UMD NEWMAN CATHOLIC CAMPUS MINISTRY

Homily from the First Sunday of Advent. "Here are the people of Israel, what they are doing during the rest of the week is not the same thing as what they're doing when they go to Worship. They are living these lives that are all about them. When it comes time to pray, when it comes time to worship, when it comes time to offer the sacrifice, 'Yeah, God, I am all yours. But the rest of the week, that's all mine.' What does God want?" Mass Readings from November 28, 2010: Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:37-44

Homily from the Solemnity of Christ the King. "Standing face to face with Love Itself, standing face to face with God Himself, a God who loved them to death, who was willing to suffer and die for them, they said, 'I don't want that King. I want a king who doesn't care about me.' That's the question: Do you have a king in your life who doesn't care about you?" Mass Readings from November 21, 2010: 2 Samuel 5:1-3 Colossians 1:12-20 Luke 23:35-43

Homily from the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Here is God, made Man, for 30 years He just maybe, possibly hauls rocks all day. That's all He does. Saving the world, one load of rocks at a time. What does He do with that, though? He spends a life at work so that every job you are at, every task that you do: every book that you read for school, every paper that you have to crank out, every tedious hour upon tedious hour in lab, even when you become parents, cleaning your child's diapers or picking up after they throw up, picking up a toy off of the ground, that work has dignity. It has meaning. And that work is a gift." Mass Readings from November 14, 2010: Malachi 3:19-20 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 Luke 21:5-19

Homily from the Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time. "The Church does not want to have blind adherence. The Church wants to have people who have thought this out and thought this through and have come to the conclusion, 'This is true. There is a right and there is a wrong. And I am going to do that right thing, even if it costs me my life. Because there are some things worth standing for. There are some things worth fighting for. And yes, there are some things that are worth dying for.'" Mass Readings from November 07, 2010: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 Luke 20:27-38

Homily from the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time. "If we think the Art of Living is just 'Avoid bad stuff,' then we're totally missing out on what it is to really live, we're totally missing out on the point of Christianity. It's not just about being good and not being bad. It's not just about going to Heaven and not going to hell. Being a Christian is the result of meeting a Guy named Jesus, it's the result of, like Zacchaeus, encountering Him and saying, 'I need.,.I want..I can be the someone that I've always wanted to be.' Brothers and sisters, you can be that someone you've always wanted to be." Mass Readings from October 31, 2010: Wisdom 11:22-12:2 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 Luke 19:1-10

Homily from the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "The Catholic Church, and here we are at Newman, we exist to be one, giant, saint-making machine. The whole goal of our lives is to become like Christ. And so what do Christian friendships look like? It looks like us working together, me pouring myself out for you, you pouring yourself out for me in pursuit of the good, in pursuit of the best: in pursuit of Christ." Mass Readings from October 24, 2010: Sirach 35:12-14,16-18 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18 Luke 18:9-14

Homily from the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "The safest place for any man or woman, no matter what your tendency, no matter what your temptation is, your safest place is here in the Catholic Church because we're saying this: you may never be bullied, you may never be treated as a thing, you may never be treated or reduced to your temptations or to your sins. You are more than that. That is what the Church teaches. And that's why we, if we are going to have the microphone, if we are ever going to have the microphone on the public sphere, we need to have this line that says every person must be accepted with respect, compassion, treated with dignity." Mass Readings from October 17, 2010: Exodus 17:8-13 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2 Luke 18:1-8 INTEGRITY OF THE PERSON... So, in today's homily, I'm going to make reference to a few passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is essentially the official "What Catholics Believe" book written by the teaching office (known as the Magisterium...it's Latin and means teaching office...hmmm interesting) of the Church. We are going to be talking a little bit about chastity today. The successful life of chastity is necessary for the Art of Living. Here is a sample of what the Catechism says about it: THE INTEGRITY OF THE PERSON 2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech. 124 2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. 125 "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end." 126 Now, we are also going to look at what the Church teaches about Same-Sex Attraction (I invite you not to leave at this point and say, "I know what the Church teaches...the Church hates homosexuals!" That is not true.). We will hear today about God's (and the Church's) great love for everyone. (FYI: The term "everyone" actually means "everyone.") We will look at the following teaching as well: CHASTITY AND HOMOSEXUALITY 2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, 140 tradition has always declared "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." 141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. 2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. 2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested f

Homily from the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Mass Readings from October 10, 2010: 2 Kings 5:14-17 2 Timothy 2:8-13 Luke 17:11-19 How do these Mass Readings fit in with the homily? If you go back to the story of Namaan the Syrian and Elisha in the First Reading, Namaan expected Elisha to ask him to do something heroic, something huge, and he almost missed out on the great gift that Elisha actually gave him. Naaman had expected that Elisha, this man of God, would ask him to do something extreme, something extravagent, something way out there, and all Elisha asked Namaan to do was dip himself seven times in the Jordan waters. Namaan, looking at expectation, almost missed out on the gift that God had to give him. It can be the same way with us. When all we're doing is looking at expectation, what we expect to get, sometimes we miss out on the gift that God wants to give us. In the Gospel reading, those lepers were the perfect examples of people who experienced God's gift, God's grace, God's healing on that day. But it took one person, the Samaritan that Jesus praises, who recognizes the gift he was given. That's the lesson for us. If we don't recognize the gifts we are given, we can go through the rest of our lives and just be blessed and blessed and be given so many gifts, and not even take a time to stop, with intentional gratitude, and turn to God and tell God, "Thanks." This is one of the great gifts of the story that Luke gives us in his Gospel today, that we can be blessed and not even know it, not even recognize it. But here is the Samaritan that gives us a perfect example of someone who recognizes the gift that God has given him, stops, and is intentionally grateful, has intentional gratitude. That can be us.

Homily from the Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time. "When our values, what we know to be true, become our virtues, how we live, we will begin the art of living." Mass Readings from October 3, 2010: Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4 2 Timothy 1: 6-8, 13-14 Luke 17: 5-10

Homily from the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "If we see the human person as someone who has an inviolable dignity, if we see the human person as someone who is made in the image and likeness of God, then we will treat them radically different than if they were just a soul, if they were just an illusion, if they were just matter, or if they were just a cog in the machine." Mass Readings from September 26, 2010: Amos 16:1, 4-7 1 Timothy 6:11-16 Luke 16:19-31

Homily from the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Whether we're known or whether we're completely unknown, whether we're famous or whether we live the rest of our lives in obscurity, the truth is, you were not made for fame: you were made to be a saint." Mass Readings from September 19, 2010: Amos 8:4-7 1 Timothy 2:1-8 Luke 16:1-13

Homily from the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "'God, I'm just normal, I'm just average, I'm just me!' And God takes one look at you and says, 'No. You are not: You capture My Heart, you capture My attention more than any single person who has ever lived.' How can I do this? There's a gajillion people who have ever lived and He loves them, too. Yes, but His Heart has never been captured by anyone like His Heart has been captured by you." Mass Readings from September 12, 2010: Exodus 32:7-11,13-14 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-32

Homily from the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time. "It comes down to this: either Jesus is who He says He is, which is God, and He's of absolute importance, or Jesus isn't who He says He is, in which case He's of no importance." Mass Readings from September 5, 2010: Wisdom 9:13-18 Philemon 9-10,12-17 Luke 14:25-33

Homily from the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "If Jesus did this, if God raised up Mary, assumed her into Heaven body and soul, it means this: the body means something, and what we do with our body means something. The Assumption means just that: the body means something, and what we do with our body means something." Mass Readings from August 15, 2010: Revelation 11:19;12:1-6,10 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 Luke 1:39-56

Homily from the Sixth Sunday of Easter. "If you miss out on them (spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, fiancé), you didn't miss out on the point of your life. If we miss Christ, then we miss out on the point of our life. ...Getting the grade. Getting the job. Fame. Reputation. Family. Friends. All of those things are so good, but all of those things are too small for the heart that Christ wants for you to have." Mass Readings from May 09, 2010: Acts 15:1-2,22-29 Revelation 21:10-14,22-23 John 14:23-29