The Emmaus Pastorate’s Podcast

Homily on 6-5-22

Come, Holy Spirit!  Fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love!  Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and we will be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth!

Homily on 5-29-22

Jesus has ascended.  He's gone (in a sense).  Now what?  Do we stand here looking at the sky trying to understand everything?  NO!  We are witnesses of these things!  And we must tell people about them!  We must live this gospel in our lives in everything we say and do!  That's how we share Christ with the world and share the hope and promise of the Resurrection.  Maybe if the world sees more of that, tragedies wouldn't be so numerous.  

Homily from 5-22-22

Are you at peace?  Seriously...are you at peace?  What does that mean?  What is peace?  As an alleluia people, as an Easter people, we SHOULD be at peace!  But are we?  How do we get there?  What's peace really mean for us?

Homily from 5-15-22

We know the line.  "They'll know we are Christians by our love."  As the scripture goes, so does the song.  And so should our lives because that's how a Christian's life is exemplified.  People we know we follow Christ by our LOVE for each other!  And in the context of a parish, there's no better way to do that than through all of the various ministries of Parish Life!

Congratulations to all our seniors as they graduate this weekend!  Remember your Church family, but also remember to live with Jesus in your heart!

Homily from 5-8-22

Who has your ear?  To whom are you listening?  There are so many people and ideas each with their own voice today, and all of them have something (good or bad) to offer us.  But what about God?  Does God - the Good Shepherd who knows you and calls you by name - have your ear?  Hopefully the answer is yes!

Homily from 5-1-22

"Come, have breakfast!"  Jesus did such great things around meals: turned water into wine, fed 5,000 people, and told us how to live as Christians.  He did the same thing after rising from the dead.  He even cooks the meal this time!  Such simple things can make us great disciples.  So invite someone to breakfast, dinner, out for coffee or a drink.  Little ordinary things can have such a big influence in peoples' lives!

Homily from 4-24-22

What does the Eucharist mean?  Why is it so important to Catholics?  As we celebrate First Communion on this Divine Mercy Sunday (the Second Sunday of Easter), the First Communicants help Fr. John preach on the the meaning and importance of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.  Congratulations to all the Emmaus Pastorate students who received their First Communion this weekend!

Easter Sunday Homily 2022

What we celebrate on Easter Sunday - an empty tomb full of nothing - is strange.  The way we Christians react to the world in 2022 is strange.  What Jesus did on Easter was also very strange!  We are an Easter people, and "alleluia!" is our song!  Why?  Because there is nothing that can overshadow that strange moment so long ago.  We celebrate even today - every Sunday of the year and for 50 straight days during Eastertide.  In every moment of life, thru every death, every victory, every sickness, and everything in between - we are an Easter people, so "alleluia!" is our song!

Easter Vigil Homily 2022

We heard all nine readings at this year's Easter Vigil.  From Creation thru the Exodus clear to Isaiah and St. Paul we heard the whole story of salvation.  And it's a long story because we, God's chosen people, are a little hardheaded!  Sometimes it takes awhile for us to fall into God's embrace and allow him to love us.  But like a parent wrestling a 2-year-old, sometimes we break away.  Yet God kept on loving us and is still loving us today, as he does all those joining the church on this holy night!

Good Friday Homily 2022

Can you love like that?  Grab a cross or a crucifix.  Pray for a few moments.  Imagine what Jesus experienced that day in Jerusalem and on Calvary.  It was all for love.  Can you love like that?