UMD NEWMAN CATHOLIC CAMPUS MINISTRY

Homily from Ash Wednesday. "The ashes mean I am a sinner. The Cross means I have a Savior. The ashes mean I need to turn away from something. The Cross is what I turn towards. The ashes mean that I have fallen short of God's glory. And the Cross means that you and I are all made for glory." Mass Readings from February 22, 2012: Joel 2:12-18 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Homily from the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Here is the deal. When it comes to you, God has given his final answer. He has said, 'Yes. I want YOU.' 'Yeah, but God I've done this kind of stuff...' 'I don't care. I want you.' 'But you don't know what I'm going through...' 'No, I actually do. And I want you.' God has given his definitive answer. He has DEFINITIVELY chosen you when Paul says, 'He has spoken His 'Yes' over all of you.' And so the question is this: what is my response?" Mass Readings from February 19, 2012: Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 Mark 2:1-12

Homily from the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "The point of life is not to accomplish. The point of life is to become a certain kind of person. And that certain kind of person can only be fashioned in the crucible of suffering. ...What kind of person can be fashioned through the crucible of suffering? A certain kind of person that knows how to love when that person doesn't feel like loving; a certain kind of person who knows how to be selfless when the temptation is to turn in on one's self; a certain kind of person that you are meant to be." Mass Readings from February 12, 2012: Leviticus 13:1-2,44-46 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Mark 1:40-45

Homily from the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Here's Jesus and He gets up and He goes off to a deserted place, and He prays in silence. That kind of idea can scare us. But we have to understand this. St. John of the Cross says this about silence, he says, 'God's first language is silence.' And if you and I are going to become the kind of people who know what God is really like, it means this, it means at some point in my day, I need to be silent. I need to, at some point in my day, I need to go to a place where there's not the interruptions, where there's not the music, where there's not the distractions. ...I invite us all to do what Jesus did: to go away, to find silence, because when we do that and embrace the Lord, we become changed. " Mass Readings from February 05, 2012: Job 7:1-4,6-7 1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23 Mark 1:29-39

Homily from the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time. "The most powerful and the most effective prayer of exorcisim that sets every human being free is the Sacrament of Confession. Because why? Because what we do is we come before the Lord and say, 'I will not give into fear, I will give into courage. I will not give into temptation, I will give into forgiveness. I will not give into discouragement, I will give into hope'. And we hand our lives back over to Jesus, and He gives us His life in return." Readings from January 29, 2012: Deuteronomy 18:15-20 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 Mark 1:21-28

Homily from the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Do I want to leave this Mass as the same person I came in? Do I want to leave this room with the same-sized life I had when I walked in here? Do Peter and Andrew want to get out of their boat with the same-sized life they had when they got into their boat? Jesus comes up to them, just like He comes up to you and me, and He says, 'If you want to be a disciple and change your schedule to grow spiritually, great. But it doesn't have to end there. I can make you into disciple-makers.'" Mass Readings from January 22, 2011: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Mark 1: 14-20

Homily from the Fourth Sunday in Advent. "Brothers and Sisters, please, we must not do this: we must not forget in the darkness what we were convinced was true in the light. We must not forget in desolation what we knew was true in consolation." Mass Readings from December 18, 2011: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14-16 Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1: 26-38

Homily from the Third Sunday of Advent. "What would my life look like if Jesus actually got first place?" Mass Readings from December 4, 2011: Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 John 1:6-8, 19-28

Homily from the Second Sunday of Advent. "What happens when a man wants to give his whole life to his bride? He finds someone who captures his heart, and what does he do? He takes a knee, and he presents himself and he says, 'Will you take my heart, take my soul, take my body for the rest of your life? I offer you myself. Will you give me yourself?' And that's every time when I come into Mass, that's always what I'm thinking. I genuflect and I pray, 'Jesus, you get me. I give you my heart. Please give me Your heart.'" Mass Readings from December 4, 2011: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 2 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1:1-8

Homily from the First Sunday of Advent. "What we are going to find is that for weeks, if not months, we are just going to find ourselves saying the words. But the day will come, if we allow this Mass, our encounter with mystery, our encounter with beauty, our encounter with something bigger than ourselves, if we allow that to change us, what we'll find is that we're no longer just saying the prayers, we're now praying the prayers. And they take on an entirely new meaning, an entirely new depth so that that desire for self-expression and that need to be changed meet." Mass Readings from November 27, 2011: Isaiah 63:16-17, 19, 64:2-7 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:33-37

Homily from the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King. "Every single time one of you or myself or any Christian acts on this planet with the dunamis or the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, God's Kingdom takes hold and it begins to reign. We look at Him and we say, 'Kyrios, King, Emperor, will you establish it? He looks at us and says, 'No. Better. You're going to establish it. ...Every time there is someone who is hungry and you feed them, my Kingdom is there. I'm there. Every time there is someone who is thirsty and you give them something to drink, the Kingdom takes root on this planet. Every time there is someone who is naked or ill or in prison, every time someone is a stranger and kicked to the curb, and you reach out to them, my Kingdom is there. And every time you, my followers, do not do this, my Kingdom loses traction. Every time you don't do this, you don't do it for me.'" Mass Readings from November 13, 2011: Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28 Matthew 25: 31-46

Homily from the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Fear of loss can drive us. Fear of loss can determine our life, if we let it. Security is good, investments are good, retirement is good, I imagine! But when security becomes an idol, then we will gladly allow ourselves to become slaves in exchange for the illusion of security." Mass Readings from November 13, 2011: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 Matthew 25:14-30

Homily from the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. "My definition of fear of the Lord is nothing more than this: taking God seriously. Taking God seriously for everything that He says, taking God seriously in His justice and taking God seriously in His mercy. Not making Him into my own image, but honestly taking His laws, taking His decrees, taking His love, and realizing this: that God is strong, and He is dangerous, and He loves, and He has rules, and they are serious to take God seriously. You know why? Because He takes YOU seriously." Mass Readings from November 06, 2011: Wisdom 6:12-16 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Matthew 25:1-13

Homily from the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Here is the thing with idols: they cannot be removed, they have to be replaced. ...Brothers and sisters, if you want freedom from the idol of performance: get close to the Man on the Cross. If you want freedom from the idol of needing to achieve and needing to succeed: get close to Christ Crucified, to Him and no other." Mass Readings for October 30, 2011: Malachi 1:14-2:2, 8-10 1 Thessalonians 2: 7-9, 13 Matthew 23:1-12

Homily from the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Here is God, He comes to Egypt and He says, 'I'm going to set you free from your idols. But I'm not just going to lead you into the wilderness and leave you there. I'm not just going to set you free and then just have you have unrestricted freedom. ...I want to set you free from idols in order to set you free for true worship.'" Mass Readings from October 23rd, 2011: Exodus 22:20-26 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Matthew 22:24-30