a sight living in the desert, rough and ready, dressed in camel hair with a leather belt. As the son of Zechariah, who you might remember he was a priest and thus so was John. They would have been considered rural priests, not part of the aristocratic wealthy priests of Jerusalem. The first thing the Jerusalem priests did was to send investigators to see what he was up to. In Jesus’ time, there were large groups of alienated priests around and they opposed the Jerusalem priests and the subservience to Rome. They were considered problems 
who didn’t follow the law. But for the most part it was the luxury of the Jerusalem priests who set the “rural” priests aside. John by his dress and life style was out of their control, but he was preaching and drawing crowds. So we see in today’s gospel that they immediately challenge and examine John, Who are you? What are you, a prophet? Are you Elijah? Are you THE prophet? Then finally Who are you? What are we to tell those who sent us?
John answers that he is Isaiah voice crying in the desert. He is calling for repentance and baptises those ready to repent of their sins. He is a witness for the one to come. His interrogators clearly understood what he was about and of course the Jerusalem priests were not happy. The point is, that John like Mark uses John the Baptist to introduce us to Jesus and thus the readings blend in with 
our sense of waiting and preparation for our coming Christmas day. John’s baptism should remind us of our own baptism and the fact that as John said we have been baptised with the Holy Spirit. Christmas reminds us that Christ came and offered his whole life and self for all of us for the forgiveness of sins. We should be thankful and share that love in this Christmas season.
Homily, December 10, 2017 the 2nd Sunday of Advent
This week we jump from the end of Mark’s gospel to the beginning. The idea of “waiting” is still present, but we are introduced to John the Baptist. His message is to repent and prepare. He baptises as a sign of forgiveness. In doing so, he adds a new word to our Advent as we repent and prepare. That word is change. It is a word that most don’t like to hear or do. Mostly, we are all set in our ways and pretty much satisfied with whom we are. In the comfort we feel, sometimes we forget that we can hurt others by what we do or say. It is easy to say repent and get ready for 
Christ’s coming, but do we really step back and take a close honest look at who we are. Jesus came at a time there was turmoil and disillusionment in the Jewish community. Many had wandered off from the teaching of the prophets, the priest, the temple and yearned for communing with God. John was an intriguing figure and they accepted him as a prophet or even maybe the promised Messiah. He was the attraction of his time drawing people from everywhere. 
His message was clear, repent, change, and wait for the one to come. I have always wondered why we use John in the desert preparing the people for Jesus’ ministry in preparing for Christmas. Yet, the liturgical year uses his message of repent and change at the beginning every year to prepare ourselves by calling on us in our season of wait to repent and change. Christ is certainly coming, first symbolically at Christmas, but also most assuredly to each of us in the future either near or far.
CACINA 
1 comment